By Lauren McSherry

General consensus among local real estate agents contradicts “anecdotal evidence” in this month’s “Los Altos Hills Town Newsletter” that property values in the town have been hurt by the 2003 closing of Bullis Elementary School

The September newsletter reports that Hills home values have not risen at the same rate as other affluent Peninsula cities such as Portola Valley, Woodside and Los Altos. Statistics from the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors on the change in median property values since the Bullis closure show Portola Valley with a 19.3 percent increase, Woodside with an 11.2 percent increase and Los Altos with a 16.5 percent increase. Los Altos Hills, on the other hand, experienced a 0.3 percent decrease in property values during that same time.

Four out of five realtors interviewed said the market was still strong in Los Altos Hills, and two realtors declined to take a position, saying there were too many factors to draw any conclusion. All realtors - concerned that voicing their opinions could hurt their businesses - spoke on the condition of anonymity. All handle Hills real estate for companies based locally.

The realtors concurred that Palo Alto Unified School District, namely Gunn High School, is a strong selling point for Hills real estate and that most home buyers are less concerned with elementary schools than high schools.

Only one realtor, a proponent of opening a public school, said the lack of a public elementary school could be hurting home prices, but he also said, “The market is not red-hot for higher-priced houses right now all over the Bay Area. Generally the higher-priced houses do take longer to sell.”

Another realtor said she has handled teardowns near Bullis School that sold recently for upwards of $3 million. The neighborhood around Bullis has not been hurt by its closure, she said, primarily due to the neighborhood’s other strong selling points - proximity to downtown Los Altos and the flat topography of the parcels.

“The property around there is booming,” she said. “I’m seeing real activity.”

One example given by a realtor of a home selling for a price rarely seen in the Hills is a 12,000-square-foot home on 4 acres that sold for nearly $13 million.

Another agent said she was “all for opening a new elementary school,” but that she could not confirm that home values had been hurt. Looking at data from 2002 to 2004 - the time frame referred to in the newsletter - the realtor concluded that the market is considerably stronger. In the second quarter of 2005, there were 44 closed sales, $2.57 million was the average asking price and homes were on the market for an average of 60 days. In the second quarter of 2002, there were 15 closed sales, $2.26 million was the average asking price and homes were on the market for an average of 98 days.