Even killing machines from the future have to live somewhere, but the Governator is about to discover it may be easier to act out saving the planet from cyborgs than it is to find a home and neighborhood in Sacramento like those he's grown accustomed to in Los Angeles.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's new governor elect, and the Golden State's first lady, Maria Schriver are in the market for a house in Sacramento, the state's capital.

Now that he's opted-out of roles in action movies during his term, he wants to be closer to the political action.

Earlier this year the couple put their $18 million Pacific Palisades fixer-upper compound on the market, but retained their $12 million mansion in the adjacent Brentwood community.

Before Schwarzenegger's political ambitions sent the family to Sacramento and returned them to the housing market, the couple originally planned to live in Brentwood while the Pacific Palisades estate underwent improvements, according to the Los Angeles Times. Brentwood and Pacific Palisades are among the many posh neighborhoods that sprung up over the years around Beverly Hills.

The couple, with four kids, may have to buy land and build a custom home or buy more than one to meet their housing needs in Sacramento.

First, the Governor's Mansion on H Street is off the market.

Built in 1877 in Italianate architecture, the 30-room home is now a museum and a state historic landmark. The other Hollywood celeb-turn-governor, Ronald Reagan, at the behest of wife Nancy, declared the old Victorian a firetrap and moved into a rental home 1967.

Outgoing Governor Gray Davis and others since Reagan crashed in typical suburban four-bedroom, three-bath pads. The Schwarzeneggers likely will want none of that, but they will be severely handicapped trying to find a home in the Sacramento area that comes close to their current home for sale.

It costs only about $4.5 million in Sacramento to find a home similar what $18 million will buy you in the Beverly Hills neighborhood, according to Coldwell Banker's Home Price Index -- theoretically.

There may be no such home for sale in Sacramento.

Only 20 listings of resale homes are valued at more than $1 million in Sacramento, according to a recent search of Realtor.com, the National Association of Realtors' partner listings site.

The most expensive available were two, six-bedroom, six-bathroom homes a block apart on 45th Street, less than five miles from the Capital Building. One 65-year-old home on an a half acre and another 77-year-old home on a slightly smaller lot, both listed for just under $3 million.

The median price of all owned homes in the Sacramento ZIP-Code 95819 where those two homes are located is $217,046, and only one half of one percent of all the homes in that ZIP-Code are valued at more than $1 million.

Compare that to the $912,128 median price in the Brentwood 90049 ZIP-Code where almost 37 percent of the homes are valued at more than $1 million and the $896,269 median in Pacific Palisades 90272 ZIP-Code where 34 percent of the homes are valued at $1 million or more, according to SiteReports.com, a demographics service offered by San Diego-based Claritas Inc.

Among the newly-built home listings, a single new home community yielded one prospect on the National Association of Home Builder's listing site HomeBuilder.com -- a $1 million home in the gated Silver Gate new home community in Elk Grove. The Morrison Homes development is about 10 miles south of Schwarzenegger's new job.

The $1 million home is itself a rarity in the new gated community where most of the homes start at only a half million dollars for five bedrooms and three bathrooms.

The Schwarzeneggers may be forced to go with an exclusive listing if one exists. An unknown number of homes are privately available for sale, but listed without the benefit of the local multiple listing service, not an uncommon practice among luxury home sellers who seek privacy.

No matter where they buy a home the state's first family had better get used to strikingly different neighbors.

The only Rodeo Drive in Sacramento runs through what was once referred to as a trailer park. The manufactured home community's Rodeo Drive is also called -- wouldn't you know it -- Wilshire Avenue at one end -- just north east of the railroad tracks.

The Schwarzeneggers aren't likely to find dotting the landscape nip-and-tuck salons, boutiques (for humans and pets) or neighbors like Brad Pitt, John Travolta, Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart, Cindy Crawford, Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman and other past and present residents of the Beverly Hills area.

Largely white, Brentwood and Pacific Palisades are among the nation's most exclusive communities where celebrities and other residents have the wealthiest lifestyles, the highest concentration of incomes that are more than $200,000 a year, the highest concentration of residents possessing a postgraduate degree, the highest concentration of business owners and the highest concentrations of home-based business, according to "My Best Segments," formerly known as "You Are Where You Live," Claritas's snapshots of demographic traits, lifestyle preferences and behaviors.

According to Claritas, Schwarzenegger's LA crowd spends at least several thousand a year on jaunts abroad, they watch Wall Street Week, read the Wall Street Journal, listen to National Public Radio, drive Audis, Porsches, Acuras and, of course, Hummers among other gas guzzling SUVs.

If he buys one (or both) of the under $3 million homes found in the Sacramento neighborhood, his neighbors will be much more ethnically diverse, and more inclined to go mountain biking, buy Latin music, read Ebony and Time magazines, drive a Toyota Sienna minivan or Lincoln Town Car, play the lottery, watch the People's Court and have only some college education.

Residents of the two neighborhoods do have one common bond -- they love to paint the town red. And the Sacramento neighborhood with the two most expensive homes is just as laid back as LA's hot spots.

In both neighborhoods there is a powerful penchant to party, a never ending need for night life and a longing for leisure-intensive lifestyles, according to Claritas.

At least that's right up Arnold's alley.

Published: November 14, 2003

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the Web site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for "Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home" (Nolo $24.99) and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.