The real estate news is so mixed it’s mind boggling, whether it’s a national perspective, one specific to California, the San Francisco Bay Area, the “south Bay”, Silicon Valley or even San Jose in particular.  It is anything but a uniform, monolithic market. Even so, it’s good to look at the big picture along side the hyper local level, and that’s what we’ll do today.

Today’s San Jose Mercury News featured a front page article by Sue McAllister (an excellent reporter) on Santa Clara County housing values.  She shares that Zillow says that we’ve hit bottom here in Santa Clara County.  That is certainly good news to home owners accross Silicon Valley!  And I don’t disagree that countywide, we’re definitely looking up right now.  No guarantees for the future, but Zillow says that the threat of a second or double dip no longer seems likely. Whew!

Unfortunately, there’s another real risk to this recovery and it’s not the “shadow industry”. This time it’s homeowners walking away because they’re underwater (not because they can’t afford to stay, but because they choose not to).  Sixty Minutes did a segment on this phenomena of home owners walking away last night., which you can watch via this link.
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The Silicon Valley real estate “Spring Buying Season” has been very active among anxious home buyers, but there’s not a lot of turnkey, well-priced inventory for them to choose among. Yesterday I previewed four homes in San Jose and Santa Clara, and noticed the same young gal doing a drive by while I was touring. Not surprising: there are only a few homes that are on the “need to see” list. And most of them are disappointing (dirty, unkempt houses that were not even properly cleaned up or staged minimally to sell).

The federal government’s tax credits for home buyers expires at the end of April. To qualify for it, move up, move down or first time home buyers must be in contract on a property by April 30th, and must close between May 1st and June 30th.  This is a great motivation for many Santa Clara County home buyers – the tax credit can pay for new carpet, curtains, or sprucing up the landscaping on that new purchase.

The good news for residents of the Golden State, though, is that California has created a new $10,000 tax credit. There are plenty of conditions and footnotes, though, the biggest being that it must be a single family home, attached or detached (not an apartment building or investment property). A confusing element of this credit is whether buyers can use all of it, or if the benefit will be capped due to the amount of state taxes paid. To read about it first hand, here’s a link to the California Franchise Board’s statement about the home buyer tax credit. Bookmark that site as the info will be updated periodically.

Here’s the best part: get into contract on a California home in April and close escrow in May, and you may qualify for both of these tax credits!

If that doesn’t get buyers out and looking, nothing will!
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Today I was showing homes in Santa Clara to my buyers and saw one home with very “funky” (non compliant) strapping around the hot water heater. It was weird enough that I took a photo!

Unusual here – and confused – is the slanted lower strap that is in the top half as well as the bottom half of the water heater and goes around the ducting. Really bizarre!

What water heater strapping DOES require is a hefty strap in the top third and another in the bottom third of the water heater. Blocking may be required too. To see all of the requirements per the State of California, see the online directions for strapping water heaters (a how-to).

Almaden Valley in San Jose is comprised of many neighborhoods and subdivisions. One of them, close to the border with Los Gatos and Cambrian Park, is particularly popular: Oak Canyon.

There are many reasons for its draw among Silicon Valley homebuyers: the houses were well built by Shea Homes in about 1980, so they are relatively newer by Silicon Valley standards. They’re larger homes on comfortable lots, often 8000 sf or so but some as small as 6500 sf and others larger than a quarter acre.

Most of the homes boast a 3 car garage, which is a big help with storage of stuff, if not storage of cars. The roads gently turn, which makes a more pleasing look. It’s a very “conforming” neighborhood where everyone keeps up the homes and yards. Much of Almaden is viewed by consumers as somewhat remote, but this section, near the mouth of Almaden, is not too deep into the valley and is a better commute location for most. One of the largest pulls for the area, though, is the nearby elementary school, Guadalupe School, which has API scores in the 900s.

Where is the Oak Canyon neighborhood in Almaden Valley, San Jose?

Oak Canyon is found near the intersection of Camden Avenue and Coleman Road in San Jose but is bordered by Coleman on one side and the Guadalue Creek on the other sides. (The far side of the Guadalupe Creek at this point is Cambrian Park.)

 
And to provide some bearings, here’s a map of the Almaden Valley district of San Jose generally:

 
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Here in the Valley of Hearts Delight, aka Silicon Valley, the market continues to be a buyers market with downward pressure on prices, longer days on market, and bigger gaps between list price and sales price. What is happening area wide or county wide is not always exactly what we find in smaller market areas. Some parts of Silicon Valley, and some price points, are doing quite well relatively, while others are falling through the floor.

What is happening with San Jose real estate? Let’s look at four San Jose districts, mostly in the west valley area, by their zip code (or main zip): Almaden Valley (95120), Willow Glen (95125), Cambrian Park (95124) and West San Jose (95129).
Below, please find the trends for the median list price of single family homes for sale in these four areas of San Jose:
 
For the most part, it appears that the west valley area of San Jose real estate is continuing to experience noticeable declines in list prices throughout these districts. Interestingly, Almaden Valley and West San Jose (zip 95129) both saw improvement in spring before returning to the downward trend. By comparison, how is San Jose as a whole (the entire city) looking?
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Silicon Valley residents are aware that Sunnyvale has a particularly low level
of crime, good schools, and a lot of strong businesses that call it home. Even
so, it’s nice to see that CNN took note too, and listed Sunnyvale in its top 100
of Best Places to Live .

Why Sunnyvale, as opposed to nearby Mountain View (a “contender"), Los Altos,
Cupertino (a “contender"), Saratoga, Los Gatos, Campbell, Santa Clara (also a
“contender") or San Jose?

Apparently it’s the combination of affordability, schools, low crime, and short
commutes that did the trick. Sunnyvale does a lot of programs in a more
efficient way, such as the amazing public safety department there.

The award is well deserved. Congratulations, Sunnyvale!

The other day I was hunting for local maps of Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) dating back 100 years or so, and although I didn’t find exactly what I wanted, I did find a treasure trove that I hadn’t expected to find at all.

Here please find a tiny snippet of a USGS Map from the late 1890s (actually part of the Palo Alto Map). According to my husband, who has a hobby of viewing and collecting maps, each “dot” on this image represents a house. If that is the case, you can see how sparcely populated Saratoga and Cupertino were at this time.

And what is that Azule Springs? Was it another hot springs type resort, like Saratoga Springs? A map like this raises a lot of questions!

If you love – or at least enjoy – history, I invite you to visit the USGS website and look at the historic maps there. One section includes Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and the coastal areas such as Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. Another section of the map includes Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Campbell, Almaden, Cambrian Park, Santa Clara and many parts of San Jose. 

It’s fun to see where things “used to be” and how they “used to be called”. Take a few minutes and enjoy!