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Old 03-27-2018, 10:35 PM
 
8 posts, read 12,020 times
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Amazing how ridiculous the prices have shot up over the past several decades. I tried to give advice to a new couple the other day who were trying to find a place to purchase and still be near work. After we all did research together, realized San Jose is the cheapest place - and it isn't even cheap.

I thought Santa Clara was cheaper than San Jose (that's what it used to be decades ago) but its over 35% more expensive? (592 sqft in san jose vs 800 sqft in santa clara) What on earth happened around here? How do you young folks buy homes in the valley? You youngns' must be treated well by all these tech companies. Tell an old retired guy how much you folks are making?
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Old 03-27-2018, 10:45 PM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
18,813 posts, read 32,271,327 times
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First, I'm no young'n. I used to live in Santa Clara, though, and am now in San Jose near Santa Clara. Santa Clara is a fairly wealthy town without the massive population that needs the funds, like San Jose, so there are more amenities - like a state of the art senior center with natatorium with 3 pools and a spa, incredible library, and a police force that will show up nearly immediately, even if you have some benign complaint about your neighbor. A Santa Clara zip code is sexier.

That said, I really like living in San Jose now. The amenities are here, just more spread out. And because the zip codes aren't as "hot" for the most part, it can be more affordable. The more desirable zip codes tend to be closer to Apple campus. The farther away you get, the less "hot".

But, my daughter is on her 3rd home in the less sexy neighborhoods, and has made a really good profit on each one.

My daughter makes around 112K, last she told me. She's in a specialized HR field.
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Old 03-28-2018, 01:08 AM
 
Location: Santa Clara
240 posts, read 476,390 times
Reputation: 193
I bought 13 years ago (at 29 year old) when a Santa Clara 3/2 was on the market for $750k. As downpayment we refinanced a condo we purchased 3 years earlier to extract all of its equity, and we sold the condo immediately after we got the house. The first four years we struggled a lot - I was not earning enough to cover our expenses (salary was initially $145k base as a remote VP - not a local tech company - but I lost my job 3 years after the house purchase). Had to work weekends on side projects to bring an extra $6000 to avoid falling into credit card debt, not a pleasant memory, but we hung on to the house at all costs. Things improved eventually as I was by then co-founder of a small but profitable company (also not a local company, ironically) that started distributing dividends. Today we're all clear, but in spite of this, I could not afford to buy a house anywhere and certainly could not buy our own house, currently valued double what we purchased it for.
To put things in perspective, this area remains cheaper than Paris, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc. Nobody has to commit to a multi-generation mortgage yet. There's a lot of room for things to get worse, still.
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Old 03-28-2018, 03:04 AM
 
1,696 posts, read 2,846,576 times
Reputation: 1110
Quote:
Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe View Post
First, I'm no young'n. I used to live in Santa Clara, though, and am now in San Jose near Santa Clara. Santa Clara is a fairly wealthy town without the massive population that needs the funds, like San Jose, so there are more amenities - like a state of the art senior center with natatorium with 3 pools and a spa, incredible library, and a police force that will show up nearly immediately, even if you have some benign complaint about your neighbor. A Santa Clara zip code is sexier.
Sorry Snowie, gonna have to dispute a few points:

1) Incredible library? San Jose has the largest library system in the South Bay, it also has the single most impressive main public library this side of the Mississippi. Santa Clara doesn't have its own library system, it uses the County. San Jose's library beats Santa Clara by a mile.

2) Police force? There are only 3 police forces in the Bay Area: SJPD, SFPD, and OPD. Every other "police force" are glorified security guards--they neither have the SWAT forces or the detectives of large, legitimate departments like San Jose's and San Francisco's. The only reason why these glorified security guards are effective in Santa Clara is because it is a small village that has zero actual "big city" crimes, which free up these glorified security guards to tend to things like kittens on trees and worthless neighbor complaints.

A Santa Clara zip code is not sexier than San Jose: it is just closer to a lot of tech jobs than most areas of San Jose outside of North SJ and Downtown SJ. Other than that, Santa Clara has absolutely nothing on San Jose, not in terms of entertainment, not in terms of culture, not even in terms of beauty.
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Old 03-28-2018, 03:11 AM
 
1,696 posts, read 2,846,576 times
Reputation: 1110
Quote:
Originally Posted by spicydreamt View Post
To put things in perspective, this area remains cheaper than Paris, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc. Nobody has to commit to a multi-generation mortgage yet. There's a lot of room for things to get worse, still.
Hit the nail on the head. As horrific as prices are right now in the entire Bay Area, we still got a lot of rooms to go. And San Jose is generally in the middle of the price range of the Bay (cheaper than North County, Peninsula, and SF, but more expensive than most of the East Bay and Oakland), San Jose prices also has an even bigger room to grow.

I track Redfin religiously, and right now, for the last 2-3 months, practically all 3/2 homes sold in San Jose outside of East Side SJ, are in the 1.x millions.

Was talking to another friend of mine, and he jokes that: "In the Bay Area, we no longer talk about how many hundreds of thousands of dollars for homes, we only talk about how many "point"--as in 1 "point" X millions, 2 "point" X millions, 3 "point" X millions...
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Old 03-28-2018, 06:43 AM
 
169 posts, read 231,509 times
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It's not what they make but the opportunities come at the right time.
Back to the year 2000, the dotcom and Stock market boomed, people in Silicon Valley paid cashes on house, or overbid tens thousands over asking price. Same thing happens again in the last 5 yrs... stock market is going crazy 2x the year of 2000. Many people working in the tech area accumulate stock via options or ESPP. So they have money to cash and buy the houses.
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Old 03-28-2018, 11:46 AM
 
Location: Bay Area
402 posts, read 535,192 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Goodguyz View Post
How do you young folks buy homes in the valley? You youngns' must be treated well by all these tech companies. Tell an old retired guy how much you folks are making?
I work in tech so I and my coworkers can afford to buy 1 mln house in San Jose. We make good money honestly (but it is not an easy money how somebody can think... long hours, stress, red eyes, and your brain is exploding after work each evening). I'm not able to afford a house in Palo Alto or Menlo Park but San Jose is totally doable. I actually live in SJ. The biggest thing is to save money for a down payment (like at least 200K) but it is also doable if you maintain frugal lifestyle for a couple of years. And people have already said about tech stocks growing like crazy. Some tech companies' stocks doubled, tripled or quadrupled if even no more for the last couple of years.

I have couple of friends who are not in tech, and they rent because it is so difficult for them to save for a down payment, and they are not sure if they want to live in the area in a long term perspective. One of my friend apply for affordable housing program from the county, or maybe it was the city not sure. After they applied for this program, they were waiting for maybe three years or so in line, and finally were able to buy a 3/2 condo for 450K or so in a totally new development complex, and the same condos next door were about 800K for full price. Just want to clarify they are not very poor they are OK with "normal" jobs just don't have tech salaries. So there are different options. For example there is a program to help teachers to buy houses. Of course more people want these affordable houses compare to what the city/county can offer but possibilities to buy still exist even for non tech workers. Also many people who straggle with saving for down payment do FHA loans with just 3% down.
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Old 03-28-2018, 10:08 PM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
18,813 posts, read 32,271,327 times
Reputation: 38559
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobby_guz_man View Post
Sorry Snowie, gonna have to dispute a few points:

1) Incredible library? San Jose has the largest library system in the South Bay, it also has the single most impressive main public library this side of the Mississippi. Santa Clara doesn't have its own library system, it uses the County. San Jose's library beats Santa Clara by a mile.

2) Police force? There are only 3 police forces in the Bay Area: SJPD, SFPD, and OPD. Every other "police force" are glorified security guards--they neither have the SWAT forces or the detectives of large, legitimate departments like San Jose's and San Francisco's. The only reason why these glorified security guards are effective in Santa Clara is because it is a small village that has zero actual "big city" crimes, which free up these glorified security guards to tend to things like kittens on trees and worthless neighbor complaints.

A Santa Clara zip code is not sexier than San Jose: it is just closer to a lot of tech jobs than most areas of San Jose outside of North SJ and Downtown SJ. Other than that, Santa Clara has absolutely nothing on San Jose, not in terms of entertainment, not in terms of culture, not even in terms of beauty.
I disagree. San Jose has a huge library system - that only means they have lots of branches. That doesn't mean that each branch has what the Santa Clara City Library has at it's central branch, in one location.

I don't care what you call the Santa Clara City Police Department, but when you live in Santa Clara and you call the Santa Clara City Police Department, which is listed as such, paid for by the city, and not some rent-a-cop company - they actually show up and quickly. I know this because I was a resident apartment manager for many years in Santa Clara, and I've never in my long life experienced such a responsive force.

If you live 1/4 mile away in San Jose, you need to call the San Jose Police Department. And God Bless them, they are also awesome, but they have to deal with a lot more calls and will prioritize, as you say, with the big city crimes vs small city crimes. This does not make living in SJ better than living in Santa Clara. Which was my point. Living in the smaller town of Santa Clara means that if you need the police, you'll get them much faster and they will definitely show up.

And you're right as far as Santa Clara having less entertainment than San Jose, or anything else that a large city has to offer as far as entertainment. But, that doesn't make it's real estate worth less money. It's very easy to drive from Santa Clara to San Jose for entertainment.

Just like Oakland real estate isn't worth more money just because it's closer to SF than Walnut Creek. There is no dispute that WC real estate is sexier than Oakland's real estate, except for exclusive areas like Piedmont.

I love San Jose, but that doesn't make me wrong here as far as all of my points. And your arguments honestly just make mine.
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Old 03-28-2018, 10:13 PM
 
93 posts, read 129,663 times
Reputation: 196
San Jose is crime-ridden with decaying infrastructure, terrible roads, police dept who doesn't investigate property crime, etc. That's why the house in SC is worth $100K-$200K more than the hose in SJ across the street. The Lynbrook "I can't believe it's not Cupertino" neighborhood is the one decent hood in SJ, but houses in there sell for $200K-300K less than houses in Cupertino across the street. You KNOW when you cross city limits because of the giant potholes and the complete lack of street parking (police don't enforce 72 hour parking limit so people park for 2 years at a time).
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Old 03-28-2018, 10:20 PM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
18,813 posts, read 32,271,327 times
Reputation: 38559
Quote:
Originally Posted by joey_mcmarbles View Post
San Jose is crime-ridden with decaying infrastructure, terrible roads, police dept who doesn't investigate property crime, etc. That's why the house in SC is worth $100K-$200K more than the hose in SJ across the street. The Lynbrook "I can't believe it's not Cupertino" neighborhood is the one decent hood in SJ, but houses in there sell for $200K-300K less than houses in Cupertino across the street. You KNOW when you cross city limits because of the giant potholes and the complete lack of street parking (police don't enforce 72 hour parking limit so people park for 2 years at a time).
This is my point, exactly. I live in SJ, but very close to the Santa Clara City limit, and the difference is apparent. As I say, I love San Jose. But, living in Santa Clara gave me better services.

I don't blame San Jose. There are a million people in this city, and that's a lot of people to serve. You'd think it could be better managed, but I'm giving the city the benefit of the doubt, that a good number of the population isn't wealthy enough to help pay for the needed services.
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