San Francisco Business Times
From the article:
Less than two months after opening its sales center, Lennar Corp. sold 18 of the 77 new homes in its Cobblestone and Creston Park developments in Mountain House. For its next units at these projects, it will use a lottery system to select from the dozens of people clamoring to buy a house.
Just a few blocks away, Shea Homes has construction crews busily working on three developments that it expects will sell out before the end of the year.
Fellow builders Standard Pacific Homes and Meritage Homes have also restarted activity in Mountain House — more than 60 miles east of San Francisco, just over the border of San Joaquin County.
Homebuilding slowed at the decade-old master-planned community during the recession and foreclosure crisis. Now, with housing prices on the rise again throughout much of the Bay Area, such so-called “exurbs” are back in favor. Cities like Mountain House that sit on the far edges or just outside of the core Bay Area are once again experiencing housing booms. The same is happening in places such as Brentwood, Oakley, Petaluma and Morgan Hill.
“There’s such a shortage of supply in the core Bay Area market and the prices have risen where there is inventory,” said Adam Hieb, vice president for marketing at Shea Homes. “People are willing to sacrifice a little bit of a commute.”
The scenario feels familiar: buyers wanting single-family homes, lower prices and willing to commute longer than an hour — or two — in many cases. It is a logical outcome of living in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country: Some buyers compromise location for lifestyle — and to live within their means.