The main problem I'm hitting when trying to answer your question is
that, surprisingly, most of these reports aren't accessible to the
public. Both the California Association of Realtors and the RAND
corporation put out reports, but they both charge sizable fees for
viewing them. Conversely, the data on the city of Oakland,
Association of Bay Area Government, and State of California website
are scattershot at best, and I can't really see using two different
reports as a basis for comparison here since they may have been taken
at different times of the year. There are a few secondary sources out
there which site the reports I mentioned, though this probably is
unsatisfactory for your requirement of being "authoritative".
http://www.cocoschools.org/supe/CRC/CRC03_19HouseAfford.pdf
Here the Contra Costa County department of education lists a figure
which they report as being for "the Oakland primary metropolitan
statistical area" (which is defined to be Alameda and Contra Costa
counties). The values they give are
2000: 271,604
1999: 232,064
1998: 216,188
and they cite a 2003 RAND report titled "Housing Prices and Transaction Statistics"
http://www.officetimes.com/Median%20Home%20Prices.htm
cites the California Association of Realtors as giving median prices
for Alameda county as:
Feb 2000: 284,000
Apr 1999: 255,000
Apr 1998: 237,000 (note that the 2000 data is from a different month
than the other two). I'm a little skeptical about this site as its
main purpose seems to be advertising the services of realtors.
http://www.abag.ca.gov/abag/overview/pub/newsletter/posts/sm%20Jan-Feb%202000.pdf
As another benchmark, the Association of Bay Area Governments (also
citing the C.A.R.) gives an October 1999 value of 276,000, calling it
an increase of 17.5% over 1998 (implying a 1998 value of ~235,000).
This and the Officetimes statistic citing the same source are somewhat
in conflict, but it may just be the case that the 1998 value given
here isn't October 1998).
I hope this can be at least somewhat of help! |
