Home Types
Types of Homes in Silicon Valley
With our 300 sunny days per year in Silicon Valley (at least most years!), golf is a sport enjoyed year round here in the San Jose area. Living near a golf course, or having a golf course view, is highly desirable as it provides scenic open space as well as convenience for avid golfers.
Silicon Valley Golf Homes, Silicon Valley Golf Properties
There are beautiful courses throughout the South Bay Area and it’s possible to find small condos with views of them at fairly affordable prices (Sunnyvale’s Sunken Gardens area is one of them). Today, though, I want to provide a list of homes for sale near golf courses in the foothill areas of Silicon Valley. Many of these will also be luxury homes. So the MLS list of these houses on the market which you can browse includes these areas:
San Jose areas including Evergreen & Silver Creek, Santa Teresa, Blossom Valley and Almaden; Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, Cupertino, and Los Altos.
There are golf courses to be found in other parts of Santa Clara County too (Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and more) – let me know if you are interested in these parts and I can send you a link for searching them for similar residential real estate.
Here are a available or recently sold homes near to golf clubs:
How is the Campbell real estate market? Campbell is in a strong seller’s market, but like the rest of the county, is in a period of warming in terms of numbers of sales, days on market, and prices. Sale price to list price ratio is and days of inventory are dropping. It’s heating up as we approach spring!
If you’re selling, perhaps last summer you’d have gotten 4 – 6 offers on your well prepared, beautifully staged, and aggressively priced home for sale. Now, we’re starting to see those numbers again as the market heats back up after a slightly cooler winter. However, we are still seeing buyers bring in offers with normal contingencies, particularly if there are not any competing bids.
The market was cooling overall since last spring, but it began to warm up again at the start of the year. We’ll only really know a few months from now how far this trend will continue, but it likely will continue to heat up from now throughout spring.
Here’s a quick view of the Campbell real estate market stats from Altos Research, using LIST prices:
And now – here are some quick stats, care of my RE Report for Campbell:
How’s the Saratoga California real estate market?
It’s a slight seller’s advantage in the Saratoga CA real estate market right now, per Altos Research (see below). Much of it depends on the price point, school district, and condition – today’s buyers generally prefer recently remodeled homes. (Not long ago, I showed a home that was remodeled in 2010 and my buyers found it to be dated.) In response to this strong preference, many sellers are moving out and getting their homes updated prior to going on the market.
Orchard and Hills in Saratoga, California
First, a quick glance at the Altos Research market profile for a quick summary of the market conditions. Altos uses LIST prices, not sold prices, for this chart and the others, below.
As of writing this, March 5th, Altos shows a slight seller’s advantage in the market. Inventory on the rise, as is the price per square foot. Demand is high, but not as crazy as it was in spring or summer so houses are taking longer to sell.
Next, let’s turn to the closed sales from last month. This time we’re using data from a subscription service of mine to the RE Report.
Here are the real estate sales statistics for closed sales last month among houses and duet homes (if there are any) in the 95070 zip code (click on link to read the full Saratoga Real Estate Report for houses). Bottom line is that most livable homes in Saratoga will run between $2 and $3 million if they are mid sized (2000-3000 SF) and in the best schools area (Saratoga or Cupertino). Homes in the Campbell schools area, which have very strong elementary and middle schools, are very rare and generally more affordable, closer to $1.5, but depending on size, condition, and location they can be significantly higher (the ones selling in October 2019 were closer to $2.5, for instance).
Trends at a Glance for the Saratoga CA Real Estate Market
As with much of the county, it’s fairly flat right now in Saratoga. Though prices have tended to lag behind 2018, which was the peak of the market, February of 2020 looked a little hotter month over month.
| Trends At a Glance | Feb 2020 | Previous Month | Year-over-Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Price | $2,900,000 (+24.1%) | $2,337,500 | $2,877,500 (+0.8%) |
| Average Price | $2,899,240 (+8.6%) | $2,669,810 | $3,023,100 (-4.1%) |
| No. of Sales | 15 (+15.4%) | 13 | 10 (+50.0%) |
| Pending | 16 (+14.3%) | 14 | 15 (+6.7%) |
| Active | 36 (+71.4%) | 21 | 52 (-30.8%) |
| Sale vs. List Price | 100.6% (+3.9%) | 96.8% | 101.9% (-1.2%) |
| Days on Market | 42 (-23.5%) | 54 | 52 (-20.2%) |
| Days of Inventory | 67 (+38.7%) | 48 | 140 (-52.1%) |
And the month before:
Duplexes and duet homes are often confused with each other because both involve two attached residential units. But legally and financially, a duplex is very different from a duet!
The photo to the right is of a San Jose home I sold a few years back. You cannot tell from the image, but there is a front door off to the right of the single car garage door, and back around on the left side, near the double car garage door, there’s another front door. There are 2 units. It is a duplex or a duet home? You cannot necessarily tell by looking!
What is a duplex?
A duplex is a multifamily home, in the same category as a triplex or fourplex, meaning there are multiple living units. Most of the time, they are attached to each other, but not always. But what is truly distinctive is the way they are bought and sold. With multifamily homes, such as a duplex, all of these dwellings are sold together. (The units are not sold separately.)
If you buy a duplex, you get both sides. If you buy a triplex, you get three units. Sometimes an owner will live in one of the homes and renters are in the rest. Many times, though, all of these multifamily homes are entirely leased out. (Duplexes are usually 1 story and many of the duplexes in the San Jose area were built in the 1950s and 1960s, but you cannot tell from looking at it what the zoning and class of housing are with certainty.) These types of properties are considered income producing or investment properties.
With a duplex, the property owner is responsible for all of the outside maintenance. Normally there are no HOA dues, because there is just one owner.
What is a duet home?
A Los Gatos neighborhood which is “close to town” but feels further out is the highly sought after Surrey Farms area, located off Kennedy Road less than a mile from Los Gatos Boulevard, and less than 1.5 miles to all the local public schools: Van Meter or Blossom Hill Elementary, Fisher Middle, Los Gatos High. Adjacent to Surrey Farms is the independent Hillbrook School.
About Surrey Farms
There are about 70 single family homes or houses in Surrey Farms, most of them on quarter-acre to half-acre lots, but a handful are on over half an acre, and four are over one acre. The houses were mostly constructed from the mid 1950s into the mid 1960s, though development has continued since with over 30% of homes built between the 1970s and 2010s. Original construction was all done in the “ranch style” and consisted of about 2,000 to 3,000 SF in most cases. Today many have been remodeled, enlarged or even fully rebuilt, and the home sizes are bigger, currently with 50% of them over 3,000 SF and more than 15% over 4,000 SF. Continue reading
Willow Glen is one of the most charming areas of San Jose, consisting of many older homes which feature lovely, classic architecture. Most Silicon Valley home buyers treasure the Willow Glen charm and ambiance, but many are seeking newer homes. A fabulous option is “The Willows“.
KB Homes built “The Willows” in 1999 to 2000. It is tucked away at the southernmost tip of Willow Glen, off of Foxworthy Avenue & close to Almaden Expressway, but only about 2.5 to 3 miles from all the action on Lincoln Avenue.
The tree-lined streets are built in something of a loop shape with Rubino Circle being the main access or loop road. Situated on the inner part of the loop are homes with smaller lots that are a little more affordable. The outer part of the circle is built with slightly larger homes on larger lots (but none of the lots are “big”). Sidewalks with soft curbs at the corners accompany the streets and make for a pedestrian-friendly, bike, wheelchair or stroller friendly area. Visit in the early evenings and you will see children and adults walking, strolling, taking dogs for a walk etc. – always a good sign! Because the neighborhood is a bit like an oversized cul-de-sac (no through traffic), it is very quiet in terms of traffic. The area has large street lights, too, making for a safe feeling community.
Where can you find gated communities in San Jose or Silicon Valley? There aren’t many of them! (It is a myth, however, that the Silver Creek Valley Country Club is the only one in Silicon Valley. That’s just not true.) There are fewer than a dozen, though, and in this post I’ll provide some basic info on each and links to the home owner association for each so you can learn more if you so desire.
Most of these enclaves include neighborhood pools. Some also boast golf courses, spas and restaurants. One even has riding stables!
Evergreen gated communities
In the Evergreen area of San Jose (the east foothills), there are very two very large gated residential neighborhoods: The Villages, which is a retirement community for seniors (and has age restrictions, one resident must be 55+) with many luxury amenities (pools, tennis courts, horseback riding stables, bocce ball, and more).
Silver Creek Valley Country Club, which is the largest and best known gated community in Santa Clara County, is also found in the east foothills in the Evergreen area. A big complex and elegantly appointed, the Silver Creek Valley Country Club is also the most expensive of the gated communities. Silver Creek centers around a well known, beautiful golf course, and features a wonderful clubhouse as well as multiple pools. Some communities within Silver Creek have their own HOA, so it is possible to end up paying HOA dues to both Silver Creek and also a neighborhood HOA to boot.
