The annual market report is out at popehandy.REReport.com and we can now learn how 2011 compared to 2010.  The median sales price for houses in Santa Clara County was off 5.3% overall.  But from one part of the valley to the next it varied wildly with 6 cities or areas finding themselves in positive territory while others were off by double digits.

In the image to the left, I’ve put into bold the cities where the median sales price of houses which sold and closed escrow in 2011 were ahead of 2010′s pricing.

What is it that makes Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Mountain View and Palo Alto “in the black”?

Most of these cities/towns are upscale, west valley communities.  But so are Saratoga, Cupertino, and Monte Sereno.

Gilroy was especially hard-hit with the housing downturn so perhaps in that case, it’s just coming back into more of a balance. (Then again, so was Morgan Hill and it’s still off by 12%.)

The LinkedIn IPO and others in the Palo Alto area drove prices up for some parts of the housing market nearby and it’s likely that this explains the positive growth for Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos Hills.  That said, it would seem that Los Altos, and perhaps even Sunnyvale would have seen stronger numbers on the same account.  Perhaps school scores are the key driver here.

Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno often behave somewhat similarly as they are adjacent to one another and often attract similar home buyers who want good schools, a nice downtown area nearby and scenic beauty with the hills.  The annual numbers show Monte Sereno down 6.7%, Saratoga down 2% but Los Gatos up 6.4%.  With Monte Sereno, there are very few sales each month and each year (only about 4,000 residents), so there can be a wider swing without it necessarily being accurate. Saratoga and Los Gatos each have about 30,000 people who call these areas home, though, so the data is much more helpful.  Saratoga and Los Gatos both have multiple school districts, views, homes with better proximity to “downtown” and more variables – I think we’d have to dig a lot deeper to learn why these two neighboring markets are so diverse.  We might also have to look at multiple years of data to see if Saratoga spiked while LG slumped to explain the difference. (more…)

The Little Italy San Jose Foundation is in the process of rebuilding the original Italian settlement neighborhood in San Jose, which dated back to about the 1870s, with a cultural center, authentic Italian shops and restaurants, and restored buildings.  The cultural center offers Italian language classes for adults and children both. Eventually there will be an Italian-American Historical Museum too.

Where is Little Italy San Jose?

I had mistakenly thought that Little Italy San Jose would be in Willow Glen, but that’s not the case. This little neighborhood is close to the San Jose arena in downtown and includes Henry’s Hi-Life, which was the former Torino Hotel.  You can see a map of the exact area on the LittleItalySJ site. (In the video mentioned below, we learn that originally there were 3 Italian settlements, but this one was the first. The others are Willow Glen and Goosetown.)

It’s a massive grassroots project, backed by 15 different Italian American groups or clubs, which will feature 3 archways into the neighborhood, a brick piazza, a mural underpass, a history walkway, street banners, and bocce ball courts. A few businesses are operating now, with more to come.

Volunteers have been raising both money and awareness for several years and they are making great headway. (You may recall that the old Italian cultural center, the Italian Gardens, was torn down some years ago and now is the site of apartment buildings.)  There are several projects which need donations, including the archways, bocce courts, and mural.  Or you can donate $100 or more and have an engraved brick for stage 3 of the piazza (square).

There’s a great video that can explain more about what the Little Italy San Jose Foundation is doing. Or read more on the website: LittleItalySJ.com.

Where to donate to help the Little Italy San Jose project

The Little Italy website has a number of projects that can be supported via donations:

The Archway

The Bocce Courts

The Brick Piazza

The Mural Underpass (going under Highway 87, connecting the neighborhood to downtown SJ)

Share your family’s Little Italy story

If you’d like to share some local history for this effort, your images, biographical information and more is very welcome. There’s a page for that too: http://www.littleitalysj.com/history_walk.html

On a personal note, I’m very happy to see this project moving ahead. I don’t come from Italian heritage per se but I studied Italian in college, spent a junior year abroad in Firenze (Gonzaga-in-Florence), and feel as though the Italian culture is part of my family, too.  I love the food, emphasis on family, art, music and friendliness of Italy and welcome seeing more of it here in Silicon Valley.

Downtown Willow Glen (part of central San Jose) offers fabulous strolling, dining and shopping. It’s a great destination spot, whether people want to go there for an afternoon, an evening, or a lifetime (read about Willow Glen real estate here, and ask me about Willow Glen neighborhoods).

Recently I had a friend visiting and I wanted to introduce her to this neat, historic and scenic part of Silicon Valley. We stopped in to Grapevine, a wine & cheese bar, one evening after the California Association of Realtors Conference & Expo in downtown San Jose.

The service at the Grapevine was extremely good with friendly, attentive, and knowledgeable staff.  Menu offerings were extensive with varied wine and appetizer selections.  The ambiance was pleasant too, with great views onto the avenue, plenty of light and comfortable spacing between tables. In this age of frugality, it’s fair to mention that pricing is reasonable, too.

Colleen and I very much enjoyed the 60-90 minutes we spent at the Grapevine wine & cheese bar.  We each had a “flight” and tried 3 types of wine apiece and also ordered a yummy hot appetizer which featured artichokes, cheese and bread.  It was a great combination and very unhurried too.

Want to enjoy a little leisure time in beautiful Willow Glen? Take a little time and pop into the Grapevine Wine & Cheese Bar and try the offerings. You’ll be glad you did!

1389 Lincoln Avenue, Willow Glen – San Jose, CA, 95125

hone: (408)293-7574

http://www.grapevinewillowglen.com

How’s the real estate market in the Willow Glen area of San Jose?  Like the greater Silicon Valley region, Willow Glen is comprised of many smaller micro-markets.  It will be different in north Willow Glen, Palm Haven or in a walk-to-town area than it will be in the Dry Creek area or St. Francis Woods neighborhood – let alone differences for school districts, price point, sale type (regular versus short sale or bank owned), zip code and home type!  It’s a patchwork of all these smaller markets, in other words.  What’s happening in one segment might be very different than in another.

Today’s post will be the broad view of Willow Glen and comments may not apply to your specific property – for info on your neighborhood, call or email me!

Disclaimers aside, overall it is a seller’s market in Willow Glen right now, but prices are slipping a little and not everything is selling (and certainly not getting the prices that many sellers want).  Some of this is seasonal – prices often fall a little in summer, so it may not be anything to be alarmed about.

Below are the basic numbers, stats and trends from the closed sales of houses in June and July:

and July

And next, of Willow Glen condos, where it’s been a cold buyer’s marke but recently heated up:

And June numbers for Willow Glen condos -

What about home prices in Willow Glen?

Below please find the Altos Charts (to which I have a subscription). NB Altos uses LIST prices, not solds (also they go by zips or cities, so don’t cover Willow Glen per se with it’s partial entry into the 95124 zip).

1 – Houses in the 95125 zip code – history, all prices combined.

2 – Houses in the San Jose, 95125 zip code, by price quartile over last 180 days

3 – Condominiums and townhouses in Willow Glen, San Jose 95125 – all quartiles combined over the last few years for median list price: (more…)

Located on a quiet, tree lined street in the St. Francis Woods neighborhood of Willow Glen, San Jose, a stunningly remodeled and spacious home at 1548 Santa Inez Drive is a dream home in a fabulous neighborhood.

Offered for sale at $875,000 – Approximately 2028 square feet on a comfortable 8250 SF lot (per county records), this lovely 3 bedroom, 2.5 remodeled bath home has truly spacious living areas, a kitchen that will knock your socks off and a backyard perfect for entertaining. Please enjoy the virtual tour, below, then get all the details next.

Highlights of this Willow Glen home for sale include:

• 3 bedrooms with lovely crown moulding & large, classic base
• 2.5 elegantly remodeled bathrooms
• High-end, remodeled kitchenfeaturing slab granite counter tops and complimentary tile back splash with granite accent pieces
  • Stainless steel sink and appliances
    • GE Profile set of ovens (2 plus warming drawer)
    • Miele 5 burner gas range
    • Bosch dishwasher
    • GE Profile microwave
  • Extra high ceiling with a canopy of recessed lights
  • Tasteful and unique two tone cabinets – wood on bottom, black on top pieces with under-cabinet lighting installed, pullouts and “lazy Susan” too
  • Loads of storage & counter space plus a pantry
  • Floor made of large tiles, theme carried from entry hall into half bath, laundry area and pantry too
• Separate Living, Dining and Family Rooms  (more…)

If you arrived into Silicon Valley via Highway 101, driving south from San Francisco, you might believe that the Santa Clara Valley, the San Jose area and Silicon Valley as a whole has got to seem to be the ugliest place on earth. Although heavily traveled, that is not the “scenic route”.

So, too, if you are looking for a place to live and are groping to find a place that is reasonably priced, fairly safe and not a terrible commute distance. You might not even have “is nice looking” on your wish list. You might not think it’s possible if all you ever see are the ugly concrete tilt-up buildings in north San Jose, Santa Clara, Alviso, or anywhere along the 237 corridor.  That area is an architectural wasteland.

Let me assure you: there are a lot of beautiful places in Silicon Valley where you can rent or buy a home. But how do you find them? It helps a lot to have a local give you a few pointers.  I’ll give you some tips today on finding a scenic place to live.

Hills – An easy way to find a scenic location to make your home is to settle near the hills, especially those in the west valley (the Santa Cruz Mountains or the Coastal Range) as they are green year-round. Communities at the base of the west valley foothills include, in Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Cupertino, Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Los Gatos, and the Almaden Valley area of San Jose. All of these areas are adjacent to the hills or mountains and offer far better than average schools (many of them qualify as great – compare costs between these areas). (more…)

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…)