The absolute best, affordable, house in Mountain View
This week, we celebrate the 5 Bay Area cities featured in Forbes’ “Top 25 Towns To Live Well (and have good access to Venture Capital)”. Coming in at #4:
488 CARMELITA Dr, Mountain View, CA 94040 | MLS# 80828648
488 CARMELITA Dr Mountain View, CA 94040
Price: $749,000
Beds: 2
Baths: 1
Sq. Ft.: 896
$/Sq. Ft.: $836
Lot Size: 7,198 Sq. Ft.
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
View: Neighborhood
Year Built: 1947
Community: Grant
County: Santa Clara
MLS#: 80828648
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 276 days
Unsold in 90 days
Fixer-upper
It’s like living on a country lane with the convenience of nearby shopping, easy commute route access and close to Huff School!! Exceptional opportunity for a builder/developer. This fantastic lot in a quiet neighborhood is just waiting for your creative ideas.
You know what? This house is so stunning, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking:
If this doesn’t say “Top 25 Towns To Live Well (and have good access to Venture Capital)” – I don’t know what does.
Congratulations to all the Bay Area cities that made it into this Forbes list. You’re all winners. And you’re all stunning reminders of what makes the Real Bay Area real!
May 29th, 2009 at 7:20 am
This is probably a rental home, and the tenant is making ample use of all 896 square feet! However, this property isn’t all bad. It’s at a desirable location, and the lot size is good. The row of houses on the street behind it looks like they are very well taken care of based on the Satellite map.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Beyond words.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:48 am
I can’t believe it’s only featured now since it’s been on the market for quite some time. People, we need to pay more attention!
The 3 houses across the street have big lots (10,800 sq ft). Watch for Willow Glenner when he grabs them for $400K!
May 29th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Damn. I mean damn. That is something else. The covered up ‘83 Thunderbird, the dart board outside, the TV that has been left on and which appears to be sitting on a barrel, the bonfire in the back yard, and is that a goat in that fenced in area? This is about as redneck as they come.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Where are the pics of the hillbillies?!
You ought to include the email address of the realtors so I can send them some “inquiries”.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:35 am
sonar – maybe the trailer park a block to the north bled over into this neighborhood.
It looks like a tornado went through that place.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:42 am
nomadic, good call. actually I didn’t realize that park was there, I drive through there on Grant twice a week and I thought it was all foofy townhouses and million-dollar shacks.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am
[Redacted for being a bit too baiting -Burbed]
May 29th, 2009 at 9:28 am
The trailer park entrance is on El Camino so the “foofy-ness” along Grant Road is preserved.
The swimming pool and palm trees at the entrance always cracked me up.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Hey, I don’t want to harsh anyone’s mellow, but have you noticed what’s been going on with interest rates the last few days? It isn’t pretty.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/05/mortgage-market-locks-up.html
May 29th, 2009 at 10:04 am
nomadic,
Rising rate is another sign of economic recovery. Here’s one more:
U.S. consumer mood highest in 8 months: survey
May 29th, 2009 at 10:11 am
RE, rising rate is sign of the world coming to realization that USD is trash.
Check out yields on long term treasury.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:14 am
And, I guess rising mortgage rate will cause house prices go soaring, right?
Best time to buy a house when interest rates are highest, with 100% down
May 29th, 2009 at 10:18 am
ROFLMAO!!!
This is a GEM burbed! Wow! 3/4 of a million dollars for something that a crack addict is likely currently renting.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Quote >> Rising rate is another sign of economic recovery.
Real Estater,
That’s the biggest pile of excrement I’ve heard in quite a while. Rising interest rates will stop any recovery in the real estate market and render Obama’s multi-trillion dollar deficit spending worthless (worse yet, a debt shackle for our children). Watch the Fed try to pump more trillions to prop up the economy and watch helplessly as their efforts end in disaster.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I smell room for equity. Paint the kitchen cabinets white and install cheap laminate wood flooring from the Home Depot. Flip for a hearty $100,000 profit.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:24 am
The potential buyers will no doubt gawk at the white picket fence. They always fall head over heels for such an icon of Amerikana.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Congratulations, you guys have discovered something that’s fascinated me for years, the amazing pockets of squalor to be found in the RBA.
There’s one, and I wish I knew how to find it again, it’s somewhere back behind where that Volvo dealership was on San Antonio and ECR, it’s something like, a bunch of OLD mobile homes that belong in a museum, with a bunch of storage shacks that rent for $350 a month. The populace is the most amazing collection of toothless crackheads, homebrewers, and inbred Appelacian types you’ve ever seen. Some live in the storage sheds, and some in the trailers, along with a ton of JUNK like the tons of potted plants only the longterm unemployed tend to accumilate, broken bicycles, etc. Daily life there must be one endless episode of COPS.
The RBA is dotted with these amazing trailer parks, they’re all over the place. Remember until the 70s the RBA was not an expensive place, hence the old WWII Quonset huts etc to be seen in Palo Alto etc. It was cheap land, lived on by cheap people, picking prunes. Yesterday’s temporary becomes today’s permenant, nothing short of strategic air strikes will eliminate these little ecosystems within the RBA.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Question: So, I feel like US Dollar is doomed. Hyper-inflation is bound to happen… so all my down-payment savings will likely be worthless in a year or so. Wouldn’t this be a good time to buy a house? House prices will have to go up, only because the dollar will be worthless due to inflation.
So if I buy a house now with a 30-year fixed rate, wouldn’t it be easy to pay off the loan with the worthless money?
I’m all confused.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:13 am
RE,
You are a complete moron.
Rising interest rates are hardly the “green shoot” you hope them to be.
They are actually a sign of steepening yield curves on the long-term treasury. A consequence of QE, or the real players shifting into short-term debt.
Let’s do some math:
100K borrowed at 5% buys you how much at 7%?
$80,000. 20% drop (not counting dp, mortgage tax deduction; if you do so then it’s about 15%). In the absence of wage growth over the next year or so, that equates to home prices continuing to fall.
If you’re so bright, and your response will be “but mortgage rates will never go to 7%”, then grow a pair and short the Tbill.
Otherwise drive your leased 3 series into your garage, close the doors, open your windows, and think about this for about an hour or so.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Failing bond market means also what? Right, it means record high oil prices! Buckle up and watch the oil prices rally… again…
May 29th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Just noticed an office chair in the kitchen. That’s so cute. It does not beat what I saw few years ago in my friend’s backyard. He used office chairs he bought dirt cheap after a dotcom bust.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
#21 – correct; crude has doubled over the last 5 months.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4_q7DtiEHvUTVNlJoaJ9ufkd1kgD98G2S8O3
Wholesale gasoline prices, which typically rise during this time of the year, are up a staggering 140 percent since Christmas Eve. Retail gasoline prices have hit a national average of $2.467 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Pump prices are up 20 percent just in the past month.
- snip -
Just like in 2008, however, the weakened U.S. currency is bringing billions of investments into oil markets. Because crude is priced in dollars, it gets a lot cheaper when the U.S. currency falls.
That points to another speculative bubble that many blame for record prices last summer, on Nymex and at the gas pump.
“It’s more hope that fact,” said Adam Sieminski. “Investors think the economy has bottomed and possibly recovering and they’re moving to assets they think will benefit from the economic recovery and that includes commodities generally and oil specifically.”
May 29th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
>>rising rate is sign of the world coming to realization that USD is trash.
There are a few comments along this line of thought. This logic actually supports the case to buy now. As #19 pointed out, it’s better to use your dollars now than in the future. When money becomes worthless, only hard assets such as land and gold are valued. Your home will be a hedge against inflation.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Wednesday, when the treasury market went off the rails, Wall Street:
a) said “right on!” and rallied – DOW SOARS
b) freaked out and had a big selloff – DOW SOURS
b) yawned; business as usual – DOW SNORES
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/futures-tread-water-tuesdays-jump/
May 29th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
a…b…C
~someday I’ll learn my ABCs!~
May 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
“When money becomes worthless, only hard assets such as land and gold are valued. Your home will be a hedge against inflation.”
Uh, no. If money becomes worthless, that reduces the capability of individuals to continue to purchase big ticket items since their existing salaries (which are flat) cannot compensate for the higher inflation numbers. Gold is a hedge but mainly due to its acceptance as a currency equivalent.
To draw an example; if Mary & Joe have flat salaries and are losing their purchasing power, does their ability to purchase large, big ticket items get better or worse as inflation becomes more rampant?
And none of this ‘buy now before its too late’ real estate cliches please. That pony left the stable in 2006.
Houses are, and ALWAYS will be, a reflection of the purchasing power of the population. No matter how much real estate shills or the credit industry want to say otherwise, this will always be the case.
Keep in mind that the Fed is playing a very tenuous game right now. Because we generally have a deflationary environment existing, they have a time frame where they can keep rates low. But as the posters indicated, eventually, prices will begin their rise again as the dollar loses its purchasing power. And because we are a nation that needs to sell its bonds to fund all our stupid wars and bloated budgets, we will have to at some point raise rates to offset the dollar decline. As that happens, the already overstretched real estate bag holders will hear a nationwide echoing ’snap’ as the proverbial rubber band holding the real estate market artificially high gives way and we, in the end, return to normality.
For those history buffs, remember that historically, interest rates for mortgages (30 year fixed) generally hovered in the 7-9% range. When we return to that paradigm, housing will return to its trend line and we can all get along with our lives.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
RE,
Please put down your 6th grade econ text and go back to xeroxing the fliers for your Sunday open house.
You ignore that the vast majority of buyers are leveraged. 75/25, 80/20, 85/15, whatever. But it is bought with borrowed money. And the cost of borrowed money in an inflationary environment rises. You are tying up large amounts of devalued dollars as well as spending larger proportions of future earnings (debt service). Furthermore, RE has high transaction costs, zero transportability, and likely significantly increasing tax burdens (see CA, budget).
Here’s a little thought experiment: imagine right now that all leverage was sucked out of the market, and everyone in CA had to spend their own savings/paychecks for housing. Where would housing prices go?
And CPI is a poor inflationary measure, which is what most NAR propaganda uses, look at M3 instead, but this number is kept hidden because it would be quite worrisome to our Chinese investors.
Now run along and spell-check your MLS listings.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I really hate the idea of ganging up and beating up this poor bastard Real Excreter. But every time he opens his mouth, poo comes out.
Do we have a “mercy rule” around here and maybe just censor/ban him for good? LOL
May 29th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
One additional argument pertaining to the California (RBA) market explicitly:
While the housing bubble became a (mostly) nationwide phenomenon, I firmly believe it had its origins in California; specifically, the Bay Area. Every chart I have looked at showed that the disparity between rental costs and housing prices began to separate here long before any other urban center began to show signs of the same behavior. That being said, while the rest of the housing markets have felt large amounts of corrections, like any explosion, it takes quite some time for the vacuum to return to its origin.
That being said, at some point in the near future, this will no longer be a ‘national issue’ but a ‘California issue’. Florida, Nevada and Arizona, that all experienced bubbles have corrected far faster than we have mainly due to the more narrow timeframe of their specific bubbles. While in those areas, bubble prices didn’t begin to appear until 2002-2003 (or later), California began its idiocy in 1996-1997. (Largely fueled by another stupid bubble: dot com)
When inflation becomes more of a pressing issue, the Fed (and the nation) will have two choices:
1) Continue to keep rates low and attempt to ’soften’ the blow to poor, uber-liberal, pretentious California. (Hey, I just insulted myself too)
By doing so, they risk the entire country.
or,
2) They begin to raise rates to stave off inflation thereby sacrificing the California housing market.
Which would you choose?
Note that this state is also insolvent thanks in large part on a system that allows citizens to dictate their own tax system. (Stellar idea by the way)
At some point, we are going to need a bailout. But my suspicion is that will come with a requirement for some sort of restructuring of our current tax policies. If that involves either a removal or adjustment to moronic things like Prop 13, how will that also affect our long term housing projections?
No matter how you cut it and no matter how much the powers that be try to give a ‘grass is greener’ outlook, in the end, this will NOT be pretty. You are going to have a LOT of sad faces appearing in California in the next 3 to 5 years. And I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t be the renters who will be crying.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Do we have a “mercy rule” around here and maybe just censor/ban him for good? LOL
And get rid of my free comic relief??
Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 29th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Alex, herve put some effort into the idea:
http://www.burbed.com/2009/05/26/belmont-house-new-from-the-foundation-up-709-per-square-foot/#comment-45849
DIY pooper-scooper!
May 29th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Alex, herve put some effort into the idea:
http://www.burbed.com/2009/05/26/belmont-house-new-from-the-foundation-up-709-per-square-foot/#comment-45849
DIY pooper-scooper!
That won’t work. Either Real Excreter is banned or he should be censored/rebuked here. By just ignoring his posts, we allow him to spread his diarrheal contagion to the unwitting public.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
BAI, it looks to me like the SF MSA corrected faster than anywhere else. (Not that it doesn’t have a way to go before it’s done.)
http://blog.redfin.com/sfbay/2009/05/case-shiller_bay_area_showing_early_signs_of_eventual_bottom.html
Ignore the ridiculous headline and look at the second and third graphs. I’m interested in your take on them.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
>>But it is bought with borrowed money. And the cost of borrowed money in an inflationary environment rises.
You get an F for Econ 101. In an inflationary environment, your debt decreases in value. What you borrow today will be paid back with worthless dollars tomorrow. This is why being leveraged is a good thing. The other cheerleaders around this point are idiots for not catching this. I’m talking about you, BAI.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
You get an F for Econ 101. In an inflationary environment, your debt decreases in value. What you borrow today will be paid back with worthless dollars tomorrow. This is why being leveraged is a good thing. The other cheerleaders around this point are idiots for not catching this. I’m talking about you, BAI.
True. But your asset also becomes worthless during inflationary periods. You think houses will appreciate with 20% interest?
May 29th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Housing is an illiquid, high transaction-cost investment that will always be tied to the consumer’s ability to pay for it, i.e. income. We already had a hyperinflationary spiral, some would argue, as measured by the massive credit expansion and monetary velocity of 2000-2005. Anyone who thinks we will repeat the same thing starting right now is an ignorant clown or a shill.
And hyperinflation, unless matched by an increase in REAL WAGES, will make your treasured investment rapidly worthless as affordability will go to 0.
I’ve wasted enough time with you already, it’s like throwing back the poo at a zoo monkey. It’s not worth getting your hands dirty.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
RE #28 and #35
You are both right, and both wrong.
Banks, unless they’re insane or run by the government, won’t loan you money at below inflation interest rates. So, if inflation is running at 20%, then your loan interest won’t be less then that since it amounts to a negative interest loan. I wouldn’t put it past them, but it’s unlikely.
If you really feel that hyperinflation is imminent, the best that you could do is get the lowest down payment, fixed interest rate loan that you can swing, and spend the rest of your money on gold, canned food, bullets and a gun, and you need to do it before the inflation begins. I’ve seen extreme inflation first hand, and it’s not pretty.
My personal suspicion is that we’re in for another deflationary market implosion. Once this market crash starts winding down, the world will realize that dollars are worthless garbage, and the inflation will begin. I’m planning on getting out of the dollar (and partially into real estate) at that point.
One good thing about dollars though is that there were so many printed recently, that I’ll never run out of toilet paper. It sucked not having toilet paper back home.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Some say we’re heading into deflation. Some say we’re heading into inflation. The signals are very mixed!
May 29th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Burbed,
I found the following visuals quite useful.
http://www.mint.com/blog/finance-core/a-visual-guide-to-deflation/
http://www.mint.com/blog/finance-core/a-visual-guide-to-inflation/
May 29th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Hah! Quasi-good discussion here.
If prices rise, but incomes stay flat (cost-push inflation through higher oil prices) then home prices will decline, particularly if Govt raises rates to control prices. Think 1970s.
If prices rise including incomes, then the best time to buy a house is when high rates have pushed down houses, but inflation has not eaten away your downpayment too much. Keep the money in TIPS if that’s a concern. Think 1980s.
Normally, RE is right — buying a house pre-inflation is a good idea as inflation eats down the value of the debt. However, in a bubble economy with vastly inflated prices, you can do better still.
Taking on debt to buy a house in a deflationary time is berserker.
Right now, the main thing that seems to be on sale in the US is labor.
May 30th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Yeah, some good economics discussion here. RE reminds me of the foolish son in the Four Questions asked at the Passover Seder. I believe the charge to the parents was to explain what all this was for. The foolish son remains foolish, but at least the other three sons are listening.
Wish lower case steve were here to offer his take on this.
I_love_SV, those visuals are great.
And finally, to the site’s comic relief:
You get an F for Econ 101.
Project much?
May 30th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Gah, I got so caught up in the inflation/deflation discussion I forgot to comment on the house. Is 7000 sf of Mountain View land in the good zip code really worth $750K? We’re talking less than 1/6th an acre. I guess you could put up a mini-Gables End and sell those Towers of Townhouse Troubles to some gullible Google geeks.
Oh wait, it’s close to Huff School. What am I saying? Now is the time to buy! Now is always the time to buy!
May 30th, 2009 at 10:20 am
and don’t forget those famous last words:
Market downturn is always in the future!
May 30th, 2009 at 10:25 am
You don’t need a visual to understand hyper-inflation. Just consider the following scenario:
- It cost you a million bucks to buy a house today
- When hyper-inflation hits, it will cost you a million bucks to buy a loaf of bread
Sounds sensational? This actually happened in places like Argentina and Brazil.
Buy now and don’t be a bread holder!
May 30th, 2009 at 10:40 am
RE, I don’t have to hear about places you haven’t been to in order to understand hyperinflation. My grandmother lived through the hyperinflation in Germany in the early 1920s. Just married in 1922, she and her new husband left for their two-week honeymoon via train. When they arrived at their first destination, their vacation stash wasn’t enough to pay for one night at any hotel. They stayed with a family member and had to go home the next day. No honeymoon.
With people rolling wheelbarrows of money around to buy groceries, the economy came to a screeching halt. Nobody was buying houses, or cars, or horses, or anything more than a day’s supply of food. So who cares if the house you bought then is worth a loaf of bread now? If you need to sell it, you can’t.
Therefore at that time your house literally has no value other than a place to live in. At some point it will again, but who knows where the prices will end up adjusting when the economy stabilizes.
You would teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
May 30th, 2009 at 11:20 am
madhaus,
In the scenario you described above, you would be able to pay off your house with worthless money, and have a place to live. While I don’t expect the same magnitude disaster to happen here, the same concept applies.
May 30th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I think RE kicked some ass here. We just saw the housing bubble pop, so affordability has improved. Interest rate has gone up, but it’s still only around 5.5%. With inflation on horizon, your debt will get eaten up anyways. If you’re a renter, your rent will go up with inflation. There’s no letting up.
May 30th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
JASON: Rents can quadruple and you’re still (just) better off renting than buying. Stash your cash in TIPS, let rents (and your salary) quadruple, TIPS will quadruple, then buy the house for 25% of what it costs now in real terms.
May 31st, 2009 at 12:47 am
Time to go back to college everyone!
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-condos-as-dorms,1,2257365.story
Maybe Stanford can do this with Gables End by setting up a shuttle bus!
May 31st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
You know, they should have just posted a model home and said use your creative imagination.
May 31st, 2009 at 8:07 pm
mtv-renter said: “Banks, unless they’re insane or run by the government, won’t loan you money at below inflation interest rates.”
Banks is in the business to make money on saving/loan interest margin. As long as there is money supply in the savings who can tolerate the below inflation rates return (because they have no place to hide), Banks can still loan you money because they are in business to make margin.
BuyersAreIdiots Says: “And because we are a nation that needs to sell its bonds to fund all our stupid wars and bloated budgets, we will have to at some point raise rates to offset the dollar decline. As that happens, the already overstretched real estate bag holders will hear a nationwide echoing ’snap’ ”
If you buy a house as the bottom of the downturn, you will turn out to be the winner since when interest rates go up, the mortgage cost is going up, which will keep the price from going up but keep pushing up the rent cost, which is closely related to the monthly mortgage cost. So the owners will say highly money rate on their houses even the actual price is not going up. Of cause, this is assuming you do not buy a house which is 20% higher than the bottom price.