Home values in enclaves such as Beverly Hills and Greenwich have slipped, boundary houses are still in a great degree from a bargain for most buyers

by means of Prashant Gopal

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The 90210 Zip Code might be the race’s most famous, but La Jolla, Calif., the San Diego community perched above the Pacific Ocean, now has America’s highest-priced homes, according to Coldwell Banker’s 2008 Home Price Comparison Index released on Sept. 9.

The story compares average home values for select 2,200-square-foot single-family homes through four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a family room, and a two-car garage. The average excellence for such a home in La Jolla, Calif., is $1.842 million, a 2% increase from a year since. Coming in second was Greenwich, Conn., at what place the average home reward, $1.787 the masses, is down 11% from last year. But California, despite its slumping real estate, dominates the list. Beverly Hills, last year’s principally of great price Zip, was No. 3 this year. Eight of the top 10 most expensive places were in California.

The Midwest, on the other hand, accounted for 8 of the 10 most affordable communities. This year’s greatest part affordable place was Sioux City, Iowa, to which place the average surveyed home costs $133,000—about $1.7 million less than a similar place would cost in La Jolla.

(Click here to get every idea of what your home would cost in La Jolla or in 339 other markets across the country).

"California has dominated the list as diffuse as I can remember," says Jim Gillespie, president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate, a division of Realogy in Parsippany, N.J., which has been producing the home value comparison index for 21 years. "The coastlines are always going to be to be desired."

It’s not wonderful that the greatest in number expensive places are also well known. In tough economic times, wealthy people lean to invest in established communities where home prices tend to remain strong more than time, says Rick Goodwin, publisher of Unique Homes, a warehouse and Web site ready luxury properties.

"If you’re going to propose $20 million in a house, you’re going to want to make sure it’s a good place," Goodwin says. "Just because you’ve got a piece of land of money, it doesn’t mean you’re less cautious."

But home prices—plane in established communities—have fallen this year. The prices dropped 11% in Greenwich, Conn., and 18% in Beverly Hills, according to the Coldwell index, which takes a sampling of prices for homes of similar size in selected middle-management neighborhoods.

Drew Peterson, a Realtor at Weichert Capital Properties & Estates in Greenwich, says hardly any properties in that place exchange for less than $500,000. One of his clients lately accepted an essay for one of the least lavish houses on the emporium, a 1,000-square-foot house on 0.14 acres listed for $495,000. Raw land in Greenwich goes as far as concerns $1.2 million to $2.2 the great body of the people an acre, so investors often buy small houses just to tear them down and put up larger ones, he says.

Greenwich’s best deals are now in modern construction because builders are eager to avoid paying heating costs for empty houses this winter, he says.

"Historically, people have continually paid a premium to live in Greenwich," Peterson says. "Now we have a lot of buyers from overseas because of the unsupported dollar. It is becoming a global city where you be able to still see magnificent homes behind gates, as well as small homes by picket fences."

Marti Gellens, an cause with Prudential California Realty in La Jolla, says the market was dead this summer, but has started to rob up. She says the warm endure keeps wealthy buyers interested in San Diego. Smartphones and laptops have made it easy for craft people to work from places where they really want to live, she says.

"We’ve had a big influx of people who moved their function here—entrepreneurs and individuals with their allow companies or hedge funds," Gellens says.

If you think La Jolla is too expensive, it’s a bargain compared with Dubai, which topped Coldwell Banker’s list of the most expensive foreign markets. Homes in Dubai averaged $2.45 million, 33% greater degree of than similar houses in La Jolla. Fifteen markets outside the U.S. had medium homes above $1 million, including Bucharest and Madrid. The principally affordable foreign market surveyed was Quito, Ecuador, where the average home of similar size cost $96,750.

Click here to see the 20 Most Expensive Housing Markets in the U.S.