Often I get emails from people asking if I can help them with finding a rental property. For the most part, my practice revolves around listing and selling real estate in San Jose, Los Gatos, and Silicon Valley generally, so my best information is on what’s for sale, not what’s for rent.  Once in awhile I work on rental housing, but not normally, as rental condos or houses through an agent (if they are listed on the MLS) will usually cost you more than homes you find to rent elsewhere.

The best resources I have found for locating rental properties in Santa Clara County are these (I cannot guarantee or warranty your results, but these are starting points for you):

• Craigslist (link is to the South Bay area)
• Bay Rentals (they do charge a small fee)
• ForRent.com (search by city name or zip code)
• Once you’ve located an area you like – drive around
• possible – the mls search – scroll down on left sidebar widget on this blog and pull down the menu under “all property types” and select Rentals OR run similar search by map on my popehandy.com site at this link ~ you must also find “property types” on left side and then locate rentals under that)

The last bullet point might seem silly, but some of the best apartments, townhomes etc. never get listed anywhere other than a sign in the yard.  So if you love Los Gatos, Campbell, Santa Clara or anywhere else, drive it and watch for signs! (Or talk with friends or acquaintances in areas you like – have them keep an eye out for you.)

Perhaps you want to be in a hotel or inn for awhile before deciding where to rent or buy, or while on temporary assignment at a local business or university. You don’t need me to tell you where to stay in a hotel, but if you are moving here with a pet you might want assistance finding a place which will welcome your cat or dog.  Here’s a great resource for finding pet-friendly hotels, motels and inns here: DogFriendly.com’s San Jose (and nearby) City Guide, which includes accomodations, parks, outdoor restaurants etc.

Right now, it seems to be the case that it’s harder to rent a home than to buy one – at least that is the word on the street.  (And it seems that like with the purchase market, the closer you get to Palo Alto, the tougher it is.)  Tougher still if you have pets or smoke.  If you have pets or smoke and find a rental, the cost per month will be higher.

How is the real estate market in the Willow Glen area of San Jose?  There are multiple ways of viewing it – via price point, school district, proximity to “downtown Willow Glen”, by numbers or percentages of distressed sales (sale type), and many more criteria.  Today we’ll look at the broad market numbers for the MLS “area 10″ (all of Willow Glen) and at times just the zip code for San Jose 95125, which covers the majority of the Willow Glen area.  This post will only cover houses or “single family homes”, not condominiums or townhomes.

I ran the months of inventory for homes in Willow Glen (our MLS area 10) by sale type.  Here’s what I found – most of the market appears to have about 4.95 months of inventory, with short sales being considerably longer.  (This may have had different results had I isolated certain school areas or price points – this is a “sweeping view” of the area only.) The National Association of Realtors says that less than 6 months is a sellers market, but for our area, this is fairly “cool” and most sellers would not find the market to be all that much in their favor. (Six months is supposed to be a balanced market.)

It is unusual for there to be so little variation in the MOI, so I double checked but this appears correct. Often bank owned homes or REOs fly off the market.  Odd that it’s not happening here, too.

Next, a selection of statistics and trends in the numbers from my REReport for Willow Glen (click on link for more info) – prices here reflect sold prices (median and average), not list prices:

Prices appear down from the prior month but up from a year ago.  That’s good news for Willow Glen home owners, who hope that the worst is now behind us.  Days on market are better than the previous month (but worse than a year ago) and inventory is up from last month but almost the same – just a little less – than a year ago.  It’s a mixed bag. (more…)

A plat map comes with your preliminary title report (provided by your title company when you purchase or sell a home in California), tucked away at the back and somewhat mysterious with lots of numbers in small print.  It holds quite a bit of helpful information if you know what it is you’re seeing.  Today we’ll view a sample of one of these – breaking down the plat map shown as a small thumbnail image on the right to more readable parts so that you can learn how to “read” or understand a plat map.  By the way, this example we’re using is for a lovely San Jose neighborhood in the Cambrian Park district which borders Los Gatos and is near Carlton Avenue, Los Gatos-Almaden Road and Union Avenue.

First have a quick look at the thumbnail image on the right.  You can tell it’s some sort of map with official looking writing in the lower corners.  Perhaps most salient even in the smallest image, one important feature of the plat map is that it provides the orientation of the properties (north/south/east/west).  That info is now readily findable online, but this used to be the easiest way (and most accurate) to answer the question “which way does the home face?” Look at the map, find the parcel and you’ll know its orientation.

The plat map also provides the Tract Number (and often the name given by the builder for the subdivision – in this case, Carlton Terrace). Along the right side, you can see the source of this information: the office of the county assessor for Santa Clara County.
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