It’s the holiday season in Silicon Valley: what to do? 

The downtown San Jose Holiday Parade is always the first Sunday in December (mark your calendars!), following one day after the downtown Los Gatos Holiday Parade, which is always the first Saturday in December.  (This year, 2009, it’s December 6th.)  Yesterday I stumbled upon a website dedicated to the San Jose parade and learned that you can find info on it on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

There’s lots to do in downtown San Jose during the holidays. This year, in addition to Christmas in the Park  (runs to Jan. 1st) and Winter Wonderland, there are performances of The Nutcracker to be enjoyed, courtesy of Ballet San Jose (the 30th anniversary of that production and Christmas in the Park here, by the way).  Ice skate between the palms at Downtown Ice, which runs through January 18th this year (2009). 

The Cathedral Basilica of St Joseph (Roman Catholic) offers free musical events in mid to late December as well, and all are welcome. This is the 8th annual “Season of Hope” series.   Concerts are every night beginning December 12th and running through December 23rd, with performances at 7pm and 8pm.  The Cathedral’s website does not list the dates of particular performers, but the Valley Catholic newspaper does (a couple of the links show up as “tiny urls” instead of names, but most performers are listed).

Although it’s not a Christmas, Hanukkah or NewYear’s theme, it’s worth a mention that the Tech Museum of Innovation is hosting a fabulous Star Trek Exhibit  right now too. There’s an enormous display,called “Star Trek The Exhibition”, a couple of rides (extra cost),  plus you can view Star Trex IMAX in the theater (also an extra cost).

Visit the Farmer’s Market year-round on Fridays at San Pedro Square.

There’s lots to do in Silicon Valley through the month of December - this is just the tip of the holiday iceburg!

For things to do in Los Gatos this month, please see this post on my Live in Los Gatos blog. Holiday Events in Los Gatos for 2009.

For more things to do in and around Silicon Valley over the holidays, please check out these links:

Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce’s blog
Downtown Campbell
Milpitas Chamber of Commerce

The Tapestry Arts Festival is an annual Labor Day tradition in downtown San Jose. Check out the website for details, whether you’re a vendor or a patron:

Http://www.TapestryArts.org

Below, enjoy a few pics I took of our time there on Monday:

Many thanks to all the vendors, musicians, volunteers, sponsors and organizers who made this such a great event!

During the fabulous Obon Festival in July, my husband and I popped into Wunderboy Glass and Mechanica in Japantown (San Jose) and happened upon them doing live glassblowing. The photos below were from that day, July 12th. Pics weren’t planned so were taken with my treo - quality not the best but hope you enjoy them nonetheless!

Today I got an email from them, stating that Wunderboy Glass and Mechanica is hosting a live glassblowing this Friday evening at 8pm; it will be hosted at Art Object Gallery in Japantown - a great area full of shops and restaurants, so go early and enjoy a meal in the neighborhood first. (Address: 592 North Fifth Street San Jose, CA 95112) Since we enjoyed watching them, I wanted to let you know about it too.

Additionally, Also on friday evening, in the Art Object Annex Gallery, you will also be able to see and purchase our glass work along with work by some of the South Bay Areas best known artists. Pieces by Luis Gutierrez, Reid Winfrey, Sara Cole, Joe Sax, Randy Shiroma, Ken Matsumoto, Mario Uribe and Rachel Lazo.

You will also have the opportunity to preview work bymembers of the Women’s Caucus for Art, whose opening will occur on Saturday from 6-9pm in the Art Object Main Gallery.  If you’re anywhere in Silicon Valley, this is a worthwhile event!

Although Ashland, Oregon, is the west coast Shakespeare magnet, there are many places in the San Francisco Bay Area that offer top notch performances of William Shakespeare’s most beloved plays.  If you’ve never enjoyed these series, do check them out!

Los Gatos: The Los Gatos Shakespeare Festival (happening now, mid July - early August, featuring both A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Merry Wives of Windsor).

Santa Cruz: Shakespeare Santa Cruz (July 31 - Aug 30, current offerings are Julius Caesar and Midsummer Night’s Dream)

San Francisco: San Francisco Shakespeare Festival - midnight Shakespeare, a special effort of professional theater instructors and inner city, “at risk” youth to bring Shakespeare to school kids and their communities. Ongoing - check the site for their schedule.

San Jose: San Jose Youth Shakespeare presents Julius Caesar in mid-August.

Berkeley: California Shakespeare Theater

Already passed, but make a note for next year:

Menlo Park: Annual Midpeninsula Shakespeare Festival (June)

The tide is turning for Silicon Valley real estate: fewer listings are coming onto the market and more homes are being purchased by homebuyers anxious to get into a house before interest rates rise and the $8000 first time homebuyer’s credit expires.

The shift is most visible in areas with the most affordability, but even is more upscale, higher priced areas, it’s still a noticeable change.

Today I’ll share with you a series of graphs, by area, of single family homes in terms of new listings, current inventory, and pending sales (sales under contract).  These were created using our mls system (information deemed reliable but not guaranteed).

Here’s the “key” (since if I put it alongside each image it would not fit without making all of it unreadable):

Description of each graph is ABOVE the image.

Almaden Valley (95120 area of San Jose) - this is a more expensive part of Santa Clara County, but the market improvement is very clear. Cool market.

Blossom Valley (95123 and 95136 zip codes, an area of San Jose) - this is a very affordable part of Silicon Valley and has taken a huge hit on the “price rollback”.  But it’s getting better now - note the rise in sales, low number of new homes coming on the market and overall lessening of inventory. Number of pendings is almost the same as the total inventory. Hot market.

Cambrian Park (95124 & 95118 area of San Jose) - trends among listings, inventory, and sales for single family homes. The trend of less inventory and more sales is quite evident. Warm market overall - very hot under $500,000, cool in higher price ranges. (But hot only if prices are deeply reduced.)

(more…)

The real estate market for condominiums and townhomes in the west valley area of Silicon Valley is similar to the rest of Santa Clara County in one main regard: the most expensive homes are having far more trouble selling than entry level homes.

Today we’ll look at the months of inventory for condos and townhomes in four areas of the west valley: Almaden Valley, Cupertino, Los Gatos and Saratoga.  Since this is a fairly small subset of the overall residential real estate market, I’ve also looked at them as a group (upscale areas with good to great schools near the  foothills) and wanted to see the overall trend when the four neighborhoods were viewed together.

As a reminder, under 6 months is a seller’s market, 6 is neutral and 7 or more is a buyer’s market.

Interestingly, the overall trend of these four areas combined shows consistent improvement in the market toward neutral, from 23.5 months in January to 8.6 months in April.  It’s really very dramatic when viewed as a whole!

Cupertino area condos are faring well in the last 30 days with more closed escrows and just 8 months of inventory. Los Gatos is even better now with 6 months of inventory.

The market is much tougher in Saratoga, CA, where almost no condominiums or townhouses are selling.  Those that do go under contract are in the lowest price ranges.  Many properties are “just sitting”.  Buyers are waiting for prices to drop.  Nearly as tough is the condo market in Almaden Valley.

The challenge for luxury condo owners is that buyers now are primarily buying either for shelter or for investment.  Investment buyers seldom purchase a luxury item (it’s safer to buy two small condos than one large one to hedge against vacancy).

For many condo sellers, now may just not be the right time to sell. On the other hand, if you’re moving up, now may be the ideal time since prices in the higher priced homes are fairly soft compared to “normal”.