April 14, 2007
The housing market in Silicon Valley is often different from the rest of the US, as our economy here is fueled by the high tech sector in particular. Los Gatos is on the expensive end of the spectrum and when the computer industry or biotech here fare poorly, so does our housing market in the west valley. Right now they’re doing very well, and hence, so is the market in the areas closest to the coastal foothills. But cross the valley to the less-wealthy areas with poorer schools, and it’s an entirely different experience. A lot of it appears to do with the disaster happening in the mortgage industry right now.
Broderick Perkins, a real estate writer and owner of Deadline News, lives locally and discusses our strangely bifurcated market in an excellent article in Realty Times titled “Silicon Valley Housing Statistics ‘Freak You Out’“. In a nutshell, Los Gatos has a robust housing market right now, as do the more high-end areas like Cupertino, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Saratoga, and Monte Sereno (not an exclusive list). Broderick always has good, current info on the local real estate market – he is a lot more accurate than our local newspapers, in fact – so I’d encourage you to bookmark his website and check it often to know what is really going on. One tidbit that I’ll tease you with from his article is a fact about the number of foreclosures falling in Silicon Valley. Click on the link above and check it out. You may be surprised!
