Variations in Sold Price per Square Foot

If you are a regular reader of this newsletter, you have many times encountered the notion that, everything else being equal, the amount a property sells for per square foot of living space tends to be lower for large homes, and higher for small homes. To illustrate this point, I grouped the detached homes sold in North Berkeley and the Berkeley hills* over the course of 2021 by size category, and found the average sold price per square foot for each category. The results are above.

As you can see, the pattern holds as a general rule:  the larger the home, the lower the sold price per square foot, everything else being equal. For specific properties though, everything else isn’t equal, and characteristics such as a large lot, architectural pedigree, views, etc., still push up the value in general, and in price per square foot.