It’s J&N Week, Day 5 – the last day. J&N are Burbed readers who recently submitted quite a number of great finds! Thanks J&N!

MLSlistings Property Detail for MLS number 725262
18962 AFTON AV
Saratoga, CA 95070
$949,950

This Single Family Residence has the following features:
MLS#: 725262 Approx Age: 56 Years Approx Sq Ft: 1092
Detached Single Family 1 Story Ranch
3 Bedrooms 1&1/2 Bathrooms 1 Shower over Tub
1 Tub Eat in Kitchen Separate Dining Room

Make no doubt about it – Saratoga is the choicest cut of the Bay Area. At $870 per square foot – you are getting the best of the best.

Buy it, tear it down, and with another $250,000 – you’ll have the house of your dreams.

Here’s another view of this great property:

BTW, that’s not an imagery bug – there really is a fence on the right that divides this house from the gated community next to it. Can you say “cul de sac”?

Oh, and you’ve gotta love the description:

BEAUTIFUL HOME WITH A HUGE LOT NEAR NEWER MILLION DOLLAR HOMES. EASY ACCESS TO HIGHWAY 85. SPACIOUS LIVING ROOM. CROWN MOLDINGS. DOUBLE PANE WINDOWS. NEWER ROOF. BIG BACKYARD.

Easy access – you don’t say…

Further proof why now is the perfect time to buy:

Bay Area should escape worst of the state’s economic slump

Still, California should be able to avoid a recession thanks to strength in other areas, especially the Bay Area’s now-thriving technology sector.

“We still think we’re just going to get grazed by the bullet,” UCLA economist Ryan Ratcliff said.

<snip>

“Real estate losses in the Bay Area will not be that bad, and the rest of the economy should be doing pretty well,” Ratcliff said. “The Bay Area is positioned to do better than the rest of California for the next few years.”

<snip>

Statewide, home prices could fall as much as 10 percent from their peak, Anderson expects. In the Bay Area, the drop should be less, no more than 6 or 7 percent, he said.

See? Now really is the best time to buy a home. Fine, I’ll admit it – housing prices are going down in the “Bay Area”. Like the famous Yellow House in Daly City – it’s now just $574,900 -
a 32% decrease from the original listing price of $850,000 earlier this year.

But here’s the secret – did you see what I said? I said “Bay Area”. I didn’t say Bay Area.

You see, prices are falling in what the silly MSM conside to be the “Bay Area” – and of course that includes Daly City. Gilroy. Oakland and all of the Easy Bay.

Those who are savvy, the smart readers of Burbed know that the REAL Bay Area is where prices don’t fall – where prices only go up – places that are special. Like Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Los Altos, and (some parts of) Sunnyvale. Let’s face it, Daly City is practically in a different country or state or something. It doesn’t have perfect weather. It’s not near Google and VMWare or any other place that has typical jobs.

So don’t be discouraged by the MSM – heck, even if they’re right, prices will fall NO MORE than 6 or 7%. Let’s say you buy a nice $700,000 starter home today and it drops 7%. Boo frickin’ hoo – that’s just $49k. Hello – you’re going to have double that in your next vesting period anyway. And come next year, it’ll be back up to $700,000 – or god willing – $850,000.

Buy now – or be priced out forever!

It’s J&N Week, Day 4. J&N are Burbed readers who recently submitted quite a number of great finds! Thanks J&N!

MLSlistings Property Detail for MLS number 747476
76 BLOSSOM HILL RD
Los Gatos, CA 95032
$750,000

This Single Family Residence has the following features:
MLS#: 747476 Approx Age: 52 Years Approx Sq Ft: 1862
Detached Single Family 3 Stories 3 Bedrooms
1 Master Bedroom Suite 2 Bathrooms 2 or More Stall Showers

Envy the Green Zone in Bagdad? Well now you can have your own – right here in Los Gatos! If terrorists ever try to strike Netflix, you’ll be well prepared with these fortified walls. Act now and we’ll even throw in some color charts so you’ll know what the threat level is each day! (Razor wire not included.)

Housing Costs Consumed More of Paychecks in 2006 – New York Times
The combined five boroughs of New York City were far down the list, at $496,000, but New York County — that is, Manhattan — finished fourth among counties, with median home values of $788,000.

OMG. Can you believe that? That boring nowheresville Manhattan only has a median home value of $788,000!

Finally the myth has been shattered!

Right now, even Mountain View, which has a Walmart and a Costco – things Manhattan doesn’t have – has a higher median home value! $691-$790-$1.1 million (depending on the zip code).

Palo Alto, which has FaceBook and Steve Jobs, is way over the Manhattan median.

We are so #1. Tell all your friends!

Burbed: Shattering the myths of housing. You’re welcome.

It’s J&N Week, Day 3. J&N are Burbed readers who recently submitted quite a number of great finds! Thanks J&N!

MLSlistings Property Detail for MLS number 733369
223 THOMAS DR
Los Gatos, CA 95032
$1,100,000

This Single Family Residence has the following features:
MLS#: 733369 Approx Age: 43 Years Approx Sq Ft: 1431
Detached Single Family 1 Story Ranch
3 Bedrooms Ground Floor Bedroom 1 Master Bedroom Suite
2 Bathrooms 2 or More Stall Showers 1 Shower over Tub

J&N had this to say:

Those columns sure go with the house.  Why they probably added at least 100,000!

All I can think of is this video clip.

Brokers plea: Raise limit on home loans
In Alameda County, 21.4 percent of the 4,864 properties on the multiple-listing service as of Sept. 3 were in foreclosure, owned by a bank or in negotiations between the buyer and the seller to accept an amount less than face value as payoff of their mortgage, known as a “short sale,” according to Movoto, a real estate research firm and brokerage based in Redwood City.

In Contra Costa County, 29.6 percent of the 6,365 properties listed were distressed, and 29 percent of 2,403 Solano County properties were posted because sellers are in distress, Movoto found.

Dear Alameda and Contra Costa County:

Due to your recent performance, your membership in the Bay Area has been terminated. Please contact us in the future when you reestablish a more acceptable 6%+ annual appreciation rate.

-Sincerely, The Real Bay Area (Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Marina)

It’s J&N Week, Day 2. J&N are Burbed readers who recently submitted quite a number of great finds! Thanks J&N!

MLSlistings Property Detail for MLS number 727686
1123 GREENBRIAR AV
San Jose, CA 95128
$639,000
Pending: Continue to Show

This Single Family Residence has the following features:
MLS#: 727686 Approx Age: 49 Years Approx Sq Ft: 1056
Detached Single Family 1 Story Ranch
2 Bedrooms 1 Master Bedroom Suite 2 Bathrooms
1 Stall Shower 1 Shower over Tub 1 Tub

Talk about curb appeal! This house simply oozes it. A front door in a garage? That’s HAWT my friends. HAWT.

The Bay Area is special, and this is truly a special house!

wcbstv.com – Housing Market Slump Forces Couple To Open Brothel
The downturn in the housing market appears to have driven two Westchester homeowners to desperate and illegal measures.

New Rochelle Police raided a 3-bedroom home on North Avenue Friday night after undercover officers responded to a Craig’s List posting offering dominatrix services with a grand opening special. Police arrested four alleged prostitutes and the homeowners.

The house, they say, had been turned into a brothel complete with heavy shades over all the windows and a red ribbon placed out by the sidewalk to indicate they were open for business.

Richard Werner and Heather Mezzenga are charged with promoting prostitution. The two are both mortgage brokers who moved out of the house roughly two years ago so they could begin renovating a home on Mountain Road in Pleasantville.

Tough times! Fortunately, we know this kind of stuff would never happen here.

The elite and possibly communist NY Times had this to say:

Appreciating Depreciation – New York Times
I say this in part because I tend to believe that houses are immensely valuable for their intangible benefits (a sense of place, community and stability), while being much more complex investments than we acknowledge. When we calculate appreciation, for instance, we almost always discount the steady and substantial costs of upkeep and improvements, especially on older houses. We assume large income tax benefits, even when they are eroded by property taxes. We forget that inflation matters (the $425,000 we paid for our house, for example, would be about $500,000 today). Finally, we overlook the historical data, which suggest that trends in housing prices have been mostly unremarkable over the 20th century.

Uh hello. Everyone knows that Real Estate is a new economic model – that it is a paradigm shift.

Who the heck includes cost when calculating profit when selling a house? That’s ridiculous.

Profit=SalesPrice-PurchasePrice+TaxBreaks.

Period. End of story.

(Not that it even matters here in the Bay Area – the weather is so perfect, and the environment is so great, houses don’t even need maintenance. Just ask any of the people whose houses are on the market right now – what maintenance have you done. They’ll be proud to tell you “none”. If it worked for them, it’ll work for you!)

It’s J&N Week, Day 1. J&N are Burbed readers who recently submitted quite a number of great finds! Thanks J&N!

MLSlistings Property Detail for MLS number 739795
713 SAN SIMEON ST
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
$695,000

This Single Family Residence has the following features:
MLS#: 739795 Approx Age: 50 Years Approx Sq Ft: 1328
Detached Single Family 1 Story Contemporary
3 Bedrooms 2 Bathrooms 2 or More Stall Showers
1 Tub Separate Family Room Separate Dining Room

This is something that happens to a lot of people, you buy a Tiffany blue house for $695,000 – but then you can’t afford to get your Celica professionally repaired. Fortunately, this photo shows that once you buy this Sunnyvale home, it’s ok to fix it yourself! Money in the bank!