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Wild Orchid Mountain View

There is a new luxury development that has been getting a lot of attention lately because of its location and close proximity to downtown Mountain View. Not only is it close to the downtown area, but it is also within walking distance to the Mt. View Caltrain station, has freeway access close-by, and is surrounded by single family homes, parks, the Center for the Performing Arts and City Hall offices. The Wild Orchid development is located on the corner of Dana Street and Calderon Avenue.

The exclusiveness to this area is because of the very convenient location to downtown. It is only a ½ mile walk to the heart of where all the action is; downtown restaurants, unique shops, night clubs, coffee shops, and independent book stores are just a few of the niceties. And if you get in now to one of these homes you won’t have to fight the parking situation of the ever-so-popular Mountain View Art and Wines Festival, coming September 7-8, 2008.

The builder of Wild Orchid development is Castle Companies, which is a family owned and operated builder in Northern California . They have been around since 1966 and are recently building communities as far north as Yolo County , Napa Valley , down the East Bay and now into the Peninsula , which brings us to the Wild Orchid community. The naming of these communities is as unique as each setting where these new developments are being built.

May.16.2008 [ Filed under: Silicon Valley News, Mountain View ] Comment Here »

Bordeaux Sunnyvale by KB Home

From our Geography lessons and possibly from our travels, we know that Bordeaux is a very well toured port city in the southwest of France with over 1 Million Bordelais inhabitants and is proud to be known as the world’s wine industry capital.

It is a diverse city with makeup of all different races and cultures of people and over the last decade has become an urban metropolis. If you live here in the Bay Area you don’t have to travel to France to visit the newest community named Bordeaux; it is located in the heart of Santa Clara County , in the urban setting of Sunnyvale. Like Bordeaux France, Sunnyvale is known to be a diverse and culturally varied city with neighboring industry and a rich past of agricultural history. Perhaps this is how the name of the newest KB Homes community was formed, because of this vague likeness shared with the city of the same name.

Apr.14.2008 [ Filed under: Sunnyvale ] Comment Here »

Lane Woods Menlo Park

Lane Woods, by builder Summerhill Homes, is opening a new community of 32 residences in Menlo Park targeting the active, outdoorsy family of four.

The model homes will be opening for tours in mid-April and move in will be mid-to-late summer. There have already been many inquiries into this community, with the majority of the curious home-buyers being families with small children and babies.

The Lane Woods development takes its name from the Lane Family, a family of publishers dating back to the 1920s; The Lane Family put their heritage on the map with the popular Sunset Magazine, ‘the’ Western Lifestyle periodical of the time. Within this beautiful community will be the 2008 Sunset Magazine ‘Idea House’, where the concept is to build a home with exciting new ideas and smart products in mind. The very first idea house was built in Menlo Park in 1998, and for the 10 year anniversary of this project they are returning to the roots where the idea emerged.

Apr.02.2008 [ Filed under: Menlo Park ] Comment Here »

Evaluating Opportunities in Sunnyvale’s Elementary Schools

For families interested in Sunnyvale schools, the numbers are 900 and 901. Those were the API scores for Sunnyvale’s Cherry Chase Elementary and Cumberland Elementary, the highest-rated schools in the Sunnyvale Elementary School District according to 2007’s API growth report.

Cumberland joined Silicon Valley’s elite schools with 900 or above API scores this year with its 36 point increase.

As you might expect, homes in Sunnyvale that feed into Cumberland and Cherry Chase are more expensive than those that feed into Sunnyvale schools with lower test scores. Here are some benchmark 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom homes that closed in the last two months, with their schools and API scores:

	$975,000 - 1144 Lynn Way 3br/2ba; 1272 sqft ($766 per) on 6098 sqft lot; 52 years old Cherry Chase (900) / Sunnyvale Middle (797) / Homestead High (838)
	$890,000 - 214 Clarence Ave. 3br/2ba; 1365 sqft ($652 per) on 5663 sqft lot; 51 years old Cumberland (901) / Sunnyvale Middle (797) / Homestead High (838)
	$766,000 - 426 S. Mary Ave. 3br/2ba; 1552 sqft ($493 per) on 5227 sqft lot; 53 years old Vargas (730) / Sunnyvale Middle (797) / Homestead High (838)
	$715,000 - 750 Carolina Ave. 3br/2ba; 1304 sqft ($548 per) on 6318 sqft lot; 54 years old Bishop (733) / Columbia Middle (712) / Fremont High (709)
	$667,000 - 465 Wilson Ave. 3br/2ba; 1100 sqft ($606 per) on 5227 sqft lot; 57 years old Ellis (816) / Sunnyvale Middle (797) / Fremont High (709)

(I was careful to ensure that the benchmark homes were all comparables — recently remodeled with similar upgrades and of about the same size and age — so the premiums can be ballparked using the per square foot price. Mary is a main road which may have detracted from its home’s value somewhat.)

As you can see from the benchmark homes, Cherry Chase Elementary and its reputation have been built into real estate values. Cumberland Elementary doesn’t have that same premium because it has been on the rise, from 845 in 2003.

Another steadily improving school is Ellis Elementary, up from its 773 in 2005 (though slightly below last year’s 822). It could represent a good deal for young families who plan to upgrade after elementary or middle school. And people not wanting to pay a premium for schools might consider the other representative homes.

But Sunnyvale Elementary isn’t the only elementary school district in Sunnyvale. Because of the complexity in the way school district border lines are drawn, students in a large part of Sunnyvale actually attend schools in the Cupertino Union School District. How much opportunity is there in the overlap?

Oct.24.2007 [ Filed under: Sunnyvale ] 4 Comments »

Menlo Park Housing Market Update - October 2007

There’s an interesting opportunity in Menlo Park when you take into account that the city has multiple personalities. I want to illustrate this using the median home chart below and a couple facts. First, if you look at the homes that are available, there are just as many single-family houses available between $400K and $800K as there are between $1.5M and $2.5M.

Second, the ones at the low end of the range are closer to Redwood City and East Palo Alto, and use Redwood City and Ravenswood Elementary School Districts, respectively. The more expensive ones are closer to Atherton and Palo Alto and are part of the Menlo Park Elementary School District — and its 907 district API score — or the Las Lomitas Elementary School District — and its two schools with a 948 district API score.

So, with that in mind, the median value of homes in Menlo Park can be somewhat of a tug-of-war. For September 2007, there were two transactions for low-income housing which closed at about $330,000 each. If you threw those two out, the median single-family home in Menlo Park was $1,220,000. That’s a realistic 6% decrease year-over-year.

It’s important to look beyond what the numbers are and understand the story behind them. In this case, there’s been some softness in Menlo Park given increasing CDOM numbers, from 19 to 38 year-over-year. (The average CDOM over 10 years is 34.) But, from on the ground experience, there wasn’t anything to indicate a decrease as dramatic as the median value chart would indicate.

[ Median Home 2007, 2006 | Market Snapshot | How Much Home Can I Get? ]

Oct.14.2007 [ Filed under: Menlo Park, Market Updates ] 1 Comment »

Realtor Notes on the Islands of Foster City

The Islands of Foster City is a 174-unit condominium and townhome complex located along on the central lagoon in Foster City, in a low-traffic area off Beach Park Blvd. (Balboa Lane and Portofino Lane). Because the complex is on an island, most of the homes here have a view of the water.

Oct.05.2007 [ Filed under: Foster City ] Comment Here »

Los Altos Housing Market Update - September 2007

Available supply in the Los Altos market hasn’t been as low since 2000, when the median number for single-family homes jumped an astronomical 48.9% year-over-year. That year, the number of closed transactions to new listings was almost 2-to-1 (48 closed to 25 new). The headline number this year is that closed sales are the lowest in a decade, but so was the available inventory. Relative demand for what’s available has been strong enough to draw notable increases in two key statistics.

Only one condo in Los Altos was sold this August and only a handful more in each of the previous years, so their trends and statistics may have a high variance. In single-family homes, though, it wasn’t just the fact that the percent of list received jumped from just under full value to 104.31%. The median listing value also increased 4% year-over-year, meaning homes weren’t just selling for more, they were starting higher too. The median transaction increased year-over-year as well, from $1,650,000 to $1,782,000 (8%).

For July and August numbers in particular, schools play a large role in housing demand and Los Altos schools are some of the best in Silicon Valley. I’ve worked with people who’ve made the argument that, assuming that schools are the critical factor in their home-buying decision, paying a premium on a home is preferable to sending their kids to lesser schools, or private schools. To them, private schools may not be as good socially: the kids who they go to school with may not always live nearby or have as varied backgrounds. Premiums aren’t necessarily the most financially-conservative route, but choices involving children don’t always need to be.

[ Median Home 2007, 2006 | Market Snapshot | How Much Home Can I Get? ]

Sep.20.2007 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Los Altos ] Comment Here »

Sunnyvale Housing Market Update - September 2007

It was a case of home owners sitting out the market. New listings of single-family homes in Sunnyvale were at a 10-year low in August, dropping from 107 in August 2006, to 79 this year. In fact, total inventory levels also dropped slightly, from 130 single-family homes to 127 over the same period.

Sunnyvale’s average number of new listings during the month over the last ten years is 105 and it’s an illustration of why real estate is local. National news headlines from around the country correctly talk about aggregate numbers that are lower because of deflating markets — and many Silicon Valley home owners here who might have considered listing their homes, but could afford to wait, sat out.

But ultimately, real estate is about location, supply, and demand. And while supplies were down, demand was actually both "normal" and "up". The ratio of closed transactions to new listings in August 2007 was 73%. The 10-year average is 74% and it was 58% last year. How did that increase manifest itself? Besides a fourth consecutive year of over-asking closing prices in single-family homes, have a look at the difference in the cost of Median Homes year-over-year.

[ Median Home 2007, 2006 | Market Snapshot | How Much Home Can I Get? ]

Sep.07.2007 [ Filed under: Sunnyvale, Market Updates ] Comment Here »

Realtor Notes on Belmont Terrace

Belmont Terrace is a 158-unit townhome complex in Sunnyvale, which like its neighbor the Expressions of Sunnyvale, is located to the south of Central Expressway and west of Mathilda Ave., towards Mary Ave. It’s across the street from the Gardens of Sunnyvale townhomes.

Sep.03.2007 [ Filed under: Sunnyvale ] Comment Here »

Realtor Notes on Imperial Avenue in Monta Vista, Cupertino

The Imperial Avenue townhome complex is a 56-unit development in the Monta Vista district of Cupertino. Originally built to be relatively inexpensive, with square footage to fit a growing family, these townhomes are still some of the least expensive homes in high-end Monta Vista.