i made a vacation of it. played torrey pines (both courses) as well as aviara golf club. went with the wife to universal studios. took the dog to a couple of beaches.
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My brother is in Mountain View; way back he was considering a Giulia and when I was there we visited Stevens Creek.
The showroom was literally next to a MERC dealer( I assume it was theirs). They had 3 cars in the showroom, place looked disorganized. There was a receptionist, & no sales person
. Couldn't give any info not even a brochure...When we walked out I told my brother if you buy from these guys you deserve to get screwed.....
He said they were/are the big dogs in the area, almost like the only game in town.....I came away unimpressed...
It seems everything in that area (San Jose, Sunnyvale/Mt. View) is overinflated in price.
My labor costs are $190/hr at my Ferrari/Maserati/Alfa dealer
Yes, Steven's Creek Alfa-Maserati is owned by Autonation, who also owns the Benz dealership and several others along auto row. The lack of sales people seems to be something new. I do not know how you sell anything with all of the cars locked and not even 1 sales person. When I dropped by for service (transmission fluid change) there was not even a receptionist. Parking is terrible too.My brother is in Mountain View; way back he was considering a Giulia and when I was there we visited Stevens Creek.
The showroom was literally next to a MERC dealer( I assume it was theirs). They had 3 cars in the showroom, place looked disorganized. There was a receptionist, & no sales person
When we walked out I told my brother if you buy from these guys you deserve to get screwed.....
He said they were/are the big dogs in the area, almost like the only game in town.....I came away unimpressed...
It seems everything in that area (San Jose, Sunnyvale/Mt. View) is overinflated in price.
My labor costs are $190/hr at my Ferrari/Maserati/Alfa dealer
Houses in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale are selling for $2,000,000 to $2,500,000. That's for a 3 bedroom 50 to 70 year old 1100 - 1700 square foot single family residence on a 5000-7000 square foot lot. Even at those prices, some homes get torn down. This will likely escalate with Applied Materials' announcement that they are building/buying a new facility in Sunnyvale (they have been on Bowers in Santa Clara "forever"). According to the news, Santa Clara is the only growing community in the S.F. Bay area, mostly due to high density condos being built at the north end (near the stadium) of town; where the flood and earthquake risks are high.
Anyway, high housing prices force the cost of everything to go up. The people you buy from have to either commute a long distance, pay high rent, or have a large income to be able to afford such an expensive home. The problem in the S.F. bay area is clearly that there is essentially no more buildable space. What looks like open space in the hills is mostly high fire danger, high landslide risk and/or high earthquake danger locations (often all 3) that are not suitable for development.
Don't you worry.....Gov. Newsom is going to address all that
All kidding aside, that's RE, when you are getting a crazy return on what you have, unless you are leaving the area, your buy-back-in in just as crazy....
For a long time in the Silicon Valley area the advice has been "trade up periodically". I really think that advice is "pay more agent commissions", but the concept is that a rising tide floats all boats and as your income increases you can afford a higher payment. I do not know if it really works, I have been at the same location since 1986.Don't you worry.....Gov. Newsom is going to address all that
All kidding aside, that's RE, when you are getting a crazy return on what you have, unless you are leaving the area, your buy-back-in in just as crazy....
Not Newsom nor any other governor can fix this issue. The jobs are concentrated where the talent is, the talent is concentrated where the jobs are, and nearby buildable space is pretty much exhausted. A married couple both of whom are said talent can afford to buy in this area, just barely. I believe that is what sets the prices. The emphasis now is on building higher density residences that most people do not want but who are forced into by economics*. Also building in less desirable areas, such as flood prone and polluted northern Santa Clara. Believe it or not, they are building on top of the old city dump (all commercial?).
Anyway, the point is that in such a neighborhood your local mechanic has to charge more than in lower cost areas because his expenses are higher and his employers expenses are higher.
* It used to be agricultural and there are pockets of nasty chemical spills from where barns and such were located. All kinds of s*** hit the fan when one popular restaurant started an expansion and dug up the parking lot to lay a bigger sewer pipe: it turns out that the parking lot is a "superfund site" due to agricultural chemical spills and the pavement is a toxin containment system. City planning says the property owner should have known, property owner (IMO correctly) says that city planning should have known, the contractor got screwed in the middle; I suspect they are still pointing fingers more than 10 years later.
** 3 to 5 story wood framed construction, which sure looks like a massive fire hazard to me. Several of them have spectacularly burned during construction. Also, I suspect that "quiet" is not available inside such a structure.
esp with the interest rates now. 30 year fixed is now somewhere around 6.125 percent. my 30 year fixed loan in 2010 was 2.875 percent... most houses that hit the market in even somewhat desirable areas are being gobbled up by overseas people who have cash.Don't you worry.....Gov. Newsom is going to address all that
All kidding aside, that's RE, when you are getting a crazy return on what you have, unless you are leaving the area, your buy-back-in in just as crazy....
case in point. i looked at a home that was listed for 1.795. i offered 1.8 (900k, so half cash)... ended up selling for 1.89 FULL CASH.
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