The cheapest house in America’s richest town is listed for $2.5M

Atherton, California has topped Bloomberg’s Richest Places annual index for four years, but this year is unlike any other. And Atherton is unlike any other place in the country.

The Silicon Valley town became the first and only community in the country where average annual household income topped half a million dollars — $525,000 to be exact — since the index started in 2017, according to Bloomberg. That’s nearly $75,000 higher than the second-richest community on the list, Scarsdale, New York.

Atherton’s eye-popping household income is largely a product of the Bay Area tech boom. The town is chock full of billionaires and millionaires who amassed their fortunes in the tech industry.

A scan of the MLS revealed that the cheapest house currently on the market is listed at $2.5 million. The most expensive property on the market is listed at $32 million.
Several other Silicon Valley towns and cities made Bloomberg’s list. Two others were in the top five: Hillsborough rose to third place from fifth place last year with an average household income of $430,631, and Los Altos Hills fell one spot to fourth with an average income of $405,073.

Like Atherton and its neighbors, many of the country’s wealthiest communities are clustered around centers of economy and power — there were 12 counties across the country with at least four communities on the list.

The New York metro area comprising several counties in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey had the most with 26. There were 16 communities in the Bay Area on the list, eight in Cook County on the list, and four in Los Angeles County.

All in all, 16 states had communities on the list. The addition of Lucas and Alamo Heights gave Texas a total of eight communities. [Bloomberg] — Dennis Lynch