A very not-RBA listing in an almost-RBA town
Burbed just doesn’t give the East Bay enough love, so we’re always delighted when our readers send us something from Alameda or Contra Costa County. Today’s featured listing is from one of the more rarified regions of CCC, but you’ll see that there’s nothing Real about this Bay Area bonanza. Thanks very much to Burbed reader Kim in the East Bay for this Danville domicile!
898 La Gonda Way
Danville, CA 94526
$619,5003 Beds
1 Baths
1,112 Sq. Ft.
$557 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1953
Lot Size: —
On Redfin: 67 days
Status: Active
Property Type: Single-Family Home
County: Contra Costa
Community: Danville/San Ramon |
MLS#: 403322Single family home on large level lot with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, living room with fireplace, dining area, large kitchen, huge yard, 2 car garage parking.
Are we lost? This looks like something not from Danville, but maybe Connecticut. Bricks, autumn foliage, and what could pass for aluminum siding; all we need are some shooting ranges in those woods over the back fence. And that spare prose is pure Yankee, other than the outburst about the huge yard. So huge the lot size isn’t even provided (9583 sf, even that’s more East Coast than East Bay).
Maybe we’re not lost but this house is. The price has been reduced twice, and the agent couldn’t be bothered to clean up before taking the listing pix. Even the dog carrier stays.
Did we mention location, location, location?
February 8th, 2013 at 9:10 am
Good news! Valley job growth biggest since ‘dotcom’ boom
Just in Palo Alto, projects are being proposed everywhere, and city is faced with scaling them down:
Building eyed for busy Palo Alto intersection
Palo Alto sends massive office proposal back to drawing board
Stanford unveils Mayfield housing project plans
Avenidas makes plans for Palo Alto wellness center
4 Office towers for downtown Palo Alto
Based on the growth potential, now is a great time to buy into Palo Alto real estate.
February 8th, 2013 at 10:16 am
More good news:
Palo Alto gets high marks for quality of life
February 8th, 2013 at 10:21 am
Excerpt from today’s Daily Post:
New investors targeting Silicon Valley real estate
The red-hot Silicon Valley real estate market has brought a lot of new investors to the table. The recent wave of Chinese and foreign investors is well documented and often covered in the press. However, there is another group of investors that is growing in popularity: the “new” investor.
Many successful executives from the Silicon Valley have experienced strong appreciation of their homes over the past few years, and these same investors have started looking for other cost-effective opportunities to participate in the upward movement of the real estate market.
As a result, many new investors have been buying investment properties in and around the Silicon Valley. They are drawn to real estate for a number of reasons,most notably the positive cash flow, strong appreciation potential and tax benefits.
February 8th, 2013 at 11:10 am
blah, blah, blah
NOW IS THE RIGHT TIME TO BUY
blah, blah, blah
February 8th, 2013 at 11:20 am
NOW is ALWAYS the time to buy!
February 8th, 2013 at 11:44 am
Has anyone here ever been told by an agent, “you know what? It’s not such a good time to buy, come back in 6 months…”?
Nice find on another It-looks-like-a-short-sale-but-isn’t house.
February 8th, 2013 at 12:17 pm
A sick person lives there. Look at all of those prescription bottles on the kitchen counter. The slippers in the middle of the living room are an interesting touch too.
BTW, is that a mattress up against the wall in the bedroom (pic #6)?
February 8th, 2013 at 1:06 pm
“you know what? It’s not such a good time to buy, come back in 6 months…”?
NOW IS THE RIGHT TIME TO SELL!
February 8th, 2013 at 4:18 pm
Holy Cow – in that first article RE linked, it closed with this: “Today the case is that we’re seeing a regional economy that’s being created,” said Carson, adding that regional — not just local — solutions are urgently needed if the Bay Area’s 101 cities and towns are to effectively address pressing issues of traffic, housing and preparation for climate change.
101 cities and towns?? Really? I want to see that map – because Tracy and Santa Rosa are not in the Bay Area. But of course, we all know the RBA is a different category altogether anyway.
February 8th, 2013 at 5:20 pm
With all of RE’s link spewage, I guess he misses our mocking of his hometown.
February 8th, 2013 at 6:27 pm
Imagine all of those projects getting done in the next 10 years, there will be tons of new jobs. Housing will be in further shortage, and that is exactly your opportunity. The reasons real estate typically goes up in value have to do with jobs, demographic trends, and regional development. The writings are on the wall. That’s why I believe now is a great time to buy. RE always looks at the big picture. Mocking or not, outcome is what matters.
February 8th, 2013 at 6:34 pm
>>Really? I want to see that map – because Tracy and Santa Rosa are not in the Bay Area. But of course, we all know the RBA is a different category altogether anyway.
See, this is an example of a short sighted comment. It’s like a guy in the 1800′s saying it’s not possible to work 10 miles away from where you live.
Commute distance may be an issue now, but technology will go along away in solving it in the future. High Speed Rail will be able to carry people from far away to work in RBA in under 1 hour. San Jose, Palo Alto, and San Francisco will be the major stops. When construction begins, I would look carefully at the construction route. All those cities along the way will be revitalized, including those dirt cheap areas in the Central Valley.
February 8th, 2013 at 6:43 pm
What a card! You should tell that to the people I know who lost a pile buying their homes in Evergreen expecting all that industry to come to South San Jose.
February 8th, 2013 at 7:57 pm
I did not say “Tracy and Santa Rosa are not in the Bay Area of the future, when we’re all using Google self-driving cars and somehow our state has gotten tons of extra cash despite prop 13, and built all sorts of rapid transit.”
I said they weren’t in the BA today. I stand by that comment.
February 8th, 2013 at 10:07 pm
Is this fool the guesser or guess the fool?
February 8th, 2013 at 10:18 pm
High Speed Rail isn’t a solution for the majority of commuters. If you’re going from SJ to SF, fine. What if you live in Mountain View and have to commute to San Bruno, for example? Just look at the comments on the article Divasm referenced for a flavor of how “fun” it is to string together mass transit.
February 9th, 2013 at 8:29 am
#16, think about what you wrote. It means cities with HSR access will be more attractive, and real estate prices will adjust accordingly. The savvy real estate investor will look at the development plan of the region and buy for the future. Remember, real estate is a long term investment. People who bought Evergreen haven’t lost anything as long as they are living in the houses. As a matter of fact, multiple offers are happening in Evergreen right now.
February 9th, 2013 at 9:06 am
Wrong, RE. I was referring to people who,bought in Evergreen in the mid 1980s expecting a bunch of corporate expansion to the area. It never happened. Evergreen hasn’t gone up the way Mountain View did because the latter is close to the jobs and the former is not. Saying Evergreen went up is fatuous. Everything went up. But if those buyers had bought a smaller place in Mountain View they would have had the appreciation they were expecting from their Evergreen purchase… Plus the short commutes they thought would come to them. Instead they got San Jose real estate growth with the attendant San Jose commute.
They gambled on promised corporate relocation. They lost. The 1980s ended and companies failed, scaled back, and sent their manufacturing to Asia.
February 9th, 2013 at 9:24 am
>>Everything went up. But if those buyers had bought a smaller place in Mountain View they would have had the appreciation they were expecting from their Evergreen purchase…
Isn’t this what happened to you when you stayed back in Sunnyvale as opposed to moving to a smaller place in Palo Alto when you had the chance?
February 9th, 2013 at 9:26 am
>>They gambled on promised corporate relocation. They lost.
If you gambled and you lost, shame on you. If you wait until the HSR plan is solidified and construction is underway, and then structure your real estate portfolio accordingly, that’s not a gamble; it’s good common sense.
February 9th, 2013 at 10:39 am
From one of RE’s link above:
To enable the project, the city would have to rezone the site to “planned community,” a designation that allows developers to exceed regulations in exchange for “public benefits,” which are typically negotiated between the council and the developer over a series of meetings.
Is that an euphemism for bribe? The ‘Palo Alto process’ is quite notorious.
February 9th, 2013 at 10:43 am
There’s even a desktop computer (with screen and printer) in the kitchen. Very entrepreneurial!
February 9th, 2013 at 12:20 pm
>>Is that an euphemism for bribe? The ‘Palo Alto process’ is quite notorious.
Is this amateur speak? This is how it’s been working for decades. The city is looking out for the public’s interest. For any developer to develop in the city and make a profit, they need to give something back to the community. This is a very good thing.
February 9th, 2013 at 12:35 pm
The “community” or the council members?
February 9th, 2013 at 3:32 pm
Bonus – quiet neighbors on the cemetery side!!
February 9th, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Isn’t this what happened to you when you stayed back in Sunnyvale as opposed to moving to a smaller place in Palo Alto when you had the chance?
No. Sunnyvale/CUSD did very well. My shack is once more worthy of seven digits. It would be a good future feature to track home value changes by different neighborhoods and see how a hypothetical buyer would have done buying then and what she’d get selling now. How many times did her money double in Palo Alto versus Sunnyvale versus Evergreen, say.
So I suggest you get to work on it instead of all this useless anecdotal data.
February 9th, 2013 at 6:25 pm
This is an easy exercise. Why don’t you show me a house you looked at during the 90′s in Palo Alto, and I’ll find out how much it’s worth now.
February 10th, 2013 at 12:51 am
No, I said I want a rigorous proof that some places went up faster than others. Not this one house compared to this other house. Dig up monthly numbers from TechGal or something, write it up and have it on my desk by 5 pm.
February 10th, 2013 at 3:24 am
The most rigorous proof is to look at your actual opportunity missed, rather than some useless aggregate data. How about this: Show us up to 10 opportunities you missed out in the 90′s, and I’ll do the leg work from there.
February 10th, 2013 at 9:25 am
“rigorous proof that some places went up faster than others”
I’d be happy with a map of the RBA.
February 10th, 2013 at 10:56 am
Palo Alto median price by neighborhood
February 10th, 2013 at 11:32 am
#31- That “useless aggregate data” should be replaced with a map of the RBA.
February 10th, 2013 at 11:39 am
The sweet spot between meaningless aggregate data and useless anecdotal data is difficult to hit.
Tick-tock, #29. Five hours to go.
February 10th, 2013 at 11:40 am
#33, looks like you’re just trolling.
February 10th, 2013 at 11:42 am
And while you’re whining, you aren’t producing. Median price by neighborhoods in and out of Palo Alto, from 1986 to now. Get cracking!
February 10th, 2013 at 12:16 pm
More Pralaying? As I recall, your reach during the 90′s didn’t go beyond Oregon Expressway (probably more like East Meadow). Why do you care?
February 10th, 2013 at 1:43 pm
Real Estate agent says things will be just fine: I don’t know why you want complicated computations, just buy now and everything will be just fine.
February 10th, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Two and a half hours to go! Don’t disappoint us!