Central Coasting: Silicon Valley residents buying up homes in Pacific Grove

“Pacific Grove and Carmel were discovered years ago by people in the Silicon Valley,” said Pacific Grove community and economic developer Mark Brodeur.

Recently Pacific Grove is seeing a renewed interest from the southern end of the Bay Area. About 35 percent of the homes in Pacific Grove belong to people who do not live there full time.

“It’s just the last small hometown,” said Keller Williams/Monterey Peninsula Home Team realtor Jeff Davi. “It’s way out here on the Peninsula and it’s relatively quiet. It’s so safe and the prices are even less expensive than San Francisco.”

With the average price of a 2 bedroom going anywhere from $700,000 to a million, realtors told KION they’re seeing everybody from techies to investors and retirees moving to Pacific Grove, some even plunking down cash.

“In the last couple of years I’ve sold to three couples that were going to retire down here and they decided to buy now before the prices started going up,” said Davi.

The high demand means buyers don’t have much to choose from. Realtors said there are about 38 homes on the market, it should be at least double that. renters are having a hard time, too. Out of the 6000 units in Pacific Grove, only about 3 to 4 become available each week.

“So as housing goes on the market for rentals, they literally are not on the market for two or three days, the house goes like that,” said Broudeur.

Community developers believe having a lot of second home buyers in a neighborhood is a double edged sword.

“The advantages are that we get more property tax benefit from these new purchases, new turnovers,” said Brouder.

Since they’re only home on the weekends, second home buyers don’t use fire, police and other municipal services as often, even though they pay the property taxes for them.

“They’re kids aren’t showing up at parks and recs, their kids aren’t crowding our schools,” explained Brouder.

On the flip side developers told KION second home communities make neighborhoods feel more like a ghost town. They’re also not shopping as much, so they aren’t contributing a lot to the local economy. Add to that, they’re competing for houses with locals who may not have big bucks and that has created some resentment.

“But that’s the American way, that’s capitalism,” said Broudeur. “I’m sorry that’s just the way it works.”