My apologies for the lack of a post yesterday. What can I say – facebook ipo frenzy got me!

The Facebook IPO, the epic event that people will be talking about for generations to come, is near.

Already, I’ve heard rumors that they are working to pave the streets in Menlo Park with gold. That the Fisker dealership is sold out until 2089. That every house has 1204912 bids and every rental unit is facing a 13850% rent increase next year.

But these are just unsubstantiated rumors.

Let’s hear from you: How has the impending Facebook IPO impacted you?

It’s Saturday.  Go look at some Open Houses and tell us what they’re really worth.  Oh yeah, Open Thread.  Go really wild.

Anyone been to an Open House lately?  Are buyers waiting for a drop?  Are sellers trying to hold it?

Open the door and tell us what you found inside.

This image from SFGate shows eight lightning bolts hitting the Bay Bridge on April 12th.  How did you enjoy nature’s fireworks Thursday night?

You can also discuss this New York Times piece observing that California’s North/South divide is overblown.  The real divide is West versus East, and we coastal huggers are doing fine economically.  Inland is a much different story.  Stockton is looking into bankruptcy.  People moved inland, but the jobs didn’t follow, and then the housing values collapsed.  The coastal regions are more politically liberal and more eager for environmental policies that inland residents object to.  And geographically, a beach is not a desert.

This is an Open Thread.  How’s your weekend going?  Seen any good Open Houses lately?  How about those local sports teams, eh?

While Burbed remains a highly valued and award-winning website, our readership levels have been dropping even faster than home prices in places outside the Real Bay Area.  Clearly it’s time to take some serious stock of what this site is for, what it’s trying to do, and whether to set some new goals.

The Problem: Burbed was created to show the insanely high housing prices for insanely poor quality homes in the Bay Area.  Today, as long as you’re not looking too close to Google, Facebook, or whatever neighborhood in San Francisco is trendy this week, you can find nicer properties at some of the most affordable prices since the 20th century ended.   Meeting our mission is difficult and increasingly irrelevant.

The Solution: People want guidance on how to buy or sell a home without any game playing.  What few readers we have left have learned to be wary of agents, but trust us completely.  Therefore, effective immediately, Burbed will stop pointing and laughing at badly marketed homes, when we could make a lot more money buying and selling them.

That’s right.  We are now, starting today, Open for Your Business!  That means we won’t be bad-mouthing real estate professionals, showing homes with poorly-maintained property or messy rooms, or cracking wise on unrealistic asking prices.  And in the current real estate market, the sky is the limit on asking prices, so who are we to object?

List your home with us and we’ll get it out to the customers who would otherwise never read real estate ads.  Hire our team of informed and lively agents to find you the perfect place to live in, while entertaining you during the drive from one house to another.  (Some of them even own vehicles with room for more than one other rider!)

Please patronize all our brand new sponsors you see on this page.  You’ll be seeing a lot more ads for them and other exciting products and services, throughout the site as our new business model takes shape.  Things are going to get very exciting around here, so we may have to limit comments if there are any difficulties.

Thanks again for visiting Burbed.  Often.  And remember, Now is the Time to Buy or Sell a House!

WITH US.

Hope you’re heading out to look at Open Houses now that we’ve officially entered the Spring Selling Season!  Oh, what’s that?  Spring Selling Season doesn’t start until after Easter?  Well, dang.

Why don’t you instead do some window shopping?  Here you can admire this waterfront property in Washington State while you try to find an open house a little closer to home.  Thanks to Burbed reader SEA for mentioning this one in comments yesterday.

11718 Possession Lane
Edmonds, WA 98026
$625,000

Bunus: Stupid street name is stupid, too.  This is an open thread.

It may not be Spring yet, but Spring Bounce is in the air!  More and more Open Houses for everyone to enjoy.  You can tell us about the houses you visited this weekend right here in this Weekend Open Thread.

But wait, there’s more!  Burbed reader Divasm also passes along a twitter account you might want to start following.  This is run by the fine folks over at Redfin, only this is full of mysterious finds when they show up to tour homes.   Have a look at RE Confidential.

Let’s start with a few of their tweets and see what they suggest.

Fashion forward décor!

Well, what do you expect for twice as much as not a lot of money?

Would she be actually living there, or just “legally” entitled to stay enrolled?  Maybe we’re giving the seller more credit than we should.

Let us know your favorites, or if you think you can identify any of the houses they’re describing.

You may have noticed while we’ve been rebuilding Burbed, the links to other worthwhile websites went away for a few weeks.  I’m happy to report they’ve all been restored.  (Or at least they all should have been restored; let us know if a favorite was eaten by Ceiling Cat.)

Have a look around and see if you find them useful, interesting, informative, or fun.  Also feel free to let us know if there’s a site you love that ought to be included.  Be sure to tell us why Burbed readers would enjoy it.

Feel free to complain about which category your favorite site was misclassified in, too.  It wouldn’t be Burbed without whining!

Did you know that Burbed turned six last week?  Our very first post was on February 4th, 2006.  Here’s a peek:

What’s really great about the very first house on Burbed is it’s a castle on Buckingham Avenue!  That’s like finding a ski chalet on Zermatt Street, or a tilt-up industrial building on Technology Drive!

If you look up the listing history on Redfin, we can see just how good a job the agent did with that $555K asking price.

What do you think this house would sell for in today’s fever-pitched market?  Close to Facebook… I would say $888K FTW!

Any suggestions for celebrating six years of Burbed content?  This is an open thread.