Home Types
Types of Homes in Silicon Valley
A plat map comes with your preliminary title report (provided by your title company with maps from the Santa Clara County tax assessor’s office 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.
Quick overview of what’s on a plat map
There’s a wealth of information on the plat map. Take a look and see what you can pick out on your own first.
Homeowners Associations (HOAs) are created to oversee condominium complexes, townhome communities and planned unit developments (PUDs) on behalf of their members. These are non-profit organizations whose purpose is to manage common areas, enforce neighborhood rules and standards, and often, unofficially, to foster community unity too. In most cases, they collect fees from members and have local authority. In other words, if you do not pay your homeowner association dues, or abide by one of its rules*, the HOA can and usually will fine you or even foreclose on you!
There are loads of HOAs in Silicon Valley. As with all organizations, some are better run than others. Its a little different than owning real estate outside of a homeowners association.
What are the pros and cons to Homeowners Associations?
At their best, Silicon Valley HOAs keep the communities they manage beautifully landscaped and maintained, they hire good providers for needed improvements, and minimize risk to all the members. By having reasonable rules and community buy-in, the neighborhood can look inviting and property values can be better maintained.
At their worst, HOAs can be unresponsive to members needs, erratic, arbitrary and irresponsible. They may, by poor planning, cause huge assessments to be necessary or raise HOA dues so that they are very high – to the point where they make homes hard to sell. Not only are those an unhappy occasion, they can also make it hard to sell a home with a special assessment looming. Fortunately, this is seldom the case in most areas – but if the HOA has a high number of defaults due to owner bankruptcy or inability to keep up with mortgage, property insurance etc. it can cost all of the members eventually.
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 cooling off in terms of numbers of offers, days on market, and active listings. That being said, sale price to list price ratio is up slightly this past month and days of inventory are steady. Compared to spring, there’s been some “up and down” recently.
If you’re selling, perhaps a last summer you’d have gotten 4 – 6 offers on your well prepared, beautifully staged, and aggressively priced home for sale. Now, maybe it is 1 – 2 offers instead. We are typically seeing buyers bring in offers with normal contingencies, particularly if there are not any competing bids.
The market has been cooling overall since spring, though it’s gotten warmer at the start of the year. We’ll only really know a few months from now if this trend will continue, when we are seeing it in the rear view mirror.
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:
The Almaden Winery neighborhood, just off Blossom Hill Road in San Jose, has a rich and interesting past, dating back to the mid 1850s when the site was first planted with grape vines. It was the first winery in Almaden Valley and one of the oldest in the state of California. (It survived the prohibition period by getting licensed to make sacramental wine and by bottling grape juice.)
In this post I’ll share some photos of the neighborhood with you, explain about the three different builders/developers and show you where to find each one.
Today we’re looking at the real estate market for houses in some of the “west valley” communities along the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains – areas where schools are good, crime is low, residents enjoy scenic views of the hills (or of the valley from the hills, depending on the location) and overall, a highly educated population not too far from Highway 85. This will be a real estate market comparison for Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, and Los Altos.
Of the four municipalities, three are really very similar to each other in several regards. Cupertino has the largest population – about 61,000 people – but Los Altos, Los Gatos and Saratoga are all similarly sized, somewhere between 31,000 residents. The latter three also enjoy a traditional “downtown” area which is popular with pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists alike. (Monte Sereno has under 4,000 residents, which is so small that the statistics are very easily thrown from month to month, so it is omitted in this quick study.) Of the four, Cupertino, then, is the least similar due to size and lack of a central downtown area for now. This may feel different once the Vallco Mall is redeveloped.
We’ll take a quick look at these areas now in terms of the real estate market trends and statistics for each area, considering just “class 1” (houses and duet homes). The charts used below are from Altos Research, to which I have a subscription, and they will be automatically updated each week.
Please note: the Los Gatos data is probably a little artificially low as it will include all 3 zip codes, meaning also the Los Gatos Mountains, which are quite a bit more affordable than the areas “in town”.
(1) Median List Price (per Altos Research):
This week I put a new listing on the market, a beautiful Newark condo for sale at 39887 Cedar Blvd #250. It’s nicely updated and remodeled throughout and enjoys a quiet location at the back of this resort-like condominium complex.
39887 Cedar Blvd # 250, Newark – Living Room
Offered at $539,888 with low HOA dues of just $376 per month
Spacious and updated 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo, with warm and tasteful décor in luxurious, resort like community. Fantastic location within Murieta, at back of complex, away from road noise. The unit is close to the elevator but has no adjoining walls, so is very quiet.
Quick facts:
- 2 bedrooms
- 2 bathrooms
- 1071 SF
- Built in 1986
- Remodeled kitchen
- Updated baths
- Recessed lights in living room and master bedroom
- Colonial style crown molding and baseboard throughout
- Private deck
- Freshly painted
- 2 Assigned parking spaces, one of them covered
- Great commute location, also very close to shops and eateries
- HOA is Murieta, a gated community with secure elevator buildings and includes 2 pools, 2 spas, 2 club houses, plus a gym and onsite property management
Remodeled kitchen with slab granite counters and brand new oven, microwave, and dishwasher. Fridge included!
Please visit the virtual tour to get all of the details, including upcoming open houses and lots more photos!
https://www.tourfactory.com/2639120
More details:
- Kitchen remodeled with slab granite counters, brand newWhirlpool stainless steel oven, microwave, and dishwasher. Built in trash compactor. Stainless steel refrigerator included, too. Tile floor.
- Bathrooms updated and also feature granite counters, tile floors, and lights over vanities.
- Open floor plan – kitchen has opening to both dining and living
- Spacious master bedroom suite featuring double sinks and abundant closet space.
- Wonderful deck off of living room for relaxing outdoors
- Many upgrades: recessed lighting in living room and master bedroom, classic Colonial baseboard and crown molding, interior raised panel doors.
- Newer washer and dryer included.
- Freshly painted interior.
- Excellent parking: 1 covered space near building door, 1 assigned parking space behind the unit.
- Wonderful HOA: gated community with low dues covers garbage, water, and many amenities: secure elevator buildings, 2 pools and spas, gym, cabana / community rooms, lawn area,
- Onsite HOA office staffed during weekdays.
- Fantastic location with shopping and restaurants nearby and easy access to major commute routes.
- Newark Unified Schools: James L. Bunker Elementary, Newark Middle, Newark Memorial High
Master Bath
Please visit the virtual tour to get all of the details, including upcoming open houses and lots more photos!
https://www.tourfactory.com/2639120
The popular Glencrest neighborhood in Almaden includes both the Glencrest patio homes as well as larger houses on regular lots.
This corner of Almaden is located at the end of Serenity Way near Glenview Park and Cathedral Park in the Williams area. The Glencrest patio homes area is shaped like a pentagram (a five sided object) so is easy to spot on the map.
The community enjoys a shared pool. The outside ring of homes are single family houses on large, normal lots of about 10,000 to 13,000 square feet (on Valley Quail Circle, Hollow Lake).
The more modest patio or zero lot line properties are found on the inside streets and have about 6,000 SF lots – the streets are Quail Creek Circle, Mountain Quail Circle, and Quail Cove Way.
The Glencrest homes were built by Shapell, a company which is known for a very high quality. Most were built in 1987 or 1988.
The big draws for these homes are as follows:
- Top Almaden schools are close by: Williams, Bret Harte and Leland
- Shappell is a highly regarded builder, perhaps the most valued in Santa Clara County
- The Glencrest area homes, whether on normal lots or zero lot line / patio homes, are fairly young by local standards
Because the Glencrest patio homes are smaller, they are more affordable. Many people consider them entry level houses for Williams Elementary School. For this reason, real estate sales in the Glencrest area often command surprisingly high prices given that structures are built on one of the property lines and that there are no windows on that side of the home.
There are some negatives to any area. Here, the interior streets are narrow, and of course a zero lot line is not ideal. Water and hillside locations don’t help homes, so it’s important to manage drainage effectively.
Real estate listings and homes for sale in and near the Glencrest neighborhood of San Jose’s Almaden Valley: please view using the following link
