Sold at 29.5% over listing price: Palo Alto
Thanks to Burbed commenter “Renter” for finding this. The fact that this house sold at 29.5% over asking restores my faith in humanity… and my faith in that there is a Real Bay Area.
Palo Alto - seriously, if you’re not getting an option arm to get in right now, I don’t know what you’re doing.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:00 am
Dividing the price by the lot sq footage get you exactly $200 per square foot, which is where PA shack-value is right now. Crazy, but true.
Of course its nice to see that the seller is going to credit the buyer to fix the heater, a beautiful gesture.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:18 am
“Seller passed away peacefully in home….” This would probably preclude the buyers from being Chinese which means it could have gone for 40% over asking normally.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:29 am
There are many builders looking for lots in that area. To a builder, anything under $2M in Palo Alto is game, because they can put a new house on the lot and still turn a nice profit.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Coming from a Stanford alumnus, I can tell you exactly what is going on. People in the know have made a ton of money recently. But they also know what is coming and fear social disorder and the wrath of the losers. They want to circle the wagons and live out the greater depression inconspicuously as faux middle class amongst the other winners. Palo Alto is considered the perfect stealth “Green Zone” to hide their children in.
They might be right about that. I remember the crack wars of the 1980s. There was one ten hour period where ten people were shot in East Palo Alto. One bleeding group literally drove their car into the Stanford Hospital ER. Yet life in Palo Alto was safe and serene, untouched by the chaos across 101. In contrast, the 1992 Rodney King riots swept through Pasadena.
Will Palo Alto’s magic work again? Who knows. But some families are willing to spend a couple of million in the hope that it will.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Here’s a puzzler:
There are at least 3 houses in the same neighborhood selling at massive losses. Can someone explain? Burbed? RealEstater?
Found on trulia.com
435 Monroe Dr, 94306
Sales History
Historical home sale price (1): $128,000
Prior sale date: Dec 28, 2007
Change since this sale (1): NA
Historical home sale price (2): $850,000
Prior sale date: Jul 20, 2005
Change since this sale (2): -85%
Historical home sale price (3): $846,000
Prior sale date: Feb 29, 2000
Change since this sale (3): -85%
February 21st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Here’s one from Los Altos. I thought Los Altos was the hands-down swankiest most desireable place in the “Bay Area”….
This data is even worse than flippersintrouble in Sacto……
152 Pasa Robles, 94022
Sales History
Historical home sale price (1): $183,000
Prior sale date: Nov 27, 2007
Change since this sale (1): NA
Historical home sale price (2): $990,000
Prior sale date: Jul 14, 2005
Change since this sale (2): -82%
Historical home sale price (3): $776,000
Prior sale date: Aug 27, 2004
Change since this sale (3): -76%
February 21st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Area 51,
Don’t get excited too soon. Those are definitely not real sales; most likely intra-family transactions. If any house in those cities is listed in the low 1M range, it would not last more than 1 week on the market. The open house would be swamped, and the price would be bid up way over asking.
This may be unimaginable in “Area 51″, but it’s not an exaggeration by any means.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
The buyer is a veteran in high-tech industry and holds a partner position at a big venture firm.
It’s unimaginable to see someone like him would buy an awfully looking house such as this to live. So “New Zealand Renter” is probably right.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
A house in Barron Park selling for almost 30% over the asking price is not that surprising. Barron Park is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in PA, and has been described as “swanky rural” and “the least pretentious part of Palo Alto” by the residents who live there. Check out the Palo Alto Weekly’s archives for their article on how “special” Barron Park is, and then you’ll understand.
February 21st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I’m feeling stupid. What is New Zealand Renter talking about? Circling the wagons? How is buying there a defensive position?
February 21st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Crossroads,
You’re not alone. I have no clue what this person is talking about. Sounds like some kind of fiction.
February 21st, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Palo Alto is too close to East Palo Alto. If there is social disorder, it would be very easy for the East PA folks to cross 101.
As a University of Southern California Alumnus, I know that the Los Angeles riot almost burned USC. Stanford is too close to East PA.
February 21st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Re: 10. and 11.
The US has been waging a one sided class war on labour for at least 27 years. Media brainwashing and easy credit has kept the losers from fighting back. But that con game has run its course. Hiding in a low bling, relatively modest but yet exclusive place like PA is a defensive move against the coming rage of the losers.
PA is a place the slightly rich ( liquid net worth only circa 10 million) can pretend to be ordinary middle class because it looks like any midwestern middle class burb. Yet they get the “exclusivity” they crave, very few of the “wrong” kind of people live in PA any more.
For every great boom, must follow a great bust. This decade was a greater carnival of foolish leveraged greed than even the 1920s. Therefore the bust to follow will be even worse than the 1930s. The majority of the population will be left with zero assets and no ability to demand a wage higher than Chinese or Indian workers. Endgame: Checkmate. The formerly middle class can accept a lifetime of humiliating low wage servitude or join the underclass in a life of crime.
When the average person finds out how totally they are screwed, the US will experience the worst domestic unrest since the 1860s. Having lived through the 1992 riots, I would not be at all surprised if Beverly Hills doesn’t burn in the next one, with the gangsta rioters joined by formerly middle class white FBs. Even French Revolution like public “justice” is possible. The uber-rich can laugh as they just jet off to their private principalities in places like Uruguay, Dubai, Switzerland. The entry level rich, the mere ten millionaire from Google class, needs another strategy. That strategy is lying low and blending in. They have done it before in the 1930s and the 1970s. (Hmmm, every 40 years or so.) Palo Alto is a fine place for hiding out.
February 21st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Re: 12.
The idea of PA being a good place to hide is the thinking of the PA buyers, not me. I agree that PA is too close to EPA (although recently EPA has not been as violent as it used to be). More importantly there are many other places in the Bay Area that are considered middle class now, but could quickly become angry and unstable in a severe economic downturn. (Is Bascom and Curtner really a prime neighbourhood?)
They used to say, “No country is more than three meals away from a revolution.” Maybe now we should say one foreclosure? That is why I cashed out my savings into gold, left California, and rent in a remote middle class town (NOT Auckland or Christchurch!) downunder. And I don’t even have the ten million to qualify as entry level rich.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
New Zealand Renter,
Sounds like your boredom down under is driving you nuts.
February 21st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Next thing you’ll tell us is that there will be a communist uprising in the USA.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I will come and save you Real Estater. with minnie me…who is game???
February 21st, 2008 at 10:49 pm
To the barricades!
Ironically, given the tone of many commenters, any place in the BA where there are large numbers of immigrants (legal or illegal), will be stable no matter how dire things get by American standards. Because those folks know how dire things *could* get, they came from that. They’re here to make good for their kids back home, and they’re not going to risk that by burning down the boss’s house.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Also, if you want to lie low and blend in, surely it would make better sense to try doing that in Redwood City or Sunnyvale, or, you know, someplace not entirely synonymous with enormous quantities of money.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I like how he thinks that investing in gold is going to save his ass. Only childish people put savings in gold, because if the world economy truly goes in the shitter gold won’t be valuable either. You can’t eat it, you can’t grow food with it, you can’t make it into weapons or tools or a house. All you can look at it and go “oooh, shiny!”
If you’re truly going into Survivalist Mode you’d do better to invest in a warehouse full of raw building stocks; sheet steel, milled boards, nails, etcetera. That and ammunition.
If you think a crash is coming, well, buy bonds.
PS there’s always a crash coming, for some people. It’s much more fulfilling to live at the End Of The World than it is to just think that average life is going to keep on getting better just a little tiny bit every year, the way it has been ever since history got started. Remember how we were all going to die after the dotcom “crash”? And the mid-nineties “crash”, and the early-nineties “crash” that knocked off Bush Senior, and the mid-eighties “crash” that almost did for Reagan, and “stagflation”, and…and…and…
February 21st, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Renter4: Seriously. It’s not as though people around here don’t KNOW how rich the residents of Palo Alto are.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:00 pm
>You can’t eat it, you can’t grow food with it, you >can’t make it into weapons or tools or a house. All >you can look at it and go “oooh, shiny!”
I should actually go look this up. How long does it have to be before an economy starts rising above straight barter and the little gold beads start being useful again?
February 21st, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Mean New Zealand joke: “When a New Zealander moves to Australia, the mean IQ of both countries goes up.”
When a Stanford grad moves to New Zealand, does it work the other way?
February 21st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Basically, New Zealand Renter needs to come back to the Bay Area to regain his sanity! Can’t be counting sheep all day.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:08 pm
>>You can’t eat it, you can’t grow food with it, you can’t make it into weapons or tools or a house. All you can look at it and go “oooh, shiny!”
Totall agree. It’s Middle Ages thinking to believe in Gold. Let me add: You can’t live in it, and you can’t drive it. All it is is a piece of rock.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Gold price has been doubled since 2005. Platinum price has been doubled in the past 12 months. Precious metal is the best investment asset class for the past 5 years, and will remain so as long as Helicopter Ben keeps lowing interest rate to rescue his housing bull buddy.
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:35 am
Ahhaha. And I suppose gold prices are just going to keep on doubling every three years, forever?
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Gold, like all others, is not an investment that you can put all your money into forever. There are good times to invest in gold, and there are bad times. A good time to invest in gold is during times of high inflation, but it would be stupid to put all of your money in it. I disagree with some of the posters here that gold went out of style in the middle ages. A gold backed currency certainly has it’s problems, such as deflating over time as the economy grows, but a big positive is that it removes the power to control inflation from the government, which is a huge conflict of interest. The government can borrow as much as it wants, then devalue the currency, making the debt less valuable; that’s a stealth tax on people with savings.
If you want to invest in gold, diversify into other precious metals, and make sure to put some money in basic commodities. This diversified investment will shield you from inflation, but probably won’t do better than inflation either.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
“>>You can’t eat it, you can’t grow food with it, you can’t make it into weapons or tools or a house. All you can look at it and go “oooh, shiny!”
Totall agree. It’s Middle Ages thinking to believe in Gold. Let me add: You can’t live in it, and you can’t drive it. All it is is a piece of rock”
It’s been money for thousands of years. When paper stuff is worthless, it’ll still be money.
It’s Middle Ages thinking to believe in dollar bills. It’s just paper. You can’t live in it, and you can’t drive it. All it is is a piece of paper with a number on it.
At least gold is rarer than paper, and harder to make. And most other up-and-coming countries (China, India, Russia, Oil nations, etc) are buying it up. But they’re all dumber than you.
A real survivalist wouldn’t invest in a warehouse of building materials. There are plenty of houses, and if you want one, build one now. Nobody’s going to be bartering for 2×4’s. If you thought in survivalist terms, you’d invest in long-term storage foods (dehydrated, etc.), water supplies, backup power and heating, medical supplies, and ammo. And you’d have a bunch of small silver coins and/or Eagles.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Jay: I’m not sure whether you’re trolling or not.
For one thing, you don’t know your history. People have, for “thousands of years” as you put it, considered units of value to be tied to units of utility. Romans paid people in salt, which is where we get the term “salary”. Herders equate animals to wealth; they don’t say that a cow is worth six ounces of gold, they say that a cow is worth one cow.
Gold only has intrinsic utility in the aerospace and electronics industries, neither of which will be important in the kind of Total Societal Collapse that people are imagining.
“A real survivalist wouldn’t invest in a warehouse of building materials. There are plenty of houses, and if you want one, build one now. Nobody’s going to be bartering for 2×4’s.”
ahem. So after the up-against-the-wall revolution burns all the houses down, you’ll be happy enough to mill your own boards out of trees? Don’t forget that you have to cut the trees down first. And how are you going to fasten them together–old chewing gum?
So you come to me, who has a big warehouse full of nice flat boards and crates full of galvanized nails. You offer gold. Oooh, shiny. Have you got anything USEFUL?
On the other hand, I guess it might be useful to buy some gold, because idiots like you will give me their cow in exchange for gold, after which you’ll starve because–whoops–nobody else in the area has a cow that they’re willing to sell.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Congrats on running NewZealandRenter off.
Next time just hold your hands over your ears and say LA-LA-LA-LA-LA..!!!!!
He’s downright Un-American.
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
>Congrats on running NewZealandRenter off.
It’s true. If he or she recoils from the raw violence and anarchy of Christchurch, NZ… then the peanut gallery here on Burbed must have been absolutely unendurable. Yow.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:57 am
I dont think violence is an issue, or circling of wagons. I do think the pending 30 percent decrease in property values is an issue for those who bought in 2007. The reasons to be in Palo Alto revolve around the good schools and if you have been following the pressure from the below market housing boom on the schools the schools will not stay great for much longer. Paly aint what it used to be. Gangs are infiltrating everywhere. The rich wont need to pay the Palo Alto premium but can live somewhere just a nice and a lot cheaper and pay for private schools. Palo Alto is on the downhill.
Jim