This is the day where we celebrate our privilege to work in Silicon Valley!

It’s where we celebrate the fact that we can spend all year, working in cubes (if you’re lucky), on the next game changing disruptive social sharing music video coupon synergy open graph mobile app! And BECOME RICH from it!

That’s why you’re reading this at work. Because you want to!

So… what do you do for a living? And how many hundreds of thousands of dollars do you get paid?

(Do you agree with the assessments on glassdoor.com?)

By Diana Samuels, Daily News Staff Writer

Posted: 09/03/2010 10:13:58 PM PDT
Updated: 09/04/2010 07:37:40 AM PDT

A group of Los Altos area residents who lost their bid this week to keep a 55-foot-tall cell phone tower out of their neighborhood said they plan to take their fight to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

The county’s planning commission voted 4-2 Thursday to reject an appeal from residents of the San Antonio Hills neighborhood in an unincorporated part of the county. The residents say neighbors Marshall and Nadja Jackson are operating a commercial “cell tower farm” on their Whitham Avenue property, in violation of county zoning regulation.

The Jacksons already have three cell towers on their property and won approval from the planning commission in June to build a fourth for Verizon Wireless. Marshall Jackson declined to comment Friday, but said earlier this week he believes the 55-foot-tall “monopine” — a tower disguised as a pine tree — will make the community safer thanks to the better coverage it will provide.

Tower opponent Chris Hyrne [in photo at right] said he and other residents plan to appeal the commission’s decision to the board of supervisors.

This site has long discussed one of the true pleasures of homeownership: the joy of watering one’s own lawn.  How come nobody ever brought up the delight of collecting fees for hosting a “cell tower farm” on your own property?  You don’t even have to water the monopine!  Just sit back, relax, and watch those checks start rolling in.  Sure, you’ll earn the enmity of your neighbors and your kids won’t be able to show their faces at recess, but so what?  If you’re tough enough to have become a Real Bay Area homeowner, you (and your kids) can handle a little ostracism.

We are not talking about beer money.  The Jacksons are currently hosting towers for AT&T, Sprint, Metro PCS, and T-Mobile. They earn between $500 and $3500 a month per tower for having them on their property.  The new Verizon tower would be 15 feet taller than the existing structures, and by law that means the other carriers can raise their towers to the same height as the new one.

Meanwhile, the neighbors against the towers have their petition against the “antenna farm” online, complete with address of the “butt-ugly” towers.  They have a website as well.  But we’ll save you the trouble of driving over to Whitham Avenue, as the Stoptheantennafarm.org website has this lovely view of the towers:

Can’t imagine why the neighbors are complaining.  They must get cell reception like no tomorrow.  Heck, Marshall Jackson, who just happens to be a Realtor, said the house across the street from him sold in two days, over asking price, because of the awesome bar count.  ”I’m concerned for the greater good,” Jackson said. “I certainly want to make profits myself; I’m a capitalist and I’m profit-motivated. … but I also don’t do things I think will hurt people.”

Here is the house in question, sold for $1,000 over asking.  (Something very funny is going on with that house, take a look at the sale records.)

Now that the cellular antenna farm idea has been featured on burbed (an award-winning site, you know!), everyone will want to be the first on their block to plant an antenna farm!  So hurry!  Unless you’re a renter, in which case you can spend Labor Day Weekend watering your landlord’s lawn.

Low mortgage rates go lower. Better days ahead for housing market?

Now, granted, this photo was from June 24 – which is like 2 years ago in Palo Alto/Silicon Valley time.

But seriously? Aren’t “Price Reduced” signs banned within the city limits of Palo Alto? Did this really ever exist?

OR is this the work on the clueless “Main Street Media” (MSM), based out of NY, that is intent on destroying the famed Real Bay Area?

You have this long weekend to figure it out.

801 Birch Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
$369,900

Beds: 2
Baths: 1
Sq. Ft.: 770
$/Sq. Ft.: $480
Lot Size: 5,000 Sq. Ft.
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
Year Built: 1944
Community: Sunnyvale
County: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81043450
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 1 day
New Listing (24 hours)

Bank Owned!!! Rehabbed!!! Maintained 2 Bedroom, 1 Bath with spacious driveway and plenty street parking space. New Interior paint and New Carpet. Updated Kitchen and bath with granite counter tops and tile flooring. Hardwood floors, dual pane windows and a good size deck to entertain guest!!! A Must See!!!

So much to say about this New Listing.  A good size deck to entertain one guest.  Would that be a double pinochle deck?  Those have 98 cards.  Double pinochle, what does this mean?

I especially like the exclamation points in the copy after the terms “bank-owned” and rehabbed,” two terms not usually associated with realty gushing.  Does it have stainless steel appliances to go with the hardwood floors and “granite counter tops”?  That’s gotta cause an REO trifecta.

Also, you can’t beat the location, location, location of this place!  Not only is there a street sign right in front of your house so you won’t get lost, it’s in a great neighborhood!  Just take a look!

Convenient to so many places, like Central Expressway, Fair Oaks Avenue, and a really expensive place right across the street!  Wow, not every house gets a view like this one!  This is an historic property that you’ll get to admire every time you leave your house.  Formerly the Joshua Hendy Ironworks (built right after the 1906 SF Earthquake, thus even older than yesterday’s house!), it was acquired by Westinghouse in 1946. 

And it is a super view, because all 75 acres qualify as a Superfund site.  A few thousand gallons of PCB-laced oil in the aquifer won’t hurt anybody.  Plus it’s now an operating Northrop-Grumman Marine Systems plant, so you could nip across the street and see if they need any spare crane operators.  Alternatively you could sneak a few of their Trident II Launch subsystems under your sweater and sell them to any Russian spies you meet at the nearby Home Depot.

Be sure to admire the low-maintenance back yard!  The agent’s pictures truly don’t do it justice.  You have to see the whole place at once to appreciate the benefits of paving every square foot.  For one, the PCBs will stay in the ground where they belong!

297 CHARLES St Sunnyvale, CA 94086
$1,100,000

Beds: 7
Baths: 3
Sq. Ft.: 2,516
$/Sq. Ft.: $437
Lot Size: 6,500 Sq. Ft.
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Style: Colonial
Stories: 2
View: Neighborhood
Year Built: 1908
Community: Sunnyvale
County: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81025224
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 104 days

Open house July 24th today 1-4. AMAZING!!!2 homes on one parcel!First time on market ever!2 car detached garage. 297 Charles St. 1908 Colonial Revival Historical 5bd/2ba, 2,516+-sqft, newer kitchen, carpet, beautiful floors-545W. McKinley 2bd/1ba-700+-sqft. Both have large basements. Gabel dormer, original hardware, Full kitchen upstairs can be used as a rental-separate address 295 Charles.

See, not only do you get two houses for the price of one (if that one were in the Cupertino school district), you also get an agent who doesn’t believe in using both spaces and punctuation at the same time.  Plus you can use the full kitchen upstairs as a rental!  Seriously, talk about prestige!  Two basements! 

And talk about convenience!  These houses are walking distance to both Sunnyvale Town Center and Town & Country Village.  That means they’re  smack-dab in Downtown, but for some reason the agent doesn’t want you to know that.  Maybe it’s because “Downtown” reminds people of the endless reconstruction of both shopping malls.

Alert burbed reader Pralay sent in this news update on the problems.  Poor Town & Country Village!  Not only did it get a mall in Palo Alto named after it, but it’s now serving as a wildlife refuge.  What a boon to property values!

New developer buys Town & Country parcel in Sunnyvale for $19 million

By John Dugan

Posted: 08/31/2010 06:02:44 PM PDT
Updated: 08/31/2010 07:19:26 PM PDT

A San Francisco development company has bought part of the former Town and Country shopping center in downtown Sunnyvale for $19 million, with plans to put 280 housing units and possible street-level retail on the site.

BRE Properties Inc. announced the purchase of 2.4 acres of land in downtown Sunnyvale in a press release Tuesday. The release said the "transit-oriented" site was one block from the Caltrain station and adjacent to the Sunnyvale Town Center.

Santa Clara County property records show that BRE purchased parcels at 101, 201, 301 and 401 Town and Country Village Way, or roughly half of the 4.6-acre Town and Country site, from Capella Holdings, LLC, on Aug. 20.

A BRE spokesman said there is no timetable to begin construction on the site, which has been vacant since the old shopping center was demolished in April. Previous to the demolition, the buildings sat empty for more than a year, and the site drew complaints from citizens and Sunnyvale City Council members alike for its decrepit appearance and rat infestation.

Yes, The Excitement Is Building in Sunnyvale!  The property is definitely easy walking distance to shops… if any of them were open.  Or standing.

Sunnyvale isn’t a prestige address?  Get real.  Not only is this a hundred-year-old million dollar property, the houses are on the corner of Charles Street and McKinley Avenue.  That’s a Prince and a President!  How much more prestige do you need?  And if Elizabeth II ever keels over, then it’s a King and a President!  The only thing that could make it any more prestigious would be a nearby Starbucks.  If only someone would open a shopping mall.

Thanks to Burbed reader Herve for sending this in.

Is it any wonder that this is already pending? $525 per square foot in Real Bay Area Mountain View? Sheesh – they’re practically giving this house away for free!

What deal! I mean, just look at al the rooms this house has – permits or not. This is efficiency living at its best!

Just look at how efficient this is:

That’s right! There’s a treadmill in the living room next to the sofa-ish things. Now this is green living my friends. Inconspicuous consumption at its best.

If you buy this house, you’ll really need a Smart car to go with it! (In part because there’s no garage!)

There’s one problem.  It turns out there was also an award for Best Blog in San Jose Real Estate, and burbed wasn’t even nominated.  So that means we can’t discuss Palo Alto anymore. 

Good thing burbed reader AJT sent in this San Francisco property, along with a comment about walking by the place and then finding out it was for sale.  And even better, look what was listed two years ago, thanks to Herve:

Burbed reader Herve thought it would be good to point this unique property out. Apparently it’s been on the market 2 years ago for $75 million (really?).

In any case, it is now just at $48 million – another sure sign the real estate market has bottomed out and that it is now a great time to jump back in.

Just think, if you got a smart enough mortgage, you could easily buy this and get at least $22 million in instant equity. Wowsers!

What are you waiting for?

Wowsers!  If the price was cut from $75 million in 2006 to $48 million in 2008, then it should be down to $31 million in 2010, right?

2901 Broadway St, San Francisco, CA 94115
$45,000,000

BEDS: 7
BATHS: 7.5
SQ. FT.: –
LOT SIZE: –
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached, Single-Family Home
STYLE: Custom
VIEW: Panoramic, City Lights, Water, Bay, Bay Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, Downtown, Marina, Ocean, Park, Garden/Greenbelt, Hills, Mt. Tamalpais, Twin Peaks
YEAR BUILT: 1927
COMMUNITY: Pacific Heights
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 322933
SOURCE: San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 1226 days

Italian Renaissance hilltop mansion on the Gold Coast, near Presidio. Expansive Golden Gate & north Bay views from almost every room. Grand reception hall. Elegant formal rooms. Graceful marble stair leads to family level. 7 bedrooms, 7.5 baths. Master suites. Library. Music room. Office. Rec room. Elevator. Period details. Private winding drive. Garden. Private tennis court. 2007 San Francisco Decorator Showcase. Property history & floor plans on property and agent’s website.

$45 million?  Someone doesn’t understand that if the house won’t sale, your price is FAIL!

I want to look at that “Days on Redfin” number again while my eyes pop out.  1226!  You’d almost think they don’t care if they sell the house or not!  Perhaps the tenants are paying almost enough rent to cover the heating bill.

For the garage.

I’m sure the Assessor’s Office is keeping an eye on this one, as it only paid $7,000 in taxes last year.  To give you an idea how little that is, if you were to buy this house and put $9 million down, your 15 year fixed loan of $36 million would cost you $261,000.  A month.  And that’s assuming you could get the 3.75% mortgage rate Redfin helpfully put in for you.  Do you think you’d have to apply for a jumbo?

One last thing about this expensive, er, expansive, listing.  Here’s what Redfin has to say about the 2008 observation:

The seller has requested that all public comments be removed from this listing. Per MLS rules, we are not allowed to link to blog posts about this home.

Fortunately, we are.  Otherwise we’d have to keep following up on 13 Lucky Street.

Thanks to Burbed reader SW for this find!

Here’s what SW had to say:

I’m not sure if Millbrae is RBA or not, but there’s something special about a short sale on a place asking 2X its last selling price.

Combine that with the epic realtor description- "Great Fantastic House Pool , Huge Back Yard.", and you’ve got yourself a winner.  That great fantastic house pool happens to be green.  Not like environmentally aware green.  Like teeming with polywogs, malarial vectors and clumps of blooming algae green.

Let’s take a look!

I think the listing forgot to say that this is an “organic” pool.

Now, this is an award winning website!

Redfin: For Real Estate Listings, the First Week Is Crucial

By Emily Peck

Trying to sell your house? Many sellers put their home on the market at a wishful-thinking price, figuring that they could just lower it later.

That strategy could be a misfire. According to a new analysis by Redfin Corp., a Seattle-based brokerage that operates in nine states, a listing gets the most attention online when it’s new to the market. The week that a listing hits the market, Redfin estimates that it gets nearly four times more visits on real estate websites than it does a month later, likely the earliest time that a seller will consider cutting the price.

Redfin looked at traffic to listings in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Irvine, Calif., Washington, D.C., Boston and Chicago. They considered listings that debuted in the first three months of 2010, sat on the market for at least 60 days and had undergone at least one update. The site used its own traffic data to estimate what traffic would be like to other real-estate sites.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a graph is probably worth a teal deer.  Redfin’s numbers indeed tell the story:

Okay, red line is web visits to new listings, green line is visits to updated listings.  Clearly new homes, never before listed, get the serious traffic, and soon.  Price it wrong, and you’ve lost your chance, because most of your potential buyers won’t be back.  The little spikes at 30 and 60 days are no doubt the bottom-feeding bargain hunters using the filters.  Is that where you want your home to be?

Redfin also notes that half of all listings don’t sell within a year.  So, if you want to sell your house, even if you live in the Real Bay Area, it’s time to do away with your wishing price.  Unless you don’t believe in useless aggregate data.

New York Has the Most Millionaires

By Robert Frank

New York’s millionaire population has now surpassed the boom times of 2007.

According to the new Metro Wealth Index, created by consulting firm Capgemini, the New York Metropolitan area had 650,000 high-net worth individuals, or people with $1 million or more in investible assets in 2009. That is 18.7% higher than in 2008.

Once again, the New York area topped the list of metro-area wealth centers. Its total was greater than the combined total of the next three runners up–Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.

Of the top 10, Houston posted the the fastest growth, at 28.9%. But all enjoyed strong growth.

Here are the tallies of millionaires for the top 10, along with the percentage growth:

New York – 667,200, +18.7%

Los Angeles – 235,800, +13.3%

Chicago – 198,100, +15.1%

Washington, D.C. – 152,400 +19.3%

San Francisco – 138,300 +14.5%

Philadelphia – 104,100, +20.1%

Boston – 102,300, + 14.4%

Detroit – 89,100, +12.1%

Houston –- 88,200, +28.9%

San Jose — 86,500, +24.5%

Yeah, but if you add San Jose and San Francisco together, the Bay Area would be ranked at #3 after Los Angeles – at 224,800. And this probably excludes all the thousands of millionaires in Atherton, Palo Alto, etc. That’s probably at least 12,000 or more, which puts us at #2 with 236,800!

And if you think about it – NY has 8 million people. That’s just .08 millionaires per capita. From San Francisco to San Jose, there’s 3,236,662 (and this includes non Real Bay Area like Gilroy!). That puts us at… .07 millionaires per capita.

Damnit! So close! Come on people! Let’s get some more millionaires going out there. Facebook! IPO already!

1039 Alderbrook Ln, San Jose, CA 95129
$988,888

Beds: 3
Baths: 2
Sq. Ft.: 1,330
$/Sq. Ft.: $744
Lot Size: 7,313 Sq. Ft.
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Style: Ranch
Stories: 1
View: Neighborhood
Year Built: 1957
Community: Cupertino
County: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81039029
Source: MLSListings
Status: Pending With Release 
On Redfin: 17 days

This absolutely sparkling home uplifts you the moment you lay your eyes on it. How often you get inspired by a home? With an amazing curve apreal, you will feel right at home. This home is warm & inviting. Newer roof, new crown molding, hardwood flooring, fresh paint, Huge Corner, New window and Front Patio ect. Top cupertino schools!

How often do you get inspired by a home?  Plenty of homes on burbed have been inspiring, as in leading to some incredibly snide copy and even better reader reactions.  Usually they have something notable about them, such as being insanely expensive, or having a lousy location, or not bearing much resemblance to a residential structure.  This one?  I am having a reaction all right, but uplifting doesn’t describe it.  It’s closer to ennui crossed with sticker shock.

Yawn.  Another million dollar crackerbox with Cupertino schools, San Jose services, and five 8s in the asking price.  And it’s pending after only two and a half weeks.  Must have been that amazing curve apreal or the Huge Corner.  I’m kind of amazed that it sold so fast when they only put in one New window.

Wait, 7300 square feet is a Huge Corner?  Maybe it is compared to the zero lot line of a manufactured home.  This picture provided by the agent certainly seems inspired by the trailer park.

What do you think?  Is this house absolutely sparkling?  Are you uplifted?

26462 Purissima Rd, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
$8,888,000

Beds: 6
Baths: 7.5
Sq. Ft.: 11,000
$/Sq. Ft.: $808
Lot Size: 2.03 Acres
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 2
Year Built: 2010
Community: Los Altos Hills
County: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81010120
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 173 days

This extraordinary new estate is adorned w/ Old World Roman architecture. Spanning 2 levels, the approx. 10,000+/- sq ft main house offers 4 bedrooms, 2 offices, theatre room, & fitness room. Guest house includes 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, & full kitchen. Other amenities include 7 fireplaces, waterfall, pool w/ spa, sauna, wine bar, optional elevator, & room for tennis court. Excellent Palo Alto schools

You know what Old World Roman architecture means, don’t you?  If you don’t, I’ll give you a hint.  Dat’s right!  MAWBUL CAHLLUMS.  I think this property might set a burbed record for its sheer columnosity.  These pictures were lovingly borrowed from the property website and should give you the idea.  Just look for the helpful red arrows so you can count how many columns are in each picture.

Go ahead, count the arrows.  I definitely agree this new estate is extraordinary, but then again, things can be extraordinary without necessarily being good.  Like extraordinary rendition.

No, you aren’t seeing things.  There are columns in the MUD ROOM above.  Why a house in a semi-arid region like Northern California needs a mud room is something for you to ponder on while you check your bank account.

Had enough of that magnificent stairway?  Let’s check out the back yard.  Column WIN!  The structure in the center of the first picture below is the guest house.  Only 4 columns.  Not even as much as the decorative set of arches by the pool.

But… problems in paradise: there were cracks forming on the paving under that big balcony in that last picture above.  The house was finished this spring.  Should have used real marble!  That’s a waterfall in front of the guest house (columns foreground).  It was a great idea, but not for the reason you may think.

That’s the guest house on the left (above).  So, you thought the mud room was a funny place to put marble columns?  How about taking Mike’s advice and put some in your kitchen!  Or your bathroom!  Oooh-la-la!

Unfortunately, those MAWBUL CAHLLUMS not only weren’t sold by Fred Armison personally, they aren’t even made of marble!  They’re hollow tubes of concrete!  You’d think for almost nine million dollars the builder would spring for the real stuff?

You’d also think for that many big ones they’d spend a little bit to stage this place properly?  You’d think wrong.  This is what you see when you view each bedroom:

Nothing says, “I’ve got money and power” like a completely empty room.  And when I say empty, I mean there isn’t even a thumbtack on the inside of a closet door.  This house just reeks of empty, as you can see from playing Debbie Does Doric above.  There’s even empty spaces where the builder couldn’t figure out what to do with them, so he turned them into randomly shaped closets in unexpected places.  It’s like those tiny balconies on the second floor of the front of the house.  Those balconies were barely a foot deep.  So you have a room with no window, just a french door to a decorative balcony.

Oh yes, the waterfall.  The waterfall is there to deal with the reality of the lot:

Not quite easy freeway access, but almost!  The waterfall is there so you won’t hear the gentle susurrations of Interstate 280.

In summary, I think this house is still empty because it looks like it was designed by someone who grew up poor and thinks this is how rich people live.  You know, as many faux marble columns as possible.  Faux!  That’s French!  That’s good, rich people speak French!  Heck, call it a faux mansion!

But there is one fantastic feature the agent forgot to mention.  Since nobody ever lived in this house, nobody ever died in it either.  It’s guaranteed to be ghost-free!

Many thanks to burbed reader sonarrat for this fantastic find!

1005 Lakeview Way, Redwood City, CA 94062
$2,549,000

Beds: 4
Baths: 2.5
Sq. Ft.: 3,820
$/Sq. Ft.: $667
Lot Size: 1.01 Acres
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Style: Spanish
Stories: 1
View: Lake
Year Built: 1926
Community: Farm Hills Estates
County: San Mateo
MLS#: 81040895
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 5 days

Opportunity to own this one of a kind Lake front property. Over an acre of completely useable land on privately owned Emerald Hills upper Lake, Lake Lynda. Build, develop, subdivide, or restore this tranquil property. FISH, SWIM, BOAT, in your own backyard. TRUELY A MUST SEE!

Yes, indeed, this is a privately owned lake, and this house comes with 1/11th of it!  But, do you see a house in those pictures above?  There’s supposed to be a big house on this one-acre lakefront property, but the agent seems to have neglected to post any pictures of it.  Instead we get 9 photos of the lake.

And PropertyShark (registration required) says there is a small house at this address: 600 square feet, with a grand total of three rooms. Plus a 630 sf garage.  You’d think a house built in 1926 would know how big it is by now. Here’s the one room the agent was willing to show us:

Wow, they sure knew how to party in 1926.  Just imagine 3820 square feet of house needing to be restored.  Or 600.  TRUELY A MUST SEE!

Also, the agent is making a very big deal about the privately-owned lake, so let’s take a good look.

Whoa…. that lake may be green, but I don’t think I’d call that shade Upper Emerald.  I’d go with Acme Algae or Summit Scum.  Now, can we get a peek at the house?  Google Streetview can take us where no agent dares.

Uh,,,, yeah, that’s a roof all right.  And a roof job.  A very expensive-looking roof job.  Maybe it’s a good thing the house is hiding under the driveway.  So: floor wax or dessert topping?

UPDATE 8/18: Whoa… Burbed is now behind at a 35.9, while the leader is at 36.1%. If you haven’t voted already, please vote. Try a different browser if you’re having trouble.

[This is a Sticky Post] Thanks to the folks who nominated this site! Be sure to vote!

Zillow People’s Choice Best Real Estate Blog Award Guidelines – August 11 to August 25

Contest period: Voting opens at 12:01 a.m. (all times Pacific Time) on August 11, 2010, and closes at 11:59 a.m. on August 25, 2010.

Who can vote:  Everyone is eligible to vote. One vote per person per 24-hour period.

Nobody Move! Bay Area Home Sales Seize Up (July Insider Report)

Redfin’s monthly Bay Area real estate insider report draws from our proprietary database of information on homes for sale and that just sold, along with insight from our agents to get a sense of what’s going on in the market right now. If you’d like to receive the report via email, just sign up.

Howdy Bay Area Redfinnians!

Even though we’ve been busy adding school ratings to our website’s map, Redfin just cranked out our latest analysis of the Bay Area housing market, based on proprietary data and local broker insights.

The news is not good, at least for real estate agents: as federal and then California home-buying credits expired, the overheated Bay Area market began to cool in July, except where technology-driven employment continues to be strong.

From June to July, the mix of buyers has likely shifted away from the first-timers responding to the tax credit. In these situations, you expect to see median prices increase, but even so median home prices were down or flat from June to July in five of six counties.

While inventory declined slightly except in the beleaguered East Bay market, across all six counties sales volume fell through the floor. We think demand is going to continue to ease for the rest of the year, as buyers now take their time, unhurried by either interest rates or tax credits.

Whoops, this is a bit dated as I should’ve posted this earlier, but do click on the link to read more about the situation from Redfin!

Obviously, as we head into Fall bounce, and then Winter bounce, everything will change for the better!

Bay Area home sales tumble 22.5%

Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 20, 2010

Bay Area home sales slumped by almost 23 percent last month compared with last year as the federal home buyer tax credit expired and buyers stayed on the sidelines despite record-low interest rates, according to a real estate report released Thursday.

"It was a significant drop," said Andrew LePage, an analyst with MDA DataQuick, the San Diego real estate service that released the report. "It was to be expected (after the tax credit expired), but no one knew the magnitude. For seasonal reasons, you normally see a bit of a drop from June to July, but this was triple that."

A total of 6,773 homes, including existing homes, condos and new homes, changed hands in the nine-county region in July, DataQuick said. That was a 22.8 percent decline from the same time last year and represented the lowest July sales volume in 15 years. For existing single-family homes, sales were down 22.5 percent to 5,104 homes.

The median price edged up as more high-end homes changed hands. For existing homes, it rose 5.9 percent to $432,500. For all homes, it was up 1.8 percent to $402,000. The median is skewed by the mixture of homes sold.

Plummet.  Tumble.  Drop.  Dive.  Head South.  Collapse.

No matter what your metaphor, properties are not flying through windows anymore.  Foreclosures are up in Silicon Valley, too.  Inventory is rising, many properties listed as pending are actually short sales that banks can put into limbo, while foreclosures loom on more and more high-end properties.  Check out this lovely location that just received a Notice of Default.

The average monthly sales drop between June and July is 6.3 percent, according to MDA DataQuick.  Wow, this spring had extra bounce from the federal tax credits!  It’s not every year you get a 22.8% drop once it’s over!

Those Debbie Downers over at the SF Chronicle just can’t stop the gloom and doom.  The article mentions double-dip several times.  Hey, you want a double dip?  How about two scoops of ice cream!  That should turn your frown upside down!  Then take a couple of swim sessions in your backyard pool… before the bank repossesses it!

Here’s more great news!  The average mortgage payment in the Bay Area is down to $1641 a month, down from $1709 last month.  Woo-hoo low interest rates!  If you adjust for inflation, that payment is 35 percent below the typical payment in spring 1989 (the peak of the last real estate cycle).  And compared to the July 2007 peak… it’s down 54.5 percent.  These numbers are not just affected by the record low interest rates.  Difficulty in getting jumbo financing keeps home loan amounts down as well.  Jumbo mortgages were 36.1 percent of July’s Bay Area loans.  That’s certainly up from January 2009’s 17.1 percent (the low for jumbos)!  Boo-ya!

But just to give you an idea how much RBA (Real Bay Area) Kool-Aid was being served recently, back before the credit crunch in August 2007, the percent of jumbo mortgages was… (are you ready?)

Over.  Sixty.  Per cent.

I can’t see why this should put any downward pressure on RBA home prices, though!

Bacteria driving away beachgoers

By: Sarah Haughey
Special to The Examiner
August 5, 2010

Bacteria counts at levels unsafe for humans led to beach closings or advisory days, including 117 at Aquatic Park and 100 at Pillar Point in San Mateo County last year. (Getty Images file photo)

Bay Area beaches are among the worst in the state according to Testing the Waters 2010, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s 20th annual beach water report.

Out of 452 coastal beaches surveyed, San Francisco had the highest bacteria exceedance rate with 17 percent. While San Mateo County fell in the middle with 10 percent exceedance, its rate increased from 6 percent in 2008, said Leila Monroe, an oceans expert with the environmental group.

“Total monitoring in San Mateo County decreased by 12 percent,” Monroe said. “The frequency of water sampling is used to judge how well a county is doing in testing their waters.”

Rankings are based on water sampling frequency, exceedance of state bacterial standards and number of beach closings or health advisories.

The NRDC is encouraging counties in California to increase the frequency with which they monitor water quality. However, with state cutbacks, San Mateo County no longer has stable funding for recreational beach sampling, Health Services Manager Lorraine Lew said.

The NRDC is encouraging counties in California to increase the frequency with which they monitor water quality. However, with state cutbacks, San Mateo County no longer has stable funding for recreational beach sampling, Health Services Manager Lorraine Lew said.

“We will do the best we can with the resources we have, but the extent of sampling won’t be at the same level as in past years,” Lew said. “We don’t have the ability to fund cleanup efforts. This is a prime example of what a state budget cut looks like.”

Aquatic Park in San Mateo County saw 117 beach closings or advisory days last year, and Pillar Point followed close behind with 100 closures. Los Angeles is the only county in California with more beach closings than San Mateo.

Beach closings and advisories were issued after water-quality monitoring showed bacteria counts at levels unsafe for humans. Swimming in polluted beach water can lead to various illnesses including respiratory infections, gastrointestinal illnesses, skin rashes and pinkeye.

In general, storm water runoff is the biggest contributor to beach water contamination, but the Oct. 30 Dubai Star oil spill, which dumped up to 800 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay, is likely responsible for the significant increases in the area last year, Monroe said.

“A big issue is that [San Mateo] is a very urban environment. When it rains, impermeable landscapes like concrete and asphalt cause rainwater to run off into storm drains and waterways, carrying pollution with it,” Monroe said.

In order to reduce the amount of contaminated water flowing into storm drains, the NRDC is promoting green infrastructure techniques.

“Green infrastructure uses vegetation, porous surfaces or retention devices to stop rainwater where it falls and either store it or allow it to soak back into the ground rather than flow to the ocean,” Monroe said. “It’s the best and most cost-effective way to keep beachgoers safe from dangerous pollution in the water.”

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Just kidding. What were you thinking going to the beach anyway? Shouldn’t you be adding value to your new social networking iPad app that will make you millions?

Thanks to Burbed reader sonarrat for sending this in!

Here’s what sonarrat had to say:

YESS!!! Who wouldn’t want to say they live on Wall Street? $630 a square foot, but if you add in the illegal outhouse, then it’s a mere $402.

It’s like living in Manhattan, but with the convenience and prestige of San Jose. Just think, you can go around telling all your friends “Yeah, I live in Wall St. Wall Street, San Jose that is!”

Hey since you’ve living the Wall St lifestyle, you can even have a servant live in your servant quarters. How sweet would that be! “Jeeves, please fetch me another Corona!”

And it’s the same size as a condo in Manhattan too! Win win win!