I think this place is in Willow Glen like that Santa Clara school district section is in South Sunnyvale.

The brown streak on the lawn? I think it’s a broken sanitary sewer pipe.

Pier and post and concrete slab homes are cheaper and faster to build since there’s little to no excavation necessary. I would avoid slab homes if you can. It’s way easier to fix a foundation problem in a pier and post home – plus the crawl space makes servicing utilities (pipes, cable tv, phone wires, etc) much easier.

Can you say Superfund Site?

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1417727

Who cares if the foundation might only last twenty years? The important thing is how long the swimming pool lasts. And the granite countertops, of course.

– Robert, who’s seen the cracks in his slab.

You should buy that property and water the lawn!

Considering the fact that those flower plants are planted just days before putting the home in market, they needs “amazing sprinklers” to grow fast. I am sure those sprinklers water has growth hormone punched in it.

In addition, signs for For-Sale-By-Owner.

And “We buy homes” signs.

As frightening as it might be for us south-of-the-real-Willow-Glen-but-think-we’re-in-the-real-Willow-Glen residents, there have actually been several houses at similar prices in the area. They’re usually on the corner or right off a major street (Hillsdale at Jarvis or Hillsdale at Cherry), or on a major street (Meridian.) Usually, it’s gotten to the point where the owner puts up a hand-written sign with the price listed. They’re also a good $100K less or more than houses in better locations.

The other low-priced houses have usually been the 1950’s ranches. This one, I think, is part of a tract of early 1970’s houses. I personally find them ugly with few windows and odd rooflines, but that’s more a problem for the neighbor across the street who has to look at them every day. Punching out a few more windows might make them less sucky.

I find the picture showing the for-sale sign interesting. A few years ago, you’d only see houses sold by the big chains — Alain Pinel, Century 21, etc. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot more houses sold by off-brand realtors. I don’t know if this means more people are using discount brokers to cut the agent’s cut, or if it’s a sign that the property was a foreclosure, and the listing agent is a foreclosure specialist giving the bank a volume discount. The fact that the lawn’s mowed and sprinklers are running probably means it’s not a foreclosure… unlike a couple houses on Foxworthy a couple miles west of here.

As usual, the decimal point in the price needs to be moved one space to the left.