2026-11-06 · 6 min read · East Bay Area

One Budget, Several Towns: How Far Your Money Goes Around Brentwood

The Short Answer Depends on Which Number You Trust

If you have one budget and a short list of towns in East Contra Costa County, the natural first move is to line up the median prices and see where your number lands. That move is a reasonable start, and it is also where most comparisons go wrong. At The Mashore Group, we work with buyers and sellers in Brentwood and the towns around it, and we hear some version of this question constantly: how far does the same money go in each place?

The honest answer is that a single median tells you less than it seems to. This post walks through what the published numbers say, where they mislead, and how to compare towns in a way that still holds up once you start touring homes.

What the Published Medians Say

Here is a snapshot from two public real estate sites. These figures change every month, so treat them as a rough map rather than a price list.

Brentwood: Homes.com reports a median sale price of $775,000, down 5% year over year, and a median single-family sale price of $812,000.
Oakley: Redfin reports a median sale price of $635,000, down 5.2% from a year earlier.
Pittsburg: Redfin reports a median sale price of $590,000 over the most recent three months, up 1.2% from the same period a year before.
Bay Point: Redfin reports a monthly median sale price of $500,000, while Homes.com puts the 12-month median at $562,000.
Bethel Island: Redfin reports a monthly median of $498,000, while Homes.com puts the 12-month median at $849,000.

For Antioch and Discovery Bay, we look past the citywide medians to the neighborhood numbers Redfin also publishes for both. Those neighborhood numbers turn out to be more useful anyway.

The Gap Inside a Town Is Often Bigger Than the Gap Between Towns

The tidy ranking falls apart once you look at neighborhood figures. In Brentwood, Homes.com reports a median single-family price of $985,000 in the Deer Ridge and Marsh Creek area and $698,400 in Brentwood Villages. That spread inside one city is wider than the gap between the Brentwood and Oakley citywide medians listed above.

Oakley shows the same pattern. Redfin reports a median sale price of $539,000 in Downtown Oakley, $695,000 in Northwest Oakley and $760,000 in South Oakley. In Antioch, Redfin reports $765,000 in East Lone Tree. In Pittsburg, Redfin reports $599,000 in Downtown Pittsburg and $538,000 in Old Town Pittsburg.

The practical lesson is simple. A budget that looks tight for a town on paper may be comfortable in part of that town, and a budget that looks generous in a lower-priced town may only stretch so far in its higher-priced neighborhoods. A comparison of all of Antioch against all of Oakley tells you less than a comparison between one specific part of each.

Price Per Square Foot Is a Better Ruler

A median sale price blends every kind of home that sold, from small condos to large houses on big lots. Price per square foot strips some of that mix out. Redfin reports a median of $322 per square foot in Oakley, $357 in Pittsburg, $402 in Bethel Island and $496 in Bay Point.

Those numbers tell a story the medians hide. Bay Point has one of the lowest median sale prices on the list and the highest price per square foot, which suggests the homes changing hands there tend to be smaller. If you run a $600,000 budget through simple division using those Redfin rates, it covers roughly 1,860 square feet at Oakley's median rate, about 1,680 at Pittsburg's and about 1,210 at Bay Point's. That math does not predict what you will find on the market. It is a reminder that the same dollar amount buys very different amounts of house depending on where you point it.

Price per square foot has limits too. It ignores lot size, age, condition and view, and a home on the water or on a large parcel will always look expensive by this measure.

Small Markets Produce Strange Numbers

Bethel Island shows most clearly why a median needs context. Redfin's monthly median there was $498,000, down 31.8% from a year earlier, while the Homes.com 12-month median was $849,000. Both sites can be accurate at the same time, because a handful of sales in one month can swing the figure sharply in either direction. Homes.com also reports that Bethel Island homes sell after 249 days on average, which tells you the pace there runs very differently from the rest of the region.

Discovery Bay has a similar problem for a different reason. Redfin publishes a median sale price for the Discovery Bay Country Club neighborhood, but waterfront and inland homes in the same community are priced in very different ways. A single number cannot capture whether a home has a dock, open water access or a golf course view.

In thin markets like these, recent comparable sales on the same street or with the same kind of lot matter far more than any citywide figure.

What the Same Budget Actually Trades For

Once you move past the headline number, the real comparison comes down to trade-offs. The same budget usually forces a choice along one of these lines.

Space versus location: A lower price per square foot may buy a larger home, but it may also put you farther from the places you drive to most days.
Newer construction versus established streets: Newer subdivisions and older neighborhoods differ in lot shape, landscaping and how much updating a home may need.
Water versus land: In Discovery Bay and Bethel Island, a budget can go toward water access or toward more house, and the balance between the two is usually the central decision.
Ongoing costs: Two homes at the same price can carry very different monthly costs once HOA dues, special tax assessments and insurance enter the picture, so it pays to ask about them early.

For sellers trading up or down within the region, the same logic runs in reverse. Your current home's value depends on its own neighborhood and features, not on the citywide median. The budget you carry into your next purchase starts with an honest read of the home you already own.

How to Run the Comparison for Your Own Budget

A few habits make the comparison far more reliable than a glance at medians.

Pick two or three specific neighborhoods instead of whole towns.
Compare recent sales of similar homes, matched by size, age and lot, rather than citywide figures.
Use price per square foot as a cross-check, and expect water, views and lot size to throw it off.
Look at how long homes take to sell in each area, because the pace affects how quickly you need to decide.
Tour homes in person before you rule a town in or out.

You can start by browsing current listings across the region, or read our overview of East Contra Costa County to see how the towns fit together. When you are ready to put real numbers next to your budget, reach out to our team. We will pull recent sales for the specific neighborhoods on your list, so your comparison rests on homes like the one you actually want.