Mary Pope-Handy's Silicon Valley Real Estate Commentary

For many homesellers in Los Gatos (and Silicon Valley generally), and for their Realtors, the real estate market is extremely challenging right now. Buyers have been wary for many months already, but now they're concerned about a recession and job losses, not just the possibility of a real estate sales price that won't hold its value later. It is a deepening buyers market overall, but especially within the market for single family homes.

Read more at Closed Sales of Homes in Los Gatos: Yes, The Numbers Are Down (includes the absorption rates of single family homes and condos in Los Gatos in 2008).

Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor,  CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley"
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax);   408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.DelightHomes.com     (PopeHandy.com) & www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com
Blog: www.LiveInLosGatos.com

The Oak Canyon neighborhood of the Almaden Valley district in San Jose is an upscale area with good-sized homes and lots on well kept, meandering streets near the base of the coastal foothills. It's near to Los Gatos and Cambrian Park, so is a very convenient area for commuters.

Additionally, Oak Canyon has a great nearby elementary school, Guadalupe School, which features high scores.

To learn more about this great area, please read Meet the Oak Canyon Neighborhood of Almaden Valley in San Jose on the Valley of Hearts Delight blog.

Please contact me for all your Almaden Valley or  Silicon Valley real estate needs!    

Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor,  CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley"
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax);   408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.DelightHomes.com     (PopeHandy.com)
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com
Blog: www.LiveInLosGatos.com & www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com

Prices are getting pushed down in virtually all parts of Silicon Valley and in San Jose particularly. Even so, the downward pressure is not uniform among all home types and price points. The San Jose real estate scene is varied by region, home type, condition, school district, and many more factors, including the number of nearby foreclosures and short sales.

The four areas studied appear to be doing better than the city as a whole. For instance, here's the graph of list prices for all of San Jose (which has about a million residents spread over many districts):





What is fairly consistent throughout San Jose, and Santa Clara County too, is that the highest priced properties are suffering much less than the lowest priced ones. The above graph makes that very apparent.

To get a better idea of how pricing is faring among condos and single family homes in Almaden Valley, Cambrian Park, Willow Glen and West San Jose, please visit the Valley of Hearts Delight blog post,
Comparing Real Estate List Prices in Four San Jose Districts.

Please contact me for all your Silicon Valley real estate needs!

    
Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor,  CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley"
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax);   408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.DelightHomes.com     (PopeHandy.com)
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com
Blog: www.LiveInLosGatos.com & www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com

Surrey Farms is a highly sought after neighborhood in the Kennedy Road area of east Los Gatos.  A comforably sprawling enclave (gated, but the gate never closes) of low-key but spacious ranch style homes reside on large, half-acre lots. 

The area once did have horses and a large stable, but those days are now long gone. It is a charming area because it is so unpretentious.

Homes in this area have become far more affordable recently, with some now in the mid 1 millions (appx 1.5 mil).

You can read much more about Surrey Farms over at the Live in Los Gatos blog.  I invite you to see some pictures and get to know this "close to town" area better by reading Great Neighborhood: Surrey Farms in Los Gatos

Please contact me for all your Los Gatos real estate and nearby Silicon Valley real estate needs:
    

Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor,  CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley"
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax);   408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.DelightHomes.com     (PopeHandy.com)
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com
Blog: www.LiveInLosGatos.com & www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com

One of the most sought-after areas among first time Los Gatos homebuyers is Blossom Hill Manor, also known as Blossom Manor or simply The Manor. What's the draw? Often it's the award winning Los Gatos schools, two of which are within a mile: the newly remodeled and renovated Blossom Hill School and Fisher Middle School. Also highly valued is the proximity to grocery stores, banks, coffee shops, and much more - many so close that a car is not needed to reach them. More reasons for the enduring popularity -  a good proximity to parks & freeway access points and a quick 2 miles to downtown Los Gatos.

Most of the neighborhood consists of single family homes with prices that  range from a low of about $1.1 million to a high of about $2.2 million. A few duplexes line the outside of the neighborhood, though, on Blossom Hill Road, Camelia Terrace and Los Gatos-Almaden Road.

For more information, please view my lengthy and detailed post on the Live in Los Gatos blog. There you'll find a map of the neighborhood, photos and a slideshow, plus information on things to investigate if purchasing in the area. Meet the Blossom Manor Neighborhood of Los Gatos.

For more information on buying homes in Los Gatos, please visit the Los Gatos Homebuyer Starting kit page - nothing to download and loads of information available there.

Please contact me for all your Los Gatos and nearby Silicon Valley real estate needs!

Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor,  CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley"
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax);   408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.DelightHomes.com     (PopeHandy.com)
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com
Blog: www.LiveInLosGatos.com & www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com

With all the grim news on Wall Street lately, the question arises as to whether or not home sales are being adversely affected. My clients all seem to have gone into a holding pattern of wanting things to calm down first.

My seller clients are either waiting to regain some equity or simply waiting until they feel like they won't be getting so beat up in the market. My buyer clients are now unsure about the basics like job security with a looming recession.

Perhaps there will be less insecurity after the election.

Meanwhile, though, are sales in Los Gatos this month adversely impacted by the economic crisis? To see the answer, please read on at my Live in Los Gatos blog: Is The Economic Crisis Impacting Los Gatos Home Sales?

When I started blogging a couple of years ago, my #1 concern was where to get images and graphics. How on earth did people find them without violating copyright????

One simple way is to make them yourself. Frances Flynn Thorsen opened my eyes to the easy, simple and amazing things that can be done with Microsoft Paint. It's not enough by itself, but it becomes awesome when combined with Picnik.

Let's say you want to make a button. For our example, it will be a "contact me now" button.

Go to Paint.

1. First decide what shape your button will be. For our purposes, let's choose the rectangular shape with rounded corners. Pull the mouse across the field to form the basic shape of your button. It does not have to be exact.
2. Then, click on the icon that indicates a paint bucket pouring out its paint.
3. Now you can choose a color. The palette will show up at the bottom of the screen (if the basic colors aren't enough, go to the toolbar above and click on "Colors" and then "Edit Colors" and there will be more choices).
4. After selecting the color, move your mouse into the rectangle and click the button. The color you chose should fill up the space. (If you don't like the color, just go to "edit" and "undo" and try again.)
5. Now save your colored shape. Go to "file" then "save as" and choose the type of file you want it to be. Jpg is easy. Put it somewhere in your pictures file where you can remember it.
6. Close paint.

Go to Picnik.com.

1. On your browser, go to www.Picnik.com
2. Click on the upper right corner, "start picniking".
3. Upload your colored shape. It will have a LOT of white space, but don't worry  - we'll crop that out next.
4. After uploading, go to the "edit" tab and chose the "crop" button. Drag your mouse so that the cropping screen covers what you want to work with, and then click ok.
5. Now you have your basic colored rectangle without all the extra white space around it. Almost done!
6. Click on the tab that says "create".
7. Click on the sub tab that says "text".
8. Now you can select your words, then font, then the color and size of the font. What is good about this (as opposed to paint) is that the words slip over the color as if transparent. If you did this in paint, you'd have a large white space all around your text. Very ugly!
9. More? You can then click on the sub tab for "shapes" and add stuff. Since it's almost Halloween, I'll add a few graphics for the season....
10. Lastly, click on the "save & share" button. It's intuitive from here!

It's not too late to get into the "spirit" of Halloween! Our subtropical, northern California weather could not be nicer and there are lots of reasons to get out and enjoy the spookiest of seasons!

For a good list of fun things to do in Silicon Valley, please visit my Valley of Hearts Delight blog post: Halloween Events in Silicon Valley.

And if you enjoy real ghost stories, please stop by my Haunted Real Estate blog! There you'll find stories of things that go bump in the night - many of them from real estate professionals who report their hair-raising events in the line of work first hand. Enjoy!  Happy Halloween!

When I got my license in early 1993, the market was a little like this. Buyers just weren't buying. It was not nearly so bad, of course, but it was memorable. One young agent simply doorknocked, all day, every day, until she got a client to work with. Her tenacity eventually propelled her to the top of the industry.

Things are far worse now. The number of Realtors and affiliated real estate business professionals has been declining and will continue to do so for the next year or so at least. If you choose to remain in this business, what will you do or are you now doing so that you not only survive, but thrive?

• Will you do what you've always done, but more of it?
• Will you change the way you prospect or qualify your clients?
• Are you marketing and prospecting more, less, or differently?
• If you needed to tell someone else the "top three" things to do or change in this market, what would they be?

Do you use landing pages in your business? If you haven't heard of them, they are pages on your site or blog to which you drive targeted visitors.

For instance, you could want to get first time homebuyer leads in your town or city, so you could create a page intended for that group. It could be any niche or target, from a type of buyer or seller (first time, luxury, move up) or property (view homes, condos, REOs).

I decided that I want to find more Los Gatos home buyers so set out to create a landing page for that purpose. In an effort to make it effective, I've been reading up on how to do it right, listening to webinars, and utilizing some of the techniques I've learned from blogging. There are some things that I read that I should not do, but am doing anyway (putting the page on an interior pages that has links to other sections of the site - the gurus seem to prefer a stand alone page without the usual navigation stuff).

This is a new area for me, but I'm hoping it'll be effective. One of the marketing gurus I have paid attention to is Jennifer Cummings (Potato Chip Marketing) and I have tried to implement her approach, even if it's not really my style. (It will be my style if it works!)

See what you think - I appreciate your feedback.

Buy a Los Gatos Home!