Comments on: Case-Shiller housing index for San Francisco of 04/2008

By: Jim D

Jim D — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:53:20 +0000

San Jose. A bit. Dropped a bit. Just a bit.

Nope, still funny.

By: madhaus

madhaus — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:59:44 +0000

WG, I got the Willard comment, guess you’re my age or older, heh heh. Not everyone in the Valley is a twentysomething at teh Google, ‘kthnxbai.

I mentioned that some friends of mine were renting in an area south of Hedding/14th, a lot of the houses had some beautiful period detail, built-in glass cabinets, niches, some stained glass, etc. Don’t know how you like that area for rental property but the 2/1 they are renting suits them fine (but they are now looking to buy and don’t care about schools).

By: WillowGlenner

WillowGlenner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:12:11 +0000

heh I knew I was giving away my age with the Willard comment. But when I googled it, it looks like they actually remade Willard in 2003 with Crispin Glover! Pretty good casting I’d say. I guess the movie was a real rodent.

By: bob

bob — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:44:09 +0000

Reading how some of you “real estate investors” buy, trying to guess where young families and so forth might buy and what I assume put money in your pockets sort of proves precisely why the housing market crashes so fantastically.

By: Crossroads

Crossroads — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:33:40 +0000

willard?

By: WillowGlenner

WillowGlenner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:33:44 +0000

Cardinal2007- I know Continental in Belmont. All I can say is -does the name WILLARD mean anything to you? LOL. For those that don’t know the issue, Continental is a street with these really old junky “high rise” apts- probably built in the 50s because too new to have any charm. They do have views like a lot of Belmont but old, rundown apts with an indoor hallway/lobby etc can get really nasty if you don’t keep them up. Over the years a wonderful neighborhood infrastructure of roof rats has developed there. There are houses above continental which are nice/expensive that have rodent problems- in fact once I knew somebody who got up and car wouldn’t start… dead rat in there- disgusting!

As to old county- hmm. I would consider buying there. The rural feel to it appeals to me.

By: WillowGlenner

WillowGlenner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:26:14 +0000

Frank Jewett, I am just starting to look in the Martha Gardens area of San Jose which is on the other side (the wrong side) of WG between first, 280, 8th and Hollywood (I believe) at the bottom. The city has designated this the “arts district” and permitted some new condos there. Its a wasteland of course. I’m trying to find some evidence of young families moving in for the cheap prices. To your point there are a lot of people that really love the old architectures like they have in WG and Downtown, and they are hesitant to tear these things down even though many should be. I just made a decision along these lines myself on windows for my new place. The windows there have the old rope and pulley and all are damaged. The contractor wanted to put all new windows in- I am actually paying a little more to repair the old ones, even though they are only single pane- because the ornamental frame and overall look of the windows is so much better than you can get today.

By: WillowGlenner

WillowGlenner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:17:01 +0000

sonnorrat: I was meaning to post a few things to your earlier. Redfin has a nice blog post about your area I believe.
http://blog.redfin.com/sfbay/2008/06/oakland_lets_compare_in_the_laurel.html

Redfin has just added Google street view on their detail page. This is a GODSEND. For the cheap properties that I buy, RE agents don’t like to put a picture thinking they can describe their way out of bad curb appeal. Now that redfin has street view- GOTCHA! It shows more too, with a 360′ view of street.

You mentioned you know the Senter/Monterrey area of San Jose. This is technically east San Jose. This is one of the hot places that bottom feeding RE investors are looking at now. Yes it looks like Tijuana but there is actually open space there to be had… personally I wouldn’t be surprised to see some new office bldgs pop up on Umberger. They are building this new shopping center called “The Plant” on Curtner and Monterrey with a home depot, best buy, target, Chevys, Panera bread, Ross etc. and even though it is a strip mall they are trying to keep the feel of the art deco period of the original GE plant that was there. This is across the street from the cemetery if you remember the area.

By: WillowGlenner

WillowGlenner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:09:08 +0000

I watched a bit of HGTV tonight. They showed some pretty nice homes priced in the $300K range, and the buyers were saying it’s at the top of their price range. WTF? It looks like a few of these people have found their way to this website.

HA! That would be me, RealEstater! Hey- Don’t knock eating at the McDollar menu 5x a week until you’ve tried it!- you can meet all your future jobsite workers there.

By: bob

bob — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:37:22 +0000

“Those homes were in flyover country, BTW.”

You know, I’m going to have to coin a term for areas like the BA, NYC, and other places that are full of stupidly overpriced RE with equally stupid people to buy them. How about what we used to call California back when I was living at home. We used to call it

“ The land of fruits and nuts”

So perhaps I can call it “nuttyland”. That’s sort of stupid. Any other suggestions?

Oh- and by the way, HGTV is headquartered in my home city, Knoxville, TN. It is also the home of DIY, Fine Living, and Great American Country. A lot of the shows are in filmed within the general vicinity because its obviously more convenient. 300k in Knoxville is the equivalent of 700k in the BA. The difference is that for 300k, you get an actual house and not some piece of crap all doctored up to look nice out here.