Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog

[You can find more recent information in the article Cupertino Housing Market Update - July 2007.] 

Flat and down.  Those are words you might not expect in the real estate market of a city with some of Silicon Valley's most renowned schools.  And it's a reputation Cupertino added to with three of its high schools, as part of the Fremont Union School District, earning the coveted California Distinguished School Award in 2007.  With good schools, come good real estate prices — so the saying goes.

It was definitely a red hot market in Cupertino for the past couple years.  In 2005, the average townhome/condominium stayed on the market for a "blink and you'll miss it" time of 9 days.  In 2006, the days-on-market (DOM) number "doubled" to 17.  This March, it was a relatively high 41.  (There are a lot of real estate agents around the country who would still envy that number.)

Looking at the chart, it's a fact that, relative to the Santa Clara County average, Cupertino townhome and condominium prices got ahead of themselves in 2006, right?  After all, that number was ahead of the average by 43%. 

Not exactly. 

What if I said that last year's market number isn't nearly as bad as it's been and the March 2007 number is a steal?

Continue Reading »

Apr.23.2007 [ Filed under: Cupertino, Market Updates ] Comment Here »

I mentioned in my Silicon Valley Housing Market Update – April 2007, that the recent 9.2% increase in single-family home prices year-over-year in Santa Clara County wasn't necessarily bad news for most buyers.  Then I left a cliffhanger for Sunday.

I've updated the article with the reasons why and where there are softer areas that Silicon Valley home buyers can look at.  More…

Apr.14.2007 [ Filed under: Market Updates ] Comment Here »

Blame Palo Alto, Mountain View and Saratoga.  One of the ways I try to help my clients make the most of their money is to look for statistics that are out of place. 

Sometimes a good Silicon Valley neighborhood has an increase in housing inventory, which causes prices there to soften up, other times you'll see an area become a better value when there's been recent (but correctable) bad news.  There are a myriad of opportunities to find good deals or spot areas where you may have to overpay to play.

When I ran the numbers for Santa Clara County this month, I had a picture in my head of what the graph should look like.  After all, since non-real estate folks depend on both my knowledge and intuition, I tour hundreds of houses, both with clients and for my own research, in a year.  It's my responsibility.

The picture basically looked like this, the San Mateo County graph which has a slight lull after the insanity of 2005 and a modest increase from March 2006 to 2007 — which in this case is 3.5% for single-family homes. 

Lower priced homes (ones below the Silicon Valley aggregate median) go more quickly and increase in price faster because more people here can afford them.  Because of that, the large increase in the price of townhomes and condominiums in San Mateo, a gain of 7.3% year-over-year, was expected.  I'd sent out letters to prospects in February about this.

Like in San Mateo County, the median price of condos and townhomes in Santa Clara County's part of Silicon Valley also increased considerably: 8.2% year-over-year.  No surprise, a lot of people are competing to buy affordable properties.  

What I didn't expect, though, was the magnitude of the increase in single-family home prices year-over-year in Santa Clara County: 9.2%.  This isn't bad news for most buyers and there are softer areas that Silicon Valley home buyers can take advantage of.

Continue Reading »

Apr.13.2007 [ Filed under: Market Updates, Silicon Valley News ] Comment Here »

The California Department of Education (CDE) has released the updated 2006 Academic Performance Index (API) scores for California schools, including data for San Mateo County and Santa Clara County.  The API is a statewide benchmark based on standardized achievement tests which is primarily used to rank schools relative to one another and relative to schools with similar demographics.  Here’s an example of what the statistics look like.

We’ll take a look at how school rankings and Silicon Valley real estate prices are related, but first let’s look at how to read the information.

Number of Students. In the first column, you’ll find the number of students whose results were included from that school.  It’s pretty close to the total number of students, less any excluded students.  The rules for excluding students are listed in the API Base Documentation Information Guide found on the CDE API page.  Surprisingly, the number of students has little to do with how well the school did in its API scores (almost, see epilogue).

Base API, Statewide Rank, Similar Schools Rank. The Base API score is like an SAT score except it’s from 200 to 1000.  Higher is better.  To make comparing schools easier, the CDE provides a statewide rank from 1 to 10 (ten is best) and a similar schools rank that rates schools (again from 1 to 10, ten being best) that have similar demographics and characteristics.  Apples-to-apples in a way.

Growth Target, API Target. The growth target is the number of points California wants the school to improve in the next year.  That added with the current base API score equals the API target.  The CDE doesn’t set a target for schools above the current statewide performance target of 800.

Silicon Valley School District Scores

I’ve assembled information from the CDE site and the Palo Alto Daily News to provide a table of school district API averages for Silicon Valley and Bay Area elementary and middle schools.

Continue Reading »

Mar.31.2007 [ Filed under: Cupertino, Foster City, Home Buyers, Market Updates, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Mateo, Schools, Sunnyvale ] 10 Comments »