SF Business Times says of the 5 inner Bay Area counties, prices are up 18% since last. Interesting that some places are 14% beneath the 2006 peak, but some places are soared past the peak. With the exception of Berkeley and SF (urban meccas & always desirable), notice the other cities they mention below all have excellent school districts.
Prices shot up during the tech boom in the late 1990s then dropped after the bust. They peaked even higher in 2006 before hitting a recession low in 2011. They have been on the upswing again, but as of April, the region as a whole is still 14 percent lower than its previous peak in May 2006.
That's not true everywhere. Several cities in the region have already zoomed past previous peaks such as San Francisco, Fremont, Berkeley, San Mateo, Redwood City, Alameda, Pleasanton, Menlo Park, Foster City and Lafayette.
