Right now I’m working with a number of very frustrated home buyers.  Silicon Valley real estate inventory is painfully low, and in the lower price ranges especially, that means multiple offers are fairly common.  FHA home buyers, in particular, are getting out bid and out negotiated by all cash buyers, many of whom are investors.

How low is the inventory?  Let’s have a look at January’s inventory for houses & duet homes (“class 1″ or single family homes) over the last ten years in Santa Clara County (San Jose, Los Gatos, Campbell, etc.):

2012  1,382
2011  2,007
2010  2,426
2009  4,759
2008  4,872
2007  2,698
2006  2,202
2005  1,285
2004  1,612
2003  3,119

The average January inventory of available houses over the last 10 years is 2,636.  At 1,382, January 2012′s available inventory of houses for sale in the San Jose area was just 52% of normal.  (more…)

What is a “cool air return“?  Silicon Valley home hunters are very likely to encounter both heating vents (also called heat registers) and cool air returns in houses, townhouses and condos across the South Bay Area.  They are found wherever a home enjoys central forced air heat with ducts and vents.  (Some Victorian houses have forced air heat but it is only brought to perhaps one main room or area in the house!)

The purpose of a cool air return is to feed the furnace with a supply of cooler air to be heated ad then circulated back into the rest of the dwelling via the heat registers or vents.  Often the cool air return is found near the floor.  This makes sense when you consider that the hottest air will rise, leaving cooler air nearer the ground. Heat registers are often near the floor (and near a window), but if the home is on a slab foundation and has forced air heat, the vent will be on the ceiling.

How can I tell the difference between the cool air return and a heat register or vent?

Generally speaking, the vents for warm air are long and narrow, and the cool air return is much larger and boxier in shape.  Below please find an image of heating vents.

The first example of a heating vent is probably the most typical you’ll find in Silicon Valley: it’s metal, kind of a dark gray color.  Older ones (homes from the 50s) have an even narrower shape but still tend to be metal, sometimes painted dark brown.

The next example is usually found where the property has hardwood floors.  The idea is to make the vent blend in and be less noticeable. Naturally, the wooden vents come in a variety of colors to match the many types of woods that might be found in a residence.

By and large, cool air returns and heat registers are pretty ugly. The wooden vents are a nice step above the usual offerings.  Several companies sell nicer cool air returns and heat registers or vents, though. So if you are remodeling and want to get away from that “tract housing feel”, a few custom touches might be just the ticket for a more unique feeling home. (more…)

Keeping up with the latest trends in home decor and remodeling is a bit like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: by the time you’re done, you need to do it all over again.  Styles change, tastes change.  How often do you really want to remodel and update your hardware, light fixtures, floor coverings – to say nothing of kitchens and bathrooms?  If these items are functional and you like them, there’s no reason to change.  Then again, if you’re going to sell your home and want to maximize the return, it might be worth it to do some updating.

The average American kitchen is remodeled about every 17 years (sorry, I don’t recall where I read that) – that’s long enough to jump from one trend to the next, one set of materials or colors to the next.  If you wait long enough, certain themes actually come “full circle”, not unlike clothes!

To make a point:  in the mid 70s, brushed brass was in, and many if not most homes built then in the San Jose, Silicon Valley area were made with brushed brass doorknobs, hinges, drawer pulls, doorbells, you name it.  That trend moved to gold, brushed stainless steel and now – full circle – back to brass! Ditto that with colors.  “Earth tones” were all the rage in the 70s (olive green, deep brown, tan) and as things moved through the cycles (with a whole lot of white in between), the earth tones have come back again.

Some colors make more infrequent appearances, such as lemon yellow, lime green, bubble gum pink, baby blue….

Let’s just take a look at bathrooms and kitchens for this discussion about colors, materials and being in style. (more…)

I’m going to ask you something personal…regarding your bathroom habits.  Is your toilet low flow?

If your house was built before 1994, soon your toilets will need to be “low flow”.  So too will your shower heads and faucets.

In 2010, a bill was passed in California (SB 407 Padilla) requiring all homes (all residential properties) built prior to 1994 be retrofitted with low flow devices when remodeled as of 2014.  If not remodeled, the change still must take place by 2017 for all residences built prior to 1994.

So if you are updating your kitchen, wet bar, or bathroom any time soon, remember: low flow’s the way to go!

For those selling, it should not come as a surprise that this will mean another disclosure to make (whether or not the retrofitting has been done).

Periodically, components of a home have to be replaced, whether a furnace, water heater, washer/dryer set or anything else.  They simply don’t last forever, and too often they don’t last nearly as long as we expect.

Ten years ago, about a year after purchasing our home in the Belwood area of Los Gatos, we remodeled our kitchen.  It was quite an upheaval and very expensive, so we were hoping it would “last” awhile.  (Kitchens get a remodel on average every 16 years in the U.S., by the way.)  But by years nine and ten, some of our kitchen appliances started to act up, and this week our dishwasher gave up the ghost entirely.  I really had hoped it would have gone closer to 15 years, but the apparently the fancy newer appliances have a lot of parts, all of which can fail.  I was told that ten years is about average now.

Jim and I are very analytical about major purchases, so I spent a lot of time on Consumer Reports (where I’m a member) first, reading reviews, watching videos and eliminating a few brands right off the bat.  Unfortunately the CS site does not include Energy Star ratings info, so I also visited the PG & E site and was cross referencing.  Naturally, I’d like to get a rebate!  There’s also a sort of cash for clunker appliances deal, too – you can get $100 back for your old dishwasher if you purchase one of the newer models on a list that the stores have.  Buying a dishwasher is a little like booking airline tickets now: you have to factor in any rebates, trade ins, delivery charges, haul away fees, etc. as well as the actual price so you can compare the true net cost of one appliance versus another.

We visited seven stores on Saturday, hoping for good Labor Day sales and wanting to end hand-washing our dishes as soon as possible.  We stopped by businesses in Campbell, Santa Clara and San Jose (skipping another good store in Mountain View as it was just too far for us):  Fry’s, Home Depot, University Electric , Western Appliance, Sears, Costco and Best Buy.  I didn’t want to make this purchase online as there are too many things that might not be fully disclosed with a web purchase but can be understood in person.
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Most homes in Silicon Valley come with some type of parking space for cars beyond street parking.  Home buyers want to know that there will be a place for their vehicles (and often their “stuff” too).   Garages and parking are sometimes under-appreciated aspects of evaluating real estate, so it will be the focus of today’s topic. 

Because a real estate purchase is a big ticket item, it is always important to consider the ability to sell it later.  (Always buy with selling in mind!)  Will it be hard to sell it in the future if it is not a red-hot sellers market?  Parking can greatly impact “resale value” and overall desireability to a large portion of consumers.   If you are evaluating a condominium, townhouse, or planned unit development home with private roads and parking, there will be some special concerns that may be a little different than if you were purchasing a single family home. We’ll consider both.

General principle:  In all types of housing in the San Jose area, usually the most highly desired type of parking arrangement is an attached garage.  This is not true in all cases but is generally true.  You would not find homebuyers interested in historic homes (Victorian, Spanish, Craftsman) wanting a prominent two car garage at the front of the house, commanding the lion’s share of the view from the street. (So don’t expect to see that in Japantown, Naglee Park, or the the Rose Garden.)  But for the typical buyer of the more common ranch style home, the attached garage is expected and appreciated, and if it’s missing it’s a challenge to sell the property later because as sellers you’ll be appealling to a far smaller pool of buyers.
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