Time to move in to Silicon Valley?

Seems that Valley's real estate is hot again. I guess, now is time to move in before it gets way too hot and all my friends start complaining about cost of living in valley.. time to grab piece of valley is now.. come on guys.. nothing can beat Silicon Valley..

On cautionary note, it already looks hot.. but knowing Silicon Valley's past history, this is just a start..

Hope to see lot more friends soon!!!
Cheers!!

BAY AREA HOUSING

Home sales go through the roof

Anxious homebuyers tempt sellers with deal offers as median prices in the region hit a four-year high

By Pete Carey

pcarey@mercurynews.com 

Bay Area home sales in June erased any doubt that it’s a sellers’ market, with some frantic buyers even sweetening their offers with a timeshare vacation or a couple of months of free rent.

Real estate agents said low inventory is driving up prices in some areas as people try to outbid each other for more expensive homes while ultralow interest rates are drawing in first-time homebuyers.

“Sellers should be very happy these days, and buyers are really scrambling,” said Barbara Lymberis, president of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors.

In the latest snapshot of the Bay Area housing market, median sale prices were up 6.4 percent for existing single-family homes from last year, their highest level since July 2008, according to a report Wednesday by DataQuick, a real estate information company. Yearover- year sales of all types of homes increased 10.4 percent, the 12th month in a row they have gone up.

Every time interest rates drop — averaging 3.56 percent for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage last week — more first-time buyers come out, said Kevin Kieffer, an associate broker with Keller Williams in Danville.

Part of what is driving up the median price is a shift in the mix of homes for sale, with a greater number of expensive houses on the market and fewer foreclosures.
Prices hit $329,000 in Contra Costa County, a 17.5 percent gain from June 2011, DataQuick reported. Alameda County had a gain of 9.3 percent to $437,000. Santa Clara County saw a median price increase of 7 percent from last year to $640,000. San Mateo County was essentially flat at $650,000.

“Some people are offering free rent back, or a vacation for a week anywhere in the world for the seller,” said Mark Wong, with Alain Pinel Realtors. “It’s crazy. But you’re talking about less than 10 grand. If you get the house, that’s a good deal.”

Wong said the craziest offer he’d heard of was from a buyer who simply offered to pay $200,000 more than the highest bidder. “This guy probably had been outbid 10 times and was desperate.”

But sometimes even special perks aren’t enough.
An offer that included six months’ free rent in an exclusive Walnut Creek condo still didn’t land the Alamo home that was for sale, according to Kieffer, the would-be buyer’s real estate agent.

In Sunnyvale, a homebuilder held a “Bingo style” drawing last weekend for 12 homes with 60 potential buyers.

“The market has just really heated up in Silicon Valley,” said Susie Frimel, marketing manager for the developer, Foster Citybased O’Brien Homes. “Inventory is really tight and a lot of people are very well qualified and want to take advantage of those low interest rates.” One frustrated home shopper is Henry Chan.

The 34-year-old mechanical engineer entered the Bingo-style lottery last weekend. The developer drew marked pingpong balls to determine the winners. Chan didn’t win, but said he hasn’t given up. He made an offer of $20,000 over asking price on another home last weekend and lost out to an even higher bid.

“We continue to shop around,” he said.

The condo market also is seeing strong price gains.

The median sale prices for a condominium is up 14.2 percent in the nine-county Bay Area from a year earlier, DataQuick reported. That includes annual price gains of 19.1 percent in Contra Costa County to $202,500; a 20 percent jump in Santa Clara County to $360,000; and single-digit gains in Alameda County to $231,500 and San Mateo County to $335,000.
Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419.

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JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

Sales of all types of homes in the Bay Area increased 10.4 percent from a year ago. Construction of new homes, such as this one in San Mateo, was also up awin June. 

Is Silicon Valley Housing is back to bubble or just booming?

Great news items on front page of our local news paper. Seems that housing boom is back and it is more or less fueled by dot.com type of boom of Facebook, Google and many more successful tech companies.

In part it is fueled by higher employment gains in technology area which is again attracting inflow of technology workers back in valley. Palo Alto especially is favorite of all is considered safe heaven as it has great schools, great neighborhood of rich and famous. Even in worst of times, I haven't heard Palo Alto real estate going down. At the most it stagnates... However, boom does percolate to rest of the region and spreads to entire valley.

It is quite contrary to rest of the US that real estate is going up in Valley. But I guess, it is all about supply and demand. Lot of investment is from China, Russia and rest of the world. Which is quite obvious as weather is perfect and on top of it, if you want to do anything in technology area, this is THE PLACE to be.

Silicon valley is best example of the fact that Cost of Doing Business doesn't matter as long as you can do business and make money out of it. Silicon Valley has one of the highest possible cost of business with highest property rates, highest Utility rates, highest cost of employees, highest rate of taxes and one of the highest gas prices (except Hawaii). Despite that people come here and start business. Why? One reason could be luck or chance that Chip/Software some how got bootstrapped here. Another more persistent one is consistent climate of technology with abundant best Universities and abundant Capital availability from bunker hill road. All that surpasses any deterrent in form of cost.

I hope this boom will continue and will be a reasonable boom rather than bubble type of like it was in 2005s. All friends and family members.. if you want to move in, this is right time. jump in!!!


http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20235268/buyers-compete-short-supply-homes-bay-area

SHIFT IN BAY AREA HOUSING

BIDDINGWAR

IN SOUTH BAY, TECH WORKERS DRIVE UP MARKET; IN EAST BAY, PENT-UP DEMAND FUELS BUYING BOOM


By Pete Carey

pcarey@mercurynews.com 

Peter Giovannotto is smack in the middle of a major shift in the Bay Area housing market.

The Peninsula real estate agent recently had a modest Palo Alto ranch-style home draw 38 offers and sell in eight days for nearly a half-million dollars more than the asking price, all par for the course in Palo Alto’s overheated real estate market.

“We started at $1.2 million and ended up selling for $1.65 million,” he said.

A flock of eager buyers competing for fewer-thanusual homes for sale is sending prices soaring along the Peninsula, where Googlers and Facebook employees duke it out with foreign investors for a place to live.

In other parts of the Bay Area, pent-up demand has helped create a hot market for lower-cost homes, with buyers having to move fast to grab foreclosures and be prepared for stiff competition on other homes for sale. In Contra Costa County, pending sales of single-family homes are up about 62 percent from last year and inventory is down 32 percent — a seller’s market.

“We are getting lots of multiple offers on lowerend properties,” said Barbara Safran, president of the Contra Costa Association of Realtors. “One person told me they had 12 offers on a property in Concord.”

CHUCK TODD/BAY AREA NEWS GROUP 

The winning bidder on the Palo Alto home was a Google employee from China, highlighting two trends: the rise of the wealthy tech buyer and the buyer from Asia. “We’re seeing lot more buyers from that region,” Giovannotto said. “It’s difficult to buy property over there, and the power of their money is greater over here.” 

Another Palo Alto home drew 10 offers recently, selling for $325,000 over the asking price. 

In the East Bay, a relatively small supply of lowerpriced homes and an increase in demand has homebuyers jumping. 

Two couples working with Danville real estate agent Kevin Kieffer of Keller Williams used the “strike first” method Kieffer advocates to grab their homes this month. He tells clients that in this market, they have to make a bid almost immediately, not wait until the weekend when the bulk of buyers are looking. If it’s a foreclosure, the bank is likely to welcome a decent offer, he said. 

Cameron and Rissa Kossen bought a bank-owned Martinez house that’s near Pleasant Hill schools for $313,000 by making an offer quickly. Had he waited until the weekend, Cameron Kossen said, other buyers would have made offers and “it would have gone up to $330,000 or $340,000.” 

Another East Bay couple, Ken and Ashley Wilson, were outbid on three homes before landing the fourth, a threebedroom, two-bath house in Pleasant Hill. 

“The housing market is moving so quick that houses would come on the market and my wife and I were having to make decisions almost at that minute, because there were others willing to purchase the home right then,” said Ken Wilson, who works at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. 

On both sides of San Francisco Bay, real estate agents say fewer homes than usual are for sale. 

“Menlo Park and Palo Alto are both desperate for inventory,” said Wendy McPherson of Coldwell Banker in Menlo Park. She said that Palo Alto recently had only about 30 homes for sale. 

Ray Chavez of Alain Pinel in Los Gatos sold a home in Santa Clara that received five offers in six days and sold for $17,000 over the asking price of $609,000, a big bump in that market for a small home. 

“It’s amazing what’s not out there right now,” he said. “There are only 32 homes in the whole city of Santa Clara. We’re down 74 percent from February 2011.” 

The threat of historically low interest rates rising further — the rates rose above 4 percent this week — combined with increased confidence in the economy is bringing out buyers who have been holding back. 

“I think it’s a little bit like Christmas,” said Safran of the Contra Costa Association of Realtors. “People finally started buying again this Christmas when they hadn’t bought for three years. I think they’re just ready. It’s time.” 

Sales were up across the Bay Area in February, the strongest showing for that month in five years, according to DataQuick, a real estate information service. 

Silicon Valley is having its fourth-highest year in sales since 2000, said Richard Calhoun of Creekside Realty in San Jose. Calhoun, who has tracked the inventory of homes for sale in Santa Clara County for more than a decade, said that in some parts of Silicon Valley, including the Palo Alto area, the entire stock of homes for sale would be exhausted in less than a month. 

“The housing market has definitely bottomed and is on a recovery path,” said Ken Rosen, chairman at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC Berkeley. “I think it is a real recovery happening, around the whole country.” 

Contra Costa County, saturated with foreclosures, is still 18 months away from a full recovery and a normal housing market, Rosen said. “There’s going to be a spillover from San Francisco and the Bay Area, but it hasn’t happened yet.” 

Some would-be sellers on the Peninsula seem to be holding out until next year, when Facebook’s newly minted millionaires will begin spending their money, potentially driving up prices even more. 

Sellers are “getting greedy” and pulling homes off the market, said Alex H. Wang of Rainmaker Properties in Los Altos. “They get multiple offers on their house and say, ‘I don’t want to sell anymore. I’ll wait until next year.’ That upsets everybody.” 

Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419. 




LIPO CHING/STAFF PHOTOS 

Real estate agents Peter Giovannotto, left, and Chris Iverson stand in front of a Palo Alto ranch-style house that received 38 offers and sold in eight days for $1.65 million, $450,000 more than the asking price. The agents used the lights as part of a renovation theme during the selling period. 







The three-bedroom, two-bathroom Palo Alto house features a modest living room and a double oven, but the top oven didn’t work at the time of the $1.65 million sale. 

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http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20242869/bay-area-adds-more-than-15-000-jobs

LEADS STATE IN JOB GROWTH

Bay Area notches three-year high in employment

By George Avalos

gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com 

The Bay Area economy created 15,400 jobs in February, raising total employment in the region to the highest level in three years, the state’s Employment Development Department reported Friday.

But despite positive job growth in the Bay Area, the net gain statewide was a mere 4,000 jobs.

“California’s economy is being led by the Bay Area,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities. “The Bay Area is certainly the bright spot in the state.”

The Bay Area has added jobs for seven consecutive months, and all three major urban centers in the nine-county region are now making significant employment gains. The South Bay added 4,100 jobs last month, while the East Bay gained 3,200 and the San Francisco-San Mateo-Marin region added 7,100, seasonally adjusted figures showed. 

“The Bay Area is producing what the world wants,” said Jon Haveman, chief economist with the Bay Area Council’s Economic Institute. “High-end computer manufacturing, information services, professional and business services are all doing well and creating jobs.” 

To be sure, the Bay Area has a long way to go to recapture the jobs lost during the recession. Still, the current job trends show the region also has come a long way since the depths of the downturn. 

Employment totals in the Bay Area are now at their highest levels since February 2009. The East Bay and South Bay are at similar multiyear highs. 

The statewide jobless rate was 10.9 percent last month, unchanged from January. The United States had an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent in February, which also was the same as in January. 

In February, the South Bay posted a jobless rate of 8.7 percent, down from 8.9percent the previous month; the East Bay’s was unchanged at 9.3 percent, while the San Francisco area’s was at 7.4 percent, worse than the previous month’s 7.3 percent rate, a Beacon Economics estimate culled from the EDD figures shows. 

The overall Bay Area jobless rate was 8.6 percent in February, an improvement from the 8.7 percent rate in January, according to this newspaper’s analysis of the Beacon figures. 

Through much of the recovery from the recession, the South Bay and San Francisco regions led in job growth, bolstered by the fastexpanding tech sector. The East Bay, ground zero for the meltdown of the housing market, has lagged. 

Now, however, the East Bay has joined the upswing, which bodes well for overall economic prospects in the Bay Area. The 3,200 jobs East Bay employers added in February follow a gain of 9,400 jobs in January. 

Despite the improvements, the hunt for employment remains a struggle for some job seekers. 

Even the information technology sector isn’t uniformly hot for job seekers. Gabriel Garcia, a San Jose resident, is finding that IT employers prefer to hire people for temporary contract jobs rather than full-time positions. 

“It seems that things are picking up,” Garcia said. “But it’s been harder than I expected.” 

Despite the tough times, Newark resident Sarah Babbitt, a mother of two, is not discouraged as she seeks a job in retail or restaurant management. 

“I’ve been looking for work for about two months,” Babbitt said. “But I’m confident in my skills. I’ll be able to find something.” 

The region is poised to produce more employment opportunities for job seekers, analysts predicted. 

“The Bay Area has longterm fundamentals that are better than pretty much anywhere else in the world,” Haveman said. “That is the result of the frontier economy that we have in this region.” 

Contact George Avalos at 925-977-8477. Follow him at Twitter.com/george_avalos.