Housing Market
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
Fact: U.S. homes are more affordable now than they have been in the 42 years since record-keeping began, according to a key metric produced by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Meanwhile, the cost of renting has soared to the point that CNBC.com was driven to ask whether the U.S. is in a “rental bubble.”
Are we nearing a tipping point in which renters finally decide that now is the time to buy a home?
I’d like to think so, but history tells me that most prospective homebuyers don’t end up pulling the trigger until after they see home prices and interest rates going up; in other words, after they’ve already missed the market bottom in both. (more…)
Tags: Palo Alto Real Estate, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate
Posted in First Time Home Buyers, Housing Market | No Comments »
Friday, March 9th, 2012
A 2011 survey of California homebuyers found that four out of five of them only made an offer on a home once they thought prices “couldn’t get any lower.”
The survey found that the average buyer was just 35 years old – five years younger than was the case as recently as 2007. One big reason for that is that a full 48 percent of them were buying their first home in 2011. (more…)
Tags: Almaden Valley Real Estate, Blossom Valley Real Estate, Rose Garden, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate, Willow Glen
Posted in First Time Home Buyers, Housing Market | No Comments »
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
At a time when the inventory of homes for sale is at an 8-to-10-year low in most Silicon Valley communities, the real picture is even worse for prospective homebuyers than it first appears.
That’s because many homes that are listed for sale are so badly overpriced that a lot of buyers don’t consider them viable options. As usual, there’s no need to take my word for this: Statistics pulled directly from the Multiple Listing Service bear me out. I’ll use San Jose’s desirable Almaden Valley area as an example: (more…)
Tags: Almaden Valley homes for sale, Almaden Valley Real Estate, Buying a Home in San Jose, Palo Alto Real Estate, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate
Posted in Almaden Valley, Housing Market | No Comments »
Saturday, March 3rd, 2012
Marriage is the third-most-common reason people buy homes, according to a survey of 600 Coldwell Banker agents.
No. 4? D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
You may be thinking, “Why did he start out with the third and fourth reasons, and not the first?” Let’s just say I’m a former journalist who is more than willing to bury the lede in the name of life’s little ironies.
Not surprisingly, the list of reasons cited by the agents is dominated by life’s big moments: (more…)
Tags: homebuyers
Posted in Housing Market | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
In this video, I explain why I believe the real-estate market in the San Jose and Palo Alto areas is forming a long-term bottom after the worst market downturn in U.S. history. It applies to homes in Almaden Valley, Blossom Valley, Cambrian, Campbell, the Rose Garden and Willow Glen neighborhoods.
Tags: Almaden Valley Real Estate, Palo Alto Real Estate, Rose Garden, San Jose Real Estate, San Jose Real Estate Blog, Willow Glen
Posted in Housing Market, Palo Alto | No Comments »
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
In the world of San Jose area real estate, only one story really matters right now: the incredible shrinking inventory.
Almaden Valley has 54 homes for sale on the MLS; only 29 homes are listed for sale in all of Palo Alto. (more…)
Tags: Almaden Valley Real Estate, Palo Alto Real Estate, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate
Posted in Housing Market | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
I’ve noted before that, just as Silicon Valley is an area of weather micro-climates, it’s also an area characterized by real-estate micro-markets.
A snapshot of average per-square-foot list prices in eight of the cities and neighborhoods in which I’m active brings those differences into focus.
They range from less than $300 in San Jose’s Blossom Valley area to more than $900 in Palo Alto. It comes as no surprise that the toney San Mateo County city is much further removed financially from Blossom Valley than it is geographically. (more…)
Tags: Almaden Valley Real Estate, Blossom Valley Real Estate, Palo Alto Real Estate, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate, Willow Glen
Posted in Housing Market | No Comments »
Thursday, February 9th, 2012
The “Super Bowl Bump” in sale prices started a few months early in San Jose’s 95126 zip code, and my analysis of the area – which includes the popular Rose Garden and Shasta Hanchett Park neighborhoods – indicates that a downturn in inventory played a significant role in the surge. (more…)
Tags: Rose Garden, San Jose Homes, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate
Posted in Housing Market, The Rose Garden | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
It seems to get harder and harder for prospective homebuyers to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime “buyer’s market” in real estate.
From San Francisco to Palo Alto to San Jose, many move-up buyers are trapped in their current homes because they’ve lost so much equity they can’t afford a down payment – or worse, they’re under water. (more…)
Tags: Facebook IPO, Palo Alto housing market, Palo Alto Real Estate, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate, Silicon Valley Real Estate
Posted in Facebook IPO, Housing Market | No Comments »
Monday, February 6th, 2012
This video explains how the speed of the San Jose area real-estate market – along with sale prices and inventory – gains steam after Super Bowl Sunday and how that can take home buyers and their agents by surprise.
Tags: Almaden Valley homes for sale, Palo Alto Real Estate, San Jose housing market, San Jose Real Estate, Willow Glen homes for sale
Posted in Housing Market, Tips for Buyers | No Comments »
