When it comes to Bay Area real estate, Mountain View is about as prime a location as they come. It’s where the headquarters of search engine giant Google are located, and it also houses companies like 23andme, Mint.com, and Walmart Labs. Plus, Mountain View is right next door to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla and dozens of start-ups, as well as Menlo Park, the home of social media company Facebook. The city is also just about equidistant from Downtown San Jose and Downtown San Francisco, making it an attractive option for families that have members commuting in different directions, or people who want to be near major cities while still living in a quiet, residential neighborhood.

Courtesy of the City of Mountain View

Most people who pay attention to Bay Area real estate know how sought-after a location Mountain View is. But a recent community of newly built townhomes is proving just how high the demand for real estate in Mountain View has truly become, and it may surprise even the most informed real estate buff.

Eager buyers quickly snapped up the homes located in Mountain View’s South Whisman neighborhood, and the homes often landed selling prices that were 50 percent higher than developers anticipated. The homes were originally expected to go for prices around $1.15 million when the project first got approval back in 2015, but they are now selling for up to $1.82 million, according to a Mountain View Voice report. As demand surged, Pulte Homes steadily raised the prices to their current sky-high rate. 

The new community, called Radius, is made up of 200 townhomes. So far, 126 of the homes have hit the market, and all have found their way into the hands of enthusiastic buyers. The developer says that 15 more homes will go up for sale every three weeks until the community is sold out. Based on how fast the previous homes have sold, the remaining ones won’t spend long on the market before they find owners as well. 

Mountain View is one of the hottest real estate markets in the Bay Area. A three-bedroom home in that city had a median price of $1.24 million back in March 2015. As of last year, the median price has risen to $1.62 million. That’s a staggering amount of growth in just a couple years and it doesn’t look like demand will slow down anytime soon. In fact, the increasingly fast-paced rise in demand has spurred Google to propose a project to build 10,000 much-needed housing units for its employees in the North Bayshore neighborhood. That project was approved by Mountain View city officials back in December 2017.


While it may seem like rising housing costs in Mountain View would be problematic, there is a silver lining to be found. The Bay Area city imposes a three percent in-lieu fee on housing projects, taking a cut of the sales price to contribute to a fund that goes toward building more affordable housing in the city. Higher home prices mean more money will be going into that fund.

That affordable housing fund is just one piece of evidence of Mountain View’s commitment toward affordable housing. In fact, the city has become a standard-bearer in the Bay Area for its aggressive campaign to supply more affordable housing to its residents. Back in September 2017, Mountain View City Council members signaled support for a plan that would require developers to supply more below-market-rate homes for low-income families interested in homeownership, according to the Mountain View Voice.

City officials have estimated that by 2022, the city will have $78 million set aside to invest in affordable housing. It may be a good start, but in the grand scheme of the Bay Area’s housing crisis, that amount is just a drop in the bucket. During the last six years combined, Mountain View spent only $50 million on affordable housing projects. That sum of money produced a mere 304 units. It’s a problem that cities across the region are still actively dealing with.