Tom Wilson — now a retired real estate agent — shared in an interview in 2001 that he remembered clients who looked at “flat top” homes in the Powers Tract neighborhood sandwiched between Manteca High and Spreckels Park in 1991 and dismissed them outright.

“They thought $79,000 was too expensive to pay for a flat top home,” Wilson said at the time. “They thought it was ridiculous.”

The homes dubbed “flat tops” by their extremely low roof lines which helped make them more affordable when they were built in the 1950s have gone up almost 425 percent in value since 1991.

It is higher than the median overall for Manteca that went from $125,900 in 1991 to $550,000 last month for a 320 percent increase in value.

The fact the homes in what was Manteca’s first modern subdivision built by the late Ed Powers in the early 1950s to meet growing post war housing demand in Manteca back when the city had 3,804 residents reflects market dynamics. Smaller and older homes tend to have a lower overall price. That means there are more people who can afford to purchase them as opposed to newer and bigger homes.

The neighborhood of more than 260 homes has a mixture of flat-tops and houses with typical roof pitches. The flat-tops — that consist of flat roofs although some flat-tops roofs have a slight pitch — were the first ones built in the neighborhood. The earliest one was built in 1953. They are typically around 1,000 square feet, have wall heaters, air conditioners instead of central air, car ports in lieu of garages, and are on larger lots

One such flat top in the 200 block of Cowell Avenue now has an accepted offer of $420,000 with 984 square feet of living space on a 6,839 square foot lot.

It has three bedrooms and one bathroom just like two other flat-tops that now have pending offers. One is in the 300 block of Cowell Avenue with 985 square feet that secured a $419,000 offer. The other is in the 400 block of Cowell Avenue with 1,094 square feet with a pending offer of $345,000.

There is one flat-top currently on the market for $439,900. It is also a three bedroom, one bathroom home. It has 1,229 square feet on a 6,244-square-foot parcel in the 300 block of California Avenue.

The flat-tops were selling for $320,000, or $100,000 less than what they are commanding today.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com