Location, Location, Location!!

Well, no doubt at some point in time, you've heard the old expression "Location, location, location" as it relates to the relative value of real estate.  The following information, just out, appears to further validate this old canard at least as it relates to Bay Area locales.
Bay Area buyers aren’t shy about paying extra for homes located in top school districts and close to desirable urban amenities, says a new study of data from the Journal of Urban Economics.
CityLab reports that behind residents of the Hawaii community of East Oahu, homebuyers in the Bay Area are more likely than those in nearly any other part of the country to pay extra money to purchase a property in a top-rated neighborhood. Although the article doesn’t provide exact numbers, it says that homebuyers in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo counties are willing to pay nearly 25 percent more than the average American to live in the best neighborhoods. The article notes that buyers in San Jose, Oakland, and Santa Cruz are also willing to spend significant premiums to purchase a property in a top community.
CityLab includes a map of the Bay Area that shows that, unlike in New York, homebuyers in virtually all parts of San Francisco will spend more money for a great neighborhood.
“People are very willing to pay for most neighborhoods in the city itself, as well as the surrounding suburbs,” wrote Richard Florida. “Only a few sections of Oakland and Richmond, to the north of Berkeley, rank lower on the quality of life index, but these still do well relative to the rest of the country.”