About that house in Sunnyvale — you know, the one that just sold for $782,000 over its listing price?

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Home sale prices from San Jose and Peninsula areas, Sept. 16 Lost amid all the hoopla over the modest home on Prunelle Court — it’s less than 2,000 square feet — is this: It is one of dozens in the South Bay that sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars over their listing price in the last month or so.

“We just have such an incredible low inventory of homes for sale and so many well-qualified buyers that have lost out five to eight times on properties,” said Coldwell Banker agent Geoff Hollands, explaining the heated bidding that has been moving southward along the Peninsula. “They’re just desperate to find homes in good school districts and excellent neighborhoods.”

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He listed a Sunnyvale property — three bedrooms and less than 1,200 square feet — that recently sold for $1,831,000. That was $433,000 over the asking price for a small ranch-style house, albeit one in move-in shape. Seven of the 15 offers on the house, which is in the Washington Park neighborhood, came from couples where at least one spouse worked at Apple or Google, Hollands said. The deal closed last week.

The inflamed bidding is just another indicator of Sunnyvale’s transformation from a modest middle-class community to one where only the wealthy can afford to buy, as has been the case for a number of years now in Palo Alto, Los Altos and other cities farther north. And it is a snapshot of what has been happening to the region, generally, during the tech-driven price run-up of the last five-plus years. Much of the Bay Area is on the verge of becoming an enclave for the well-to-do, or those lucky enough to have purchased a house years ago.

In Sunnyvale alone, 27 homes sold for at least $200,000 over asking in the last month, according to Alain Pinel agent Mark Wong, who compiles a monthly list of the most dramatic “over asking” activity in the area. Those 27 sales included 11 that sold for more than $300,000 over asking (but less than $400,000 over). Even townhouses made the list — seven of them, each selling for more than $200,000 above asking.

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In Cupertino, 10 houses sold for $200,000 or more above the asking price. One sold for — get this — $507,000 over the listing price. It has three bedrooms, a two-car garage and a tile roof — but half a million over asking? It, too, is modestly sized: 1,700 square feet.

“Am I surprised?” asked Coldwell Banker agent Mary Tan, who listed the property. “I have been doing this real estate job from 1983, and I have never seen such a strong market. When it’s a great, well managed property — a hot house — there will be good results. People will ask, `Can I put in a preemptive offer? I don’t want to wait for the open house.'”

The young couple who spent $507,000 above the asking price “wanted to start in a good school district, planning the future for their family,” Tan said. They work in tech “and wanted a good location — just for the appreciation.”

A few more highlights from Wong’s list: Similar bidding wars broke out in Saratoga, where one house sold for $422,000 above asking, though the competition in West San Jose was relatively benign — six homes sold there for $200,000 over asking, but none for as much as $300,000 above the listing price.

Over-asking bidding is in part a result of savvy marketing by real estate agents. They intentionally price homes below their market value in order to entice buyers — who then get into the bidding competitions that inevitably break out in a tight market with historically low inventory.

But the escalation of prices is not all attributable to the shrewdness of agents.

A household income of $179,000 is now needed to buy a median-priced, single-family house in the nine-county Bay Area, one recent study shows. This is a transformed region, where many people — unless they draw the big salaries often paid by major tech companies — are unable to buy a home.