Looking at listings until your eyes bleed, and you see something that looks promising. Nice yard, well maintained, spruced up interior. 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms. Sounds good. Then you hit the open house. Your instincts are correct, fabulous yard, kick-ass kitchen, indoor laundry (a RARITY in Silicon Valley). Nice. But then you realize that at 1100 square feet, it is tiny. When the master bath is...
A short post today. The hunt is on, and how the game is played here in Silicon Valley is that you pretty much have to hit open houses. How different this was than our experience of selling in Phoenix. There, open houses were drains on the agent’s time. They would come, set out some cookies, and wait. And wait. And wait. In 3 hours (or sometimes 5 hours, as they often started at 11 instead...
One thing the Internet has enabled in a huge way is the investigation of the neighborhood. Since we are placing an offer on a house we like, and we have learnt to not trust the Trulia crime map (it says our apartment is lowest crime, HA!) Fortunately, there are many options. Since we are in San Jose, we can use the SJPD Crime Map website to see what activity is in your area. (I would bet my...
Housing in the Silicon Valley has always been different, but upon returning, it is crystal clear how odd it is. Our experience selling our house in Chandler, AZ was typical. You clean it up, fix all the warts, put it on the market, and are inconvenienced for months as agents (infrequently) bring parties through. Your life sucks as you have a 30 minute warning to get out for the next group of...
In many ways, it is a glorious time to be looking for a house, the Internet provides wonderful tools to search, Trulia, Zillow, and others are easy to search, and useful for checking out properties, but they do have a downside. Unfortunately, they are plagued with out dated information. Often houses you are looking at, and watching are under contract, or otherwise not available. Additionally, it...
Continuing on the thread of house hunting in Silicon valley – the search for a decent $700K house to buy – yesterday Barbara scratched one folly off her dream list. One thing that is charming about the downtown San Jose area is the “Craftsman” house. Typically built about 100 years ago, small lot, small house and tons of character. You see some that are extremely well done...
Real estate in the bay area is a bit surreal. Words and phrases often have subtle subtext that isn’t obvious if you haven’t been steeped in it. One thing that you quickly learn is that the price often isn’t what they want the house to sell at. Clues to this are prices that are too precise. For example, knowing that you can afford $700K, you can be looking at some great...
There is no doubt that the Internet has greatly enhanced the experience of hunting for a house. Trulia, Homes.com, and Zillow all put hundreds or thousands of listings at your fingertips. However, after sorting through the mountains of listings, I have some observations: Some (far too many) agents phone it in. Looking at the photographs is the first symptom. Out of focus, poorly framed photos. I...
Moving to the next phase of our San Jose adventure, it is time to begin the hunt for a house to buy. All the insanity of the Bay Area market is in our face. Starting over the holidays was a bad idea. Inventory is dismal. Almost nothing in our price range or in neighborhoods we like, picking are slim. But we got our loan preapproval, so we are locked and loaded. Scary thought: Borrowing the...
In case you have been living under a rock and not read my award winning blog posts (ha ha ha), we relocated to San Jose from Phoenix, and slipped into an apartment as a temporary landing spot. We have tried to make the best of it, and my prior posts have highlighted some of the challenges we have experienced. It isn’t all bad, but… Last night, around 8:15 PM, we suited up the boys in...