Homes in Palo Alto are expensive and there is a lot of competition for them. Lots in Palo Alto tend to be relatively small. Most are 6,000 to 8,000 square feet. Palo Alto lots (or tear down homes more commonly) are selling for 2 -5 million dollars, making the cost of a new home in Palo Alto astronomical.
If a new home is going to cost 4.5 million and up, most buyers want more than 2,000 square feet of living space. This is hard to do when the lot is only 6,000 square feet and the developer has paid $2,500,000 to purchase the lot.
The solution has been to build the house with a basement. The reason is that Palo Alto building rules state that square footage under ground does not count towards the total allowable square footage of lot coverage. Additonally Palo Alto single family homes can only be 2 stories high, and the basement does not count as a story.
Many of the Palo Alto homes built before 1935 had basements or partial basements. These basements were used for utilities, workshops, or storage, but not for living spaces. Palo Alto's high water table level and occasional floods did not make a basement an attractive living space as they were frequently dark, damp, and musty.
Today's newly constructed homes with basements are built for living spaces, with state of the art drainage systems, attention to maximizing light, and great use of space. They not only increase the square footage of a home, but also add bedrooms and recreational spaces and privacy for some.
However, this comes at a cost. The rooms are underground. They will never be as light or have the same ventilation as an above grade room. We have been in a drought for most of the years that these new homes with basements are being built. It is unclear how they will hold up if we go through a long period of heavy rain and years of saturated soil. We have no reason to believe there will be a lot of problems, but it is an unknown.
As long as Palo Alto has a 2 story limit in residential areas, basements will be the only way to get 2500+ square feet on the smaller lots.
If you are looking for a large, newer Palo Alto home, without one third to one half of it underground you will have to find one on a large lot. It will of course cost more, because land is so valuable in Palo Alto, but there are a few.
In fact, I have a newer Palo Alto listing coming in early May of a 7 bedroom, 4 bath home, all above grade, with 3,400 square feet of living space, on a 10,900 square foot lot in Midtown Palo Alto, listed for $4,650,000.
More info will be forthcoming.
Please contact me at
Marcy Moyer
Cal BRE 01191194
650-619-9285
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