RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: And of course for most people, the phrase million dollar house conjures up images of opulence. The reality, at least in California, is more like this:</s>DANIEL POST: This is the family room. Even in what I would consider to be middle-class neighborhood, in Los Angeles, you know, it's got a granite fireplace. The yard, yeah, the backyard, is nothing to speak of. It's pretty small.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: That's real estate agent Daniel Post, showing off a home in Culver City, a modest area west of Los Angeles. A real estate tracking firm recently found that one in thirteen homes in California sold for more than a million dollars last year. That's an almost 50 percent jump from 2004.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: The median priced homes, selling in the mere six figures, has four bedrooms, and is under 2,500 square feet. This Culver City house is just slightly bigger than that.</s>DANIEL POST: It's a two-story wooden stucco, kind of a contemporary Mediterranean feel. The supermarket's three blocks away, the freeway is about six blocks away. It's got some flowers and it's pretty nice.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: Pretty nice, but nice enough to sell for a million dollars?</s>DANIEL POST: Well, the list price is $1,075,000. And they're going to get it; and more.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: In fact, says Daniel Post, the owners have already gotten eight offers on the house.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: From NPR News, this is MORNING EDITION.
Just the phrase "million-dollar house" is synonymous with luxury living. But in California's real estate market, seven-figure homes are becoming more commonplace. Data released this week shows that 1 in 13 homes in the state sold for more than $1 million last year. How much "house" that money buys might be surprising.