The annual market report is out at popehandy.REReport.com and we can now learn how 2011 compared to 2010.  The median sales price for houses in Santa Clara County was off 5.3% overall.  But from one part of the valley to the next it varied wildly with 6 cities or areas finding themselves in positive territory while others were off by double digits.

In the image to the left, I’ve put into bold the cities where the median sales price of houses which sold and closed escrow in 2011 were ahead of 2010′s pricing.

What is it that makes Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Mountain View and Palo Alto “in the black”?

Most of these cities/towns are upscale, west valley communities.  But so are Saratoga, Cupertino, and Monte Sereno.

Gilroy was especially hard-hit with the housing downturn so perhaps in that case, it’s just coming back into more of a balance. (Then again, so was Morgan Hill and it’s still off by 12%.)

The LinkedIn IPO and others in the Palo Alto area drove prices up for some parts of the housing market nearby and it’s likely that this explains the positive growth for Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos Hills.  That said, it would seem that Los Altos, and perhaps even Sunnyvale would have seen stronger numbers on the same account.  Perhaps school scores are the key driver here.

Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno often behave somewhat similarly as they are adjacent to one another and often attract similar home buyers who want good schools, a nice downtown area nearby and scenic beauty with the hills.  The annual numbers show Monte Sereno down 6.7%, Saratoga down 2% but Los Gatos up 6.4%.  With Monte Sereno, there are very few sales each month and each year (only about 4,000 residents), so there can be a wider swing without it necessarily being accurate. Saratoga and Los Gatos each have about 30,000 people who call these areas home, though, so the data is much more helpful.  Saratoga and Los Gatos both have multiple school districts, views, homes with better proximity to “downtown” and more variables – I think we’d have to dig a lot deeper to learn why these two neighboring markets are so diverse.  We might also have to look at multiple years of data to see if Saratoga spiked while LG slumped to explain the difference.

Coming in at last place: the Santa Cruz Mountains or Los Gatos Mountains area (zip code 95033), where the median list price of houses sold slipped 17% from the year before.  This beautifully scenic region covers a lot of territory and several quite different neighborhoods, some more convenient and others more remote.  It often takes much longer to sell a home in the mountains than on the valley floor but it can be a great “bang for your buck” for great schools, clean area, less crowding, etc.  The remoteness of some homes, the increased rain and other challenges generally make this part of the valley a more challenging real estate market most of the time, and in a down market that’s even more true.

Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos each have regions which can be tracked in addition to the cities as a whole. If you’d like to see these numbers, please visit http://popehandy.rereport.com and then click on Yearly, then select the city, then the neighborhood and you can see how Baron Park or other areas are faring in particular (also for their monthly or quartly reports).

Areas within San Jose, like PA, MV and LA, can be tracked. Since I am very active in several of them (Almaden Valley, Cambrian Park, Willow Glen, Blossom Valley and others on the west side), I want to share those next.

The median sales price of houses which sold & closed in 2011 in the City of San Jose was down 5.9%, lower than the county as a whole.  Most of San Jose was worse off than the prior year – all except Alviso!

Alviso, which was a separate town until not so long ago, sold with a double digit increase in the median sales price – a whopping 10.6% higher than in 2010.  Affordability and investor activity are most likely the cause – more demand and less inventory than the year before. (I suspect either fewer distressed properties or that they were gobbled up quickly. Knowing would require more research.)

Downtown or central San Jose took a beating with the median sales price down 9.6%.  Why did it fall from grace?  Not everything in this area is affordable – consider that it includes Naglee Park, The Rosegarden, and a few other tony areas. I suspect it’s the number of foreclosures (REOs) and short sales but I don’t have that information at hand.  It would require a much closer look that our brief survey here to uncover what’s happening.  (We know that there are many unsold, new condos in downtown San Jose but those should not be impacting the sales of single family homes.)

In future articles or posts I hope to look at a few of these areas more carefully to see what is causing the great diversity between the areas showing improvement over 2010 such as Alviso, Palo Alto, Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos and Mountain View versus those which are really hurting: downtown San Jose, the Los Gatos Mountains, Evergreen, Morgan Hill, Milpitas.  Very likely it’s a combination of the distressed market activity in some areas, school scores, the pricing tier (i.e., homes between 1 and 2 million near Palo Alto) and more factors.  With real estate, it’s always local – and that’s just the starting point.

Yesterday Jim and I attended the Los Gatos Creekside Sports Park kickoff celebration (will nearly touch Vasona Lake County Park and is just off of University Avenue) and as we often do, drove east on Blossom Hill Road to get home. Straight ahead of us, hanging over south San Jose and Santa Teresa and extending north, was a huge and darkened cloud. Smoke? Smog? Rainclouds?

We drove up Harwood Road and to the top of Harwood Court to get a better view of it. It did look like it started in south San Jose or further south than that. Some hikers were trekking up the challenging hill and we asked them if they knew if it were a fire. “Can’t smell it,” one replied “so it must be smog – just awful!” Smog, though, tends to dissipate from side to side and not hang together so tightly as what we saw.

View from Harwood Court in Los Gatos of the smokey skies created by the Cal Fire "controlled burn" in south county

We flipped on KLIV, the San Jose based AM radio station (channel 1590) that best covers local news & traffic, and learned right away that it was a controlled burn. This morning I googled the fire and learned that it’s a 2 day burn at part of Henry Coe State Park, overseen by Cal Fire, with more scheduled for today.

The Morgan Hill Times reports that “The prescribed burn is part of the ‘Western Zone Complex’ controlled fire in the remote area of the park. The fire will take place on the Middle Ridge Trail off Hobbs Road, about eight miles northeast of Morgan Hill, according to Calfire fire prevention specialist Chris Morgan. “

If you arrived into Silicon Valley via Highway 101, driving south from San Francisco, you might believe that the Santa Clara Valley, the San Jose area and Silicon Valley as a whole has got to seem to be the ugliest place on earth. Although heavily traveled, that is not the “scenic route”.

So, too, if you are looking for a place to live and are groping to find a place that is reasonably priced, fairly safe and not a terrible commute distance. You might not even have “is nice looking” on your wish list. You might not think it’s possible if all you ever see are the ugly concrete tilt-up buildings in north San Jose, Santa Clara, Alviso, or anywhere along the 237 corridor.  That area is an architectural wasteland.

Let me assure you: there are a lot of beautiful places in Silicon Valley where you can rent or buy a home. But how do you find them? It helps a lot to have a local give you a few pointers.  I’ll give you some tips today on finding a scenic place to live.

Hills – An easy way to find a scenic location to make your home is to settle near the hills, especially those in the west valley (the Santa Cruz Mountains or the Coastal Range) as they are green year-round. Communities at the base of the west valley foothills include, in Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Cupertino, Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Los Gatos, and the Almaden Valley area of San Jose. All of these areas are adjacent to the hills or mountains and offer far better than average schools (many of them qualify as great – compare costs between these areas).

Of course, if you go into the hills instead of just being near the base of them, there will be valley views as well.  If you go to the summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains, you could really luck out and get a 360 degree view of the Monterey Bay on one side and the valley and San Francisco Bay on the other.  (But that would not likely be a short commute to most of Silicon Valley.)

In San Mateo County, there’s Menlo Park, Redwood City, Belmont, Hillsborough…most of these communities are more scenic as you go closer into the hills. Some even offer a view of the San Francisco Bay.

In the east foothills of San Jose, there are many lovely areas too. Among my favorite are the old section of Alum Rock (with beautiful Spanish style houses up near the country club), some of the rural areas of the Berryessa district in San Jose and the southern part of Evergreen (near Silver Creek and the Villages).

Other hills and knolls - the coastal range and east foothills aren’t the only areas with a higher elevation and views.  Think of the Santa Teresa Foothills Blossom Valley, Santa Teresa areas), Communication Hill (Blossom Valley, Willow Glen), or the occasional small little hill such as Lone Hill in the Cambrian district of San Jose.  You don’t have to get very high up to have a great view.  Look at the terrain maps for small elevations and check those areas out!

Waterways - In addition to the mountains, there are many scenic spots in Silicon Valley alongside rivers, creeks and streams.  When I was a newlywed (back in 1985), my husband and I lived alongside Stevens Creek – that is, the waterway, not the major road – in Sunnyvale.  The apartment complex had a number of units overlooking the creek and there were tons of trees providing a great, green view.  You can check out that apartment complex online – it’s called Brookside Oaks.

Back to the bayfront housing:  you can get waterfront homes in Redwood Shores and Foster City, which are on the north end of “Silicon Valley” on the Peninsula.  Many of those areas are on landfill, and although well compacted, that fill is sitting on old bay mud.  Some structures in those areas have had problem with an undue amount of movement.  Others have had salt water get to their foundations, which can cause the re-bar inside to rust (making the foundation far less strong).  Both communities are super clean and attractive (I have sold homes in both).

Not quite Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz does offer many really lovely places in which to live too – great views from many spots.  Adjacent to Neary’s Lagoon there are apartments, townhouses (some of which are for rent) and low income housing too.  It’s a very scenic part of Santa Cruz and just about a mile from the beach on foot.  A few high rise buildings, such as the condo complex on Broadway, feature views of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and the Monterey Bay.

Flatlands – not to worry if you strike out with the hills and waterways.  There are still many lovely areas in Silicon Valley that are not included in those areas.  One is the beautiful San Jose neighborhood known as The Rosegarden. It is centrally located, with a great wide open space at the park, and loads of lovely older homes with tons of character.

If you enjoy classic architecture, you might check out a few areas closer to downtown San Jose: Naglee Park, Vendome area and Japantown.

Outside of San Jose, there are scenic urban living or downtown areas in the Willow Glen part of San Jose, downtown Campbell, downtown Saratoga, downtown Los Gatos, downtown Mountain View, downtown Menlo Park, downtown San Mateo, downtown Los Altos and of course the great magnet of them all, downtown Palo Alto.

In some of these places, the downtown area is also right up against the hills – and that is truly beautiful!  (Think Los Gatos, Saratoga, Los Altos, Menlo Park.)  One nice townhome community in Saratoga has both green views within the complex, is right next to the coastal foothills and is just steps away from downtown Saratoga.  The area has top rated schools too.  If interested, check out Saratoga Oaks.) And don’t miss either Japantown or Santana Row for urban living!

Silicon Valley has a number of neighborhoods with great ambiance despite the absence of either hills or a quaint downtown.  Santa Clara’s “old quad” neighborhood (located near Santa Clara University) is just such a spot.

And, of course, there are spots in Santa Clara County with stunning golf courses, parks or heavily wooded or open areas that may not belong to the public but which create lovely vistas nonetheless.  A few orchards still dot Sunnyvale, San Jose, Saratoga and other parts of the valley. (New townhouses on Bersano Lane in Los Gatos are on a hill overlooking Lake Vasona. Beautiful views!)

For scenic senior housing, a retirement home or residential care facility for the elderly (which can mean independent living, assisted living, nursing or other), quite a few spots enjoy scenic views also:  Belmont Village in San Jose looks out over Santana Row on one side and the Winchester House on another; the Atrium in San Jose’s Blossom Valley has views of Mt. Umunhum; Saratoga Retirement Community enjoys a lovely campus but also is in among gently rolling hills and has a view of the Santa Cruz Mountains; the Villages in San Jose’s eastside community of Evergreen sits among lovely rolling hills and a golf course in the middle.

Many people relocating to the San Francisco Peninsula or the South Bay come from areas where homes cost half as much and seem to be twice as big, where there may not be so much congestion and where there is more open space.  We do have places like that, but it’s important to let whoever’s helping you know that this is important.    Whether you’re here to rent an apartment or purchase a townhouse or condo, it can be in a scenic place.  You just need to find them!

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.

On Tuesday of this week I was showing some nice folks around the San Jose area. As part of our tour, we stopped in at Valley Christian High School (south San Jose – Santa Teresa area). The sky was clear and the views spectacular!  (Disclaimer – in this photo, the sky ended up looking white, so I did tinker with the color.)

From here we were looking at the Santa Teresa Foothills ((lowest, closest hills).  In front of them are the Santa Teresa & Blossom Valley areas of San Jose.  Behind them is Almaden Valley.

Along the coastal range in back, the peak on the far right (with a flat area) is Mt. Umunhum.  To the far left, the higher peaks are where you’ll find Loma Prieta.

Right now there are about 4664 active residential real estate listings (homes listed for sale on our local MLS) which are houses, duet homes, townhouses or condominiums in Santa Clara County.  Of those, there are 1255 short sales (27% of the inventory) and 463 bank owned properties, or REOs (9%),  on the market.  So the “distressed properties” segment equals 37% of the Silicon Valley real estate market (or Santa Clara County real estate market).

Some areas are flooded with short sales & bank owned homes. Others are going through this meltdown nearly unscathed. Below please find a sampling of areas in and around San Jose with the percentage of distressed homes for sale (including both short sales and REOs or bank owned properties).  In most areas, there are usually about 3 times as many short sales as bank owned homes, but sometimes it’s a lower percentage, closer to 2.5%.   I pulled the numbers from our MLS tonight – info is deemed correct but of course not guaranteed. 

If you’re interested in buying a distressed property, or would like to discuss selling one, please contact me today! I have a team of experts with whom I work to assist home buyers & sellers throughout the county and with all types of home sale or home buying challenges.

Fifty years or so ago, San Jose was still a very agricultural area. The Blossom Valley and Santa Teresa neighborhoods enjoyed great open spaces, farmland and orchards. Today that’s nearly all gone. But there is still a large, undeveloped area there at Branham Lane and Snell Avenue (the border area for these two districts of San Jose), not far from the Vistapark neighborhood or the Hayes Mansion area. I wonder what it will become as the valley continues to fill. Hopefully at least some of it will remain open.

Below are a couple of photos taken of this agricultural oasis last weekend, by my husband, Jim, with the mustard in full bloom. It’s a beautiful reminder of Silicon Valley’s past as “the Valley of Heart’s Delight“.

The first view is looking west to north-west:

Same area, but looking a little up and to the left – and you see part of a barn…

 And from the other end of this field, a view the other way, looking east.

Even from a satellite view, you can tell that this is a huge amount of acreage! If you’ve never been out to the Santa Teresa or Blossom Valley areas of San Jose, I would suggest making this a part of your itinerary when you do go. It is truly refreshing to see so much open space, and it’s equally surprising to find it right on the valley floor. There’s plenty else to do once you’re out in this part of Silicon Valley. Continue on to the oldest part of San Jose, ironically called “New Almaden”. Or visit Santa Teresa County Park. Explore San Jose!

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The Santa Teresa area of San Jose is enjoying a hopping real estate market with the number of pending sales suddenly going through the roof! (Stat below care of Altos Research, to which I have a subscription. List prices are used.)

Homes in this part of south San Jose are often selling over list price as inventory drops. The days on market appears slow, but a lot of homes that have been “just sitting” on the market are now selling.

The great rush in Santa Teresa is, of course, in response to the list prices, which have been falling steadily in most areas – and making for incredible bargains.

Here are the August sales stats for our MLS “area 2″, Santa Teresa (per the REReport, also a subscription, which uses closed sales):

With more pending sales than active ones, you can see that most houses are now selling and the pace is quickening.  A major player in the market conditions of this part of San Jose is the situation with distressed properties: foreclosures, short sales or homes sold under pressure as they’ve got a notice of default on the property.

How big an impact does the REO or short sale label have on a home’s eventual sales price? How much more or less will a home sell for based on the situation as a “regular sale” or “bank owned” or “short sale”?

Buyers are voting with their wallets. Uncertainty causes buyers to be unwilling to pay top dollar. In some cases, the bottom of the heap is short sales – because the condition is less known (there are no pre-sale inspections) and even more, because the time in which the bank eventually responds, if ever, is likewise unknown. In other cases, REOs sell for the lowest amount because the condition of the home may be especially poor. Some REOs are “stripped”, with whole kitchens missing, trim missing etc. I recently visited a Willow Glen REO that even had a missing shower head in addition to the water heater, kitchen appliances, and windowsill.

Regular sales DO sell for more. How much more? Here are the numbers, which may surprise you. I looked at both 95119 (which is most of “Santa Teresa”) but also our MLS “area 2″, looked at pendings (which reflect list prices), solds in the last month and solds in the last 3 months.

Most regular sales are not only unpressured, but there are pre-sale inspections and often work done to put the home into good shape for the sale. So buyers know that they are getting a solid house with a regular sale.  They know that they will get disclosures completed by the sellers.

The numbers above display a wide range of prices per square foot, but in all cases, the distressed properties are selling for less than regular homes.  In some cases the difference in the average price per SF of the solds is double digits.  Among the pending sales, the list price is 10 – 18% less than amoung short sales or bank owned homes.

The widest gap for the average sales price is about 20%, but if we looked at individual sales we’d find some lower and some higher than that. The worst ones will be abused houses, and the best ones will appear almost like a normal sale, but perhaps a bit dirty.  One of the problems with the “auto comp” sites is that they don’t factor in these conditions, which have such a giant impact on a property’s value.

What is a home really worth? Usually it’s what an informed buyer will pay for it.  In Santa Teresa, as in other parts of San Jose, informed buyers are scooping up bank owned homes and short sales, but only if they’re getting a sizeable discount.  Aggressively priced, well staged and marketing “regular sales” are getting top dollar here and throughout Silicon Valley.

The tide is turning for Silicon Valley real estate: fewer listings are coming onto the market and more homes are being purchased by homebuyers anxious to get into a house before interest rates rise and the $8000 first time homebuyer’s credit expires.

The shift is most visible in areas with the most affordability, but even is more upscale, higher priced areas, it’s still a noticeable change.

Today I’ll share with you a series of graphs, by area, of single family homes in terms of new listings, current inventory, and pending sales (sales under contract).  These were created using our mls system (information deemed reliable but not guaranteed).

Here’s the “key” (since if I put it alongside each image it would not fit without making all of it unreadable):

Description of each graph is ABOVE the image.

Almaden Valley (95120 area of San Jose) - this is a more expensive part of Santa Clara County, but the market improvement is very clear. Cool market.

Blossom Valley (95123 and 95136 zip codes, an area of San Jose) – this is a very affordable part of Silicon Valley and has taken a huge hit on the “price rollback”.  But it’s getting better now – note the rise in sales, low number of new homes coming on the market and overall lessening of inventory. Number of pendings is almost the same as the total inventory. Hot market.

Cambrian Park (95124 & 95118 area of San Jose) – trends among listings, inventory, and sales for single family homes. The trend of less inventory and more sales is quite evident. Warm market overall – very hot under $500,000, cool in higher price ranges. (But hot only if prices are deeply reduced.)

Campbell (zip code 95008) – sales are up, new listings are declining, overall inventory is getting absorbed.

Cupertino – upscale Cupertino has improvement with numbers of sales and new listings are dropping off a bit, resulting in a slight trend change.

Evergreen – the Evergreen area of San Jose is a mix.  Parts are very expensive and some are very middle-class or entry level. This is one of the most dramatic change in available inventory anywhere in Santa Clara County. New listings are nearly non-existent and there are nearly as many pendings as there are available homes. The “good odds” and low level of oncoming listings probably has a lot to do with the deep pricing cuts there.  Many sellers would rather wait then sell now. Very warm to hot market in lower price ranges.

Los Gatos (area “16″ which also includes Monte Sereno) -  The same trend can be seen for increased numbers of sales, but on a lesser scale. If we were to break this down by price point and school district, though, we’d find that there’s a big difference from place to place within Los Gatos. There are many “micro markets” in the town. Biggest challenge: overpriced homes that aren’t selling because the buyers simply won’t pay that much today for most of the homes on the market. Cold Market

Monte Sereno is a very pricey part of Santa Clara County.  With just about 4000 residents, it is often viewed the same as Los Gatos but it’s a bit more expensive. Overall inventory is declinging, but sales are not robust and new listings keep coming.  Homebuyers, if you ever wanted to buy in Monte Sereno, now’s the time!  Cold Market

Santa Teresa – entry level area of San Jose – more affordable homes, better price cuts – homes are selling. Market is hot!

Santa Clara -Santa Clara is a middle class city in the heart of Silicon Valley, with a diversity of areas, housing types, and price points from entry level to mid-range. It’s a good guage of how the valley’s doing as a whole.  In the graph below, it is very clear that pendings are increasing (yellow), total inventory is decreasing slightly (orange) and new listings are not running rampant (red). This is fairly reflective of Santa Clara County as a whole. Overall market in Santa Clara is cool but improving.

Saratoga – like Monte Sereno, this cute city by the foothills is not for thin pocketbooks. While prices haven’t been pulled down severely, the numbers of sales are way down and new listings are still fairly high. Inventory is not being absorbed too well.  Of course, if prices would be dropped a bit, sales would pick up, but many sellers are hoping to wait it out.  Cold Market

Willow Glen – this quaint part of town features homes with a wide variety of styles, from those with unique, craftsman, Victorian, Spanish, mid-century modern or historic architecture to small bungalows and ranchette homes. Except in lowest price ranges, market is cool but improving.

In conclusion, the “Silicon Valley Real Estate Market” varies from place to place and price point to price point, but the overall trend is improving in terms of the number of sales and overall supply/demand.  It’s really a split market, though. The lowest priced homes that are cute and priced well are flying off the market with multiple offers.  The higher priced homes that are “testing the market” are just sitting.  The lowest priced homes are now being driven UP, but the highest priced homes, in most areas, are still being pulled DOWN.

We may be in a recession with 11% local unemployment, but affordable homes are getting scooped up with multiple offers and in many areas, inventory is shrinking.

Today we’ll look at five areas of San Jose which offer at least some, if not mostly, entry level housing: Blossom Valley, Cambrian Park, Evergreen, Santa Teresa and South San Jose.

Evergreen does have some high-end housing in Silver Creek and elsewhere, but it also provides some very affordable homes for first time home buyers.  Cambrian Park is mostly middle class but it, too, has some McMansions (original Cambrian Park tract with large lots and very old homes that are not infrequently bulldozed) and some homes with views (Vista Loop area, bordering Los Gatos and Almaden Valley).  Blossom Valley has some beautiful properties and many close to thecenics Santa Teresa Foothills.  Overall, though, these homes represent affordable or mid-range houses for sale in Silicon Valley.  When we look at them as a group, it gives a strong sense of what the market is doing generally.

The months of inventory reflect how long it would take the current inventory to be absorbed (or sold off) if no new inventory came on the market and sales continued at the current pace.  Six months is a balanced market.  Fewer represents a seller’s market and more reflects a buyer’s market.  As you can see, April shows a push in all five districts of San Jose into seller’s territory:

Why the change from buyer’s market to seller’s market?  South San Jose and Blossom Valley have been flooded with distressed property sales (though not as much as Alum Rock, which was almost exclusively short sales and bank owned real estate sales the first quarter of 2009), pushing prices down substantially and making home ownership affordable for many who were otherwise priced out of the market a few years ago.   Bargain-hunters have been scooping up these homes.  Prices are stable – approximately flat – so there’s not as much fear for further declines in pricing right now.

To keep it from being too busy, I rounded the numbers to the closest whole number.  Using exact numbers, the averages of these five areas by month is as follows:

Right now, buyers in many areas and price points looking for a home to purchase in Silicon Valley are frustrated with the lack of inventory (or appropriately priced inventory), so this graph will not be a suprise to many of them.

Sellers who are unable to get traffic or offers on their homes may find this baffling.  If the market is so “hot”, then why isn’t my home selling? If you are experiencing this market rejection, it’s not that your home isn’t sellable.  Most likely, it means that your price and condition are not realistic for today’s market – if your home is a normal (not short) sale.  Short sales are trickier as some agents refuse to show them since they are harder to close.

Some buyers are holding off, waiting for the next anticipated flood of short sales and bank owned properties.  How many will there be? We don’t know. It might change the market conditions entirely. Or it could be as significant as the local threat of pandemic from the swine flu.

If you are thinking of buying a home in Silicon Valley, there are things you want to know upfront so that you make an informed decision. Because the most important factor is “location, location, location”, and because once you buy a home you can’t change it, you’ll need to know some location-specific things, including:

• where are the earthquake fault lines?
• where are the geologic hazard zones, such as liquifaction areas?
• where are the flood plains?
• where are man-made things that will negatively or positively impact a home’s value? Things such as
  • train lines
  • freeways
  • high voltage power lines
  • school district boundaries
  • zip code boundaries
  • proximity to entertainment venues

When looking at maps, sometimes these items show up and sometimes they don’t. Realtors and other real estate professionals in the San Jose area often use a Barclay’s Locaide to locate the natural hazard areas. Google maps can help uncover some other areas, but sometimes it raises more questions than it answers. (Last year a Realtor who doesn’t know the Belwood of Los Gatos area too well phoned me to ask what the object showing up in the hills of Belgatos Park was – it is just a covered resevoir, but it was not identified on the map and concerned some buyers. Local knowledge is still very helpful.)

Tonight I spent some time zooming in on Google Maps, using the satellite view, and idenified many of the paths of the high voltage power lines running through Los Gatos and nearby areas, such as Saratoga, Cupertino, Almaden Valley, Santa Teresa, and South San Jose.

Below, please find the fruit of that labor. I do not claim to have tracked all of the high voltage power lines in the west valley area of Santa Clara County, but I think I got many – maybe even most – of them. I hope you find the information helpful!

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