A starter home in Belmont
Reports
MLS: 769042
Property Overview
2028 LYON AV
Belmont (Belmont) 94002
Detached Single Family (Class 1)
Bed/Bath: 2 / 1
SqFt: 904
Lot: 4,000 sq ft
Age: 57 years
List Price: $799,000
Assoc Fee:
Great Starter Home in Belmont Hills!!
Adorable starter home in Belmont hills featuring hardwood floors, an updated kitchen featuring granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances, adorable living room with fireplace, and one bath. Home also features a large deck in front, and a large yard. This home is ideal for a first time home owner or someone looking to downsize. Don’t let this home pass you up, move right in!
Now frankly, this is actually a pretty nice house. But what caught my attention is that this is a great starter home.
Ah, classic Silicon Valley - where an $800k house is considered a starter home. But why shouldn’t it be? The minimum wage these days is nearly $200k! This is just 4x the salary!
With any luck, a starter home will be $1 million by EOY. Oh goodness I can’t wait!
March 5th, 2008 at 9:12 am
As always, the price would be perfect if they took a zero off of the end.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:33 am
It’s depreciating fast!
I clicked the link on top to see more pictures of the house, and it’s down to $699,000 already! Here’s a direct link.
http://www.movoto.com/real-estate/homes-for-sale/CA/Belmont/2028-Lyon-Ave-100_779744.htm
I might just pick this house up after work. By then, it should be worth $50.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:37 am
They removed the word “starter” (ID = 779744) from mlslistings. So it is no longer considered a starter home, but a “Great home featuring 904 sq. ft. of living space”.
And the price has also dropped by 100K to 699K. So, guys with 200K salaries, this is your chance. Start bidding now!
March 5th, 2008 at 11:00 am
And the price has also dropped by 100K to 699K. So, guys with 200K salaries, this is your chance. Start bidding now!
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And instant equity! And doubling price in 10 years. Rain is gone. Spring bounce is coming. If you don’t start bidding now, you will get “priced out forever”.
And don’t get misled by media spin and hysteria. This 799K or 699K or whatever number (and 100K drop) is just a placeholder number. Eventually people will start bidding and it will be sold over million dollar. Afterall, it is business as usual housing market in Real Bay Area.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Pride of pwnership.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:41 am
what? the minimum salary in the bayarea is $200K/year. OMG, i’m working way below the minimum wage. Tomorrow, i’m having my attorney sue my company. well, at least i can afford an attorney with my wages.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I think their target market is rich foreigners. After all median Belmont household income is only $80K according to the Census:
http://census.abag.ca.gov/cities/Belmont.htm
Bay Area incomes dropped after the dotcom bust and haven’t yet recovered to the 2000 level, but we’ll ignore that for now. See page 22:
http://www.jointventure.org/publicatons/index/2008Index/2008%20Silicon%20Valley%20Index.pdf
March 5th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Well, the closest comparable 2 br with a yard rental (half of a duplex) on craigslist is $2450 in San Mateo. So by the rule that buying at 100x rent is reasonable, this place would be worth at least $245,000 at this point in time. The risk of buying even at that price is that as the greater depression deepens, rents will fall, dragging property further down.
Of note, I moved two months before my old lease expired. My old landlord had no luck finding new renters even at reduced price. So I got stuck with paying two rents for two months. No personal problem, I was able to afford it, I honored my lease contract. But the point is that if you are thinking of buying to stay for awhile, the comparable rental price can move. Only bid 100x what you think comparable rent will be in a couple of years, not now.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Yes, a rich foreigner will buy this “Great home featuring 904 sq. ft. of living space” in Belmont.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
The rich foreigners are all buying in Palo Alto. That’s a fact.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I think their target market is rich foreigners.
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Yes, there are lots of foreigners waiting in sidelines to buy home. Just read this forum posting from immigrationvoice.com. Someone wrote to Realtor.org.
http://tinyurl.com/2sb95w
Don’t ever think it is joke.
ImmigrationVoice is a group of immigrants, primarily hitech professionals from India, who have their green card processings stuck due to annual immigration quota. Now they are asking Realtors to lobby for them, so that they can get their green card fast either excluding them from annual quota or increasing the quota limit. And getting green card means buying home. It’s win-win for Realtors and immigrants. Considering the fact that there are many Indian hitech professionals in Real Bay Area, “Spring Bounce” will come sooner than you think.
And at the end of summer? You are “priced out forever”. All the new green card holders will be bidding for homes left and right.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
New Zealand Renter,
Your price/rent = 100 is way too conservative. A lot of people, including me, think that 200 is reasonable. Housing bulls think 300 is fine.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Actually that place would easily be worth 699K if it had about double the lot size. The problem is that lot, it is 2/3-1/2 the size of the standard lot there. with a 6500 sq ft lot, that would have gone at 799K fairly quickly. But with a 4K sq ft lot, thats all the house you will EVER have there.
And to the New Zealand guy, your rental experience is not what I am seeing at all. Rents are going up and are in demand. IF you are trying to rent a $3.5K/mo house it will take a few mos to get the right tenants, that is normal. But it is not difficult to rent a place right now.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I don’t understand, the price dropped $100K in just a few hours??? How can this be when if we don’t act now, we’ll be PRICED OUT FOREVER by the SPRING BOUNCE?
The property is not at all compatable with anything in San Mateo. This is Belmont HILLS on the 280 side. Why it’s almost as west as Flea Street! Westward ho means elevation increases and so do the property values. So I must conclude that the heavy rains must have washed this lot down the hill into San Carlos.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I’d say something about a house “warming” party for those H1B’s with cocktails de’ Molotov, but that would be bad :-))))
March 6th, 2008 at 9:52 am
To tell the truth, I’d be happy to see prices bounce. It means I can refinance my place and fold both mortgages into one; with any luck I’ll be paying the same amount per month but putting more into the principal, and also get rid of that little balloon problem (although I have until 2022 to deal with that so it’s not exactly critical.)
Although I won’t be a true Bay Area Homeowner because I’ll be refinancing the loan to 80% of the value and not 100%…
March 6th, 2008 at 10:40 am
WillowGlenner,
From craigslist, rents seem to have been staying pretty much constant in the Peninsula over the last 6 months.
In fact, I did notice drops in certain rental offers by $50.00-100.00 at apt complexes in Belmont.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I’d say something about a house “warming” party for those H1B’s with cocktails de’ Molotov, but that would be bad :-))))
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You are still lucky - at least you did not have to witness boring religious rituals to “bring God inside home” (so that its price appreciates 20% every year) and leave your shoes outside the house.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
sg, when I rented a house back in 1991, right after the last balloon popped, we offered the owner’s agent $150 less per month than she was asking and she countered with $100 less.
The house had been empty for 4 months. I am sure that’s happening now, too. Maybe they keep the stated rates up high, but the owners can to feel special about all their instant equity. And the renters can name a lot of prices without being laughed at.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:15 am
ex-sunnyvale-renter,
Keep your xenophobic crap to yourself.