150 STANFORD AV, Menlo Park Property Details – Menlo Park Real Estate – Menlo Park Homes for Sale – Movoto
150 STANFORD AV, Menlo Park 94025

Bedroom: 2 Bathroom: 1 Square Footage: 830 $999,500
Status:
Active
Year Built: N/A List Date: 9/4/2006 Lot Size: 5650
Parking Spaces: 2 MLS#: 655631
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DESCRIPTION -
150 STANFORD AV, Menlo Park
OPPORTUNITY!!Build your dream home on this beautiful Menlo Park lot! Value is in the land, Great Location w/many new homes in area! Take available plans for new 4bdr/3ba to county for approval.
FEATURES – 150 STANFORD AV, Menlo Park
Property Type Detached Single Family
Lot Description Lot: 4,500 to 6,500 Sq Ft
Bedroom 2 Bedrooms
Bathroom 1 Shower over Tub, 1 Bathroom

Gotta love how they include an illustration of a house! I like to pretend too… After spending $999,500 perhaps you could put up a giant sign to show a house like that and live in an RV behind it.

I saw this in the Mountain View Voice recently…

Mountain View Voice: Report could accelerate TCE cleanup (September 1, 2006)
TCE, or trichloroethylene, is known to cause kidney and liver damage, lupus, Parkinson’s disease and brain tumors. According to the NRC report, there is no level at which TCE is not carcinogenic; the cancer causing effects simply go down with concentration. It is also a nationwide problem, according to the report, which says millions of people around the country are breathing outdoor and indoor air with unsafe levels of TCE vapors.

Several years ago in Mountain View, there was concern over TCE vapors emanating from groundwater plumes into homes and schools near an area designated “the MEW” — bordered by Middlefield, Ellis and Whisman roads. Unsafe levels of TCE vapors were found in one home at Whisman Station, which is south of the MEW where GTE buildings once stood. The home had a special system installed under its foundation to properly ventilate TCE vapors.

Just north of Whisman Station, the city is in the early planning stages of allowing up to 1,300 homes to be built. Kevin Woodhouse, environmental management coordinator for the city, says the TCE problem won’t affect the new South Whisman development: It’s too far north of the former GTE site under Whisman Station and too far south of the MEW. Still, he said, the site will likely be tested as a precaution.

“Everyone is aware in northeast Mountain View of those sites and the TCE-in-the-groundwater issue, so any development that would occur undergoes a rigorous environmental review of those issues,” Woodhouse said.

Report could expedite cleanup

For 17 years, complex “pump and treat” filtration systems have slowly removed TCE from the groundwater in Mountain View. But Siegel says cleanup isn’t happening fast enough.

[snip]

But the levels are high enough to warrant more aggressive cleanup, he said, noting that many residents of the northeast Mountain View may be breathing unsafe levels of TCE around the clock, because it is in the outdoor air.

Alana Lee, EPA project manager, said there are no requirements for developers to mitigate problems with TCE vapors when building new homes, but that many have voluntarily. At the new Westcoat Village military housing site, developers installed special barriers and ventilation systems under the homes. A new development on the 400 block of Whisman Road has similar systems.

The EPA told Mountain View residents in 2003 that TCE was 65 times more carcinogenic than was previously thought. Several months later Siegel said the EPA staff were told to stop using those numbers, as scientific evidence was still under scrutiny.

Hm, let’s see what’s going on at the 400 block of Whisman Road in Mountain View:

Zillow.com – 460 N Whisman Rd, Mountain View, CA 94043

Wow… who knew that trichloroethylene is so good for property values!

Zillow has this great feature called City Heat Maps:

Zillow.com – City Heat Maps
Compare neighborhood values with our new heat maps. We divided Zestimates™ of homes by their square footage to show which neighborhoods are more or less expensive. The least expensive areas are light blue, while the most expensive areas are bright red. (If your city isn’t here, use our main map to see individual home values).

Unfortunately, Zillow lists the cities by alphabetical order. Well, Burbed is going to do you a favor and list the cities in “Hot Because It Is The Best Place In the World To Live And That’s Why It Is The Most Expensive” to “Not” order.

I’m going to use my patented “I see more red, less blue” visual sorting algorithm. Ready?

1. Silicon Valley. Of course! So hot, you’ll never need to go on vacation again.

2. San Francisco and Oakland. (I think the small green dot for SF is Bayview-Hunter’s Point)

3. Los Angeles

4. San Diego

5. New York City Metro (Wow it’s cheap to live in NY… no wonder it’s not in California)

6. Miami (Tough call – lots of blue, but lots of red!)

7. Boston

8. Seattle – Redmond – Bellevue

9. Washington DC, Baltimore.

10. Chicago

11. Phoenix??

12. Tacoma (The Tac in SeaTac)

13. Portland

14. Denver

15. Houston

16. Dallas

17. Cleveland

Don’t agree with my rankings? What would you change?

I think there are some condos for sale here. Just remember, the places here used to rent for $2550 a month for a 2br – and now some of them are listed at $829,000.

As we all know, real estate only goes up. This graph proves it.

Cupertino Villas
CUPERTINO VILLAS

880 East Fremont Avenue
Sunnyvale, California 94087
Phone 408.736.8080
Fax 408.736.0755
Open 10:30-5:30

www.cupertinovillas.com
sales@cupertinovillas.com

You know, you’d think for a place called Cupertino Villas, it’d actually be in Cupertino. But instead, it’s in Sunnyvale.

There’s been a lot of sales there recently:

MercuryNews.com | 08/12/2006 | Home sales, published 8/12

• 880 East Fremont Ave. #309 $485,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to G. Kibilov
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #318 $375,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to Y. Tian
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #320 $550,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to A. Tonizzo
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #624 $540,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to P. Bae
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #632 $500,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to O. & C. Mou

MercuryNews.com | 08/05/2006 | Home sales, published 8/5

• 880 East Fremont Ave. #206 $540,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to N. Kabir
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #305 $550,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to A. Kulkarni
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #513 $530,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to A. Leong
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #609 $360,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to P. Venigalla
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #718 $540,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to S. & M. Prasad
• 880 East Fremont Ave. #731 $485,000, Cupertino Villas Investors to S. Casey

I actually lived in this complex at one point – back when it was a rental complex. I seem to recall a 1 bedroom going for at most $1600 a month. Somehow, I doubt any of these mortgages come out to that…

Guardian Unlimited Money | Property | First-time buyers borrow record amounts
First-time buyers risk over-stretching their finances by borrowing 3.24 times their income to buy their homes, the highest amount ever, it was announced today.[snip]
The average first-time buyer took out a mortgage of £110,000, 90% of the value of the property they were buying.

The typical income of a first-time buyer has increased from £32,285 to £34,216 since July 2005, an increase of £1,931. However, the average amount borrowed on a mortgage for a first property has increased by more than £10,000 over the same period.

The interest payments alone on the typical new buyer’s mortgage accounts for 16.7% of monthly income.

Oh my god… you’re kidding right?  Only 3.24 times an income? Interest being 16.7% of monthly income?
UK: 3.24 times your income. Interest is 16.7% of monthly income.
California: 8-10 times your income. Interest is 40% of monthly income.
It makes sense if you think about it – California is the center of the universe and very special. UK is not. That’s why it is essential you live here – you pay more, and as we all know, paying more is better.

Right?

Thanks to Steve for submitting this… he also wrote:

Hi- first of all I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this site- its always my first “click” of the day-

anyway, I found this,

http://www.mls-2.com/houseDetail.jsp?mls=651596&type=property&name=

Just another over priced Santa Clara flat top, except…

http://www.mls-2.com/houseDetail.jsp?mls=651596&Line1Address=2004+JACKSON+ST&Line2Address=Santa+Clara%26nbsp%3BCA%26nbsp%3B95050

You can enjoy some really nice red walls inside- then camp out on the astro-turf out back- complete with tent, picnic table, and, is that a fake potted tree on the right? Great starter house in the Silicon Valley, right?

Astroturf? This I’ve got to see!

2004 JACKSON ST, Santa Clara Property Details – Santa Clara Real Estate – Santa Clara Homes for Sale – Movoto
2004 JACKSON ST, Santa Clara 95050

Bedroom: 3 Bathroom: 1 Square Footage: 985 $619,000
Status:
Active
Year Built: 1954 List Date: 8/15/2006 Lot Size: 5227
Parking Spaces: 1 MLS#: 651596
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DESCRIPTION -
2004 JACKSON ST, Santa Clara
Great first time home for family. Actual square footage larger than county records *new pergo flooring*recent paint *updated kitchen. clean!! Open Saturday 8/26 1-4pm

So they call out the pergo flooring, but not astroturf. Why not? It’s better for the environment after all.

Opinion of Palms Apartments posted 4/18/2004: Getting booted out by high prices

My rent for a one bedroom at the current rate is 1595. For a 30 year old building?! I think not.

Well it might have seem expensive back in 2004 (before the Bay Area became dramatically more special and land became dramatically scarcer) to pay $1595 a month for a one bedroom apartment. But now look! The Palms Apartments have become The Palms Living:

That’s right everyone! You can now pretend to live in a swanky Las Vegas resort, when you’re actually living in the middle of Santa Clara.

How much? Starting at $400,000 for a 760 sqft unit.

Fortunately, they have some great financing options:

So let’s say you put down the typical 0% and get yourself a boring and hard to find 30 year mortgage – that’s $2,462 a month. Fortunately, with an interest only loan it’s just $1666!

I bet you could totally buy it, rent it out for $1700 and then flip it in 2 years for double the money! That’d be $400,000 tax free in gains!

What could go wrong?

Mountain View Voice: Letters to the Editor (September 8, 2006)
Big fan of Google wireless network

Editor:

I just finished reading your Aug. 25 article titled “ExpressNets extends reach of Google WiFi,” and wanted to comment on how great this service offered by Google truly is.

I have grown up in California, and my husband and I are both in our late 20s and have college degrees. We just moved to Mountain View from the South Bay, work full time, and found that what we could afford in the Bay Area was … well … a mobile home.

Our budget is such that we have elected to not have television, a landline telephone (as we have cell phones), or Internet, because it would simply be too expensive.

I work in eCommerce, so this decision was tough. Though I am on the Internet at my place of employment all day, we do not have the time for personal business. When I read that Google launched its WiFi for Mountain View, I was so ecstatic it is impossible to put into words.

The Internet has become such an indispensable part of modern life, both business and personal, that it seems almost counter-intuitive for companies to not want individuals to have the ability to access the Web for free.

The amount of money spent on online consumer goods is staggering. The money that a company would have to spend to provide Internet service to a city is paltry by comparison. To make a long story short, I am so grateful to Google as I type this up on the couch in my living room that I hope that other companies follow suit, mainly because we have a problem in California with too many individuals being overqualified and underemployed.

Companies will profit from these individuals when the time comes that they need people to fill positions, buy products, or promote services. If people are denied something as basic as Internet connectivity because of the price tag, it is the companies, and ultimately the community, that will lose in the end.

I think the letter got chopped off. At the end, it should probably have read:

“P.S. Dear Google – please send food. And cash”

Now that I think of it, I wonder how much mobile homes go for here…

MLSlistings Property Detail for MLS number 652020
501 MOORPARK WY #61
Mountain View, CA 94041
(Mountain View)Park: MOORPARK
Model: FLEETWOOD Year: 2006

$162,800

This Mobile Home has the following features:
MLS#: 652020 Approx Age: 1 Years Approx Sq Ft: 1160

Wow… just $162k? Sweet!