Listed at: $460,000

1780 WAGNER Ave Mountain View, CA 94043

Beds:	3
Baths:	1
Sq. Ft.:	877
$/Sq. Ft.:	$525
Lot Size:	5,100 Sq. Ft.
Property Type:	Detached Single Family
Style:	Ranch
Stories:	1
Year Built:	1950
Community:	North Shoreline
County:	Santa Clara
MLS#:	81036627
Source:	MLSListings
Status:	Pending With ReleaseThis listing is in escrow and all contingencies have been fulfilled. "With Release" means that there’s a release clause with the offer stating that the buyer is trying to sell his current home before closing. A release clause lets the seller back out of the deal if the buyers can’t sell their home within a set time frame.
On Redfin:	23 days

3 BEDROOMS & 1 BATH PER TAX RECORD * CURRENTLY NO GARAGE OR IT HAS BEEN CONVERTED INTO ROOMS WITHOUT PERMIT! REMODELING, ADDED ROOMS & BATHS (PERMIT NOT WARRANTED * )

Thanks to Burbed reader Herve for sending this in.

Is it any wonder that this is already pending? $525 per square foot in Real Bay Area Mountain View? Sheesh – they’re practically giving this house away for free!

What deal! I mean, just look at al the rooms this house has – permits or not. This is efficiency living at its best!

Just look at how efficient this is:

That’s right! There’s a treadmill in the living room next to the sofa-ish things. Now this is green living my friends. Inconspicuous consumption at its best.

If you buy this house, you’ll really need a Smart car to go with it! (In part because there’s no garage!)

422 LORETO St Mountain View, CA 94041

$1,499,999

Beds:	3
Baths:	2
Sq. Ft.:	2,029
$/Sq. Ft.:	$739
Lot Size:	5,750 Sq. Ft.
Property Type:	Detached Single Family
Style:	Traditional
Stories:	2
View:	Neighborhood
Year Built:	2007
Community:	Downtown
County:	Santa Clara
MLS#:	81033665
Source:	MLSListings
Status:	Active This listing is for sale and the sellers are accepting offers.
On Redfin:	24 days

Beautiful custom Craftsman style home built in 2007 and located in highly sought after Old Mountain View Neighborhood. This home was designed for maximum space and features an open floor plan. Filled with premium features and skylights throughout. Serene backyard with custom built playhouse. Nearby amenities include CalTrain, lightrail, and walking distance to vibrant downtown Mountain View!

Thanks to Burbed reader S.L. for this find!

S wanted to call attention to this curious statistic:

Wow! Look at all the trapped equity waiting in this… uh… non-fixer-upper!

As we all know, real estate operates in a 5 year cycle – so if you buy this today, it should definitely resume the $1.8M price by… July 11, 2012! Boom! Instant riches!

Thanks for the investment advice!

Recently someone found this site by searching Google for “low income housing mountain view ca.”  How trashy!  If you’re going to search Mountain View for low-income housing, then use a low-income search engine, preferentially one that isn’t located in Mountain View.

Here’s just one result the lucky looker found!  Affordable housing’ bad for quality of life – Mountain View.  That sounds like a NIMBY worldview, absolutely perfect for a Real Bay Area (RBA) city like Mountain View!  It’s much better quality of life to spend half your income on rent, or even better, 2/3 of it on buying a house!

It turns out that there are enough results for “affordable housing” and “mountain view” on burbed that this is a starred site for that search term!

Well.  We had better do something about that.  Everyone knows there is no affordable housing in the RBA.  If it were affordable, anyone could move in.

$670,760

462 PETTIS Ave Mountain View, CA 94041

Beds:	3
Baths:	1
Sq. Ft.:	828
$/Sq. Ft.:	$810
Lot Size:	6,600 Sq. Ft.
Property Type:	Detached Single Family
Style:	Cottage/Bungalow
Stories:	1
View:	Neighborhood
Year Built:	1919
Community:	Downtown
County:	Santa Clara
MLS#:	81026682
Source:	MLSListings
Status:	Active This listing is for sale and the sellers are accepting offers.
On Redfin:	43 days

Location location & value. A great location-YES, a large buildable lot YES, an unbelievable low $ for this area YES do the home & lot need vision YES YES YES. The previous owner lived here for 61 years & all the neighbors nw him well, a great guy. You have an oppurtunity today to buy a place in Mountain view where you can walk to all the shops & restaurants on Castro & also walk to Cal Train HURRY!

Thanks to Burbed reader Herve for this find.

Now, to be fair, the entry has since been updated to correct for this, but still its ok to have fun with this listing!

Just think, you can buy a house where all the neighbors were friends, so they’ll hate you when you move in. Because, you know, you’re not the guy.

But, you do have this dashing realtor to help you and build credibility, so I guess that’s a plus. So… just buy this house, tear it down, spend another $375k and boom you’ve got a great house in Mountain View. I wonder if you can do some sort of scheme where you leave one wall standing to preserve your purchase tax rate.

Anyone familiar with Prop 13 avoidance scams… er… techniques like that?

Report: MVLA teachers are best paid in state

by Kelsey Mesher
Mountain View Voice Staff

According to data released by the state Department of Education this month and compiled by the Sacramento Bee, teachers in the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District are the highest paid in the state.

"We have the best teachers in the state and they deserve to be paid well," said Superintendent Barry Groves.

The Bee’s report, which examined districts with more than 100 teachers, said MVLA pays an average of $95,365 a year, with the lowest earning $61,184 and the highest $115,616.

…

According to the state data, teachers in the Mountain View Whisman School District make an average of $61,147 annually. The lowest pay offered in that district is $44,609, while the highest is $82,315.

In the Los Altos School District, teachers earn between $44,832 and $86,924, with an average salary of $73,569.

Congrats to Mountain View and Los Altos for this achievement! No wonder we have some of the best schools in California!

Now, granted, teachers in NY, NJ, and CT suburbs with lower priced housing regularly make over $100k – but let’s face it, they don’t have the right priorities. That’s why their schools are only top of the nation, not top of California.

Prisons and bus drivers. California’s got everything right.

(BTW, be sure to check out the comments at the bottom of the link above. Lots of good discussion.)

Assessor: Biggest property assessment drop since the Great Depression

by Daniel DeBolt
Mountain View Voice Staff

Santa Clara County’s assessed property values fared better during much of the Great Depression than they did last year, tax assessor Larry Stone announced yesterday.

For the first time since the 1930s the county saw an actual drop in assessed property values. Stone is reporting a "distressing" 2.43 percent drop from January 2009 to January 2010 county-wide. The only other year more worrisome was 1933, when assessed property values declined in the county by 3.19 percent, Stone said.

"From my point of view, this is far worse than I expected," Stone said.

Just a month ago when the county’s cities were preparing their budgets, Stone told cities to expect only a two percent drop to be reported countywide. An additional one half percent might not seem like big news, but "when you are dealing with a $300 billion assessment, that’s not a small number."

Mountain View’s assessed values declined by 2.9 percent in total, worse than average. Palo Alto was the only city to see assessed values increase, at a meager .4 percent.

Of particular concern in Mountain View is a 25.2 percent decrease in the valuation of business personal property — which includes things like furniture, computers and other equipment — in the city’s redevelopment areas. That compares to a decrease of only 8 percent county-wide and an increase of 1.1 percent in Mountain View’s non-redevelopment areas.

"There must be some lost business, some businesses that moved out maybe," Stone said of Mountain View’s two redevelopment areas, which include Google’s Shoreline neighborhood and much of downtown.
Stone blamed the decline in property values on the county’s "soaring unemployment rate." Similarly, the number of businesses in the county decreases by 8.2 percent during 2009, from 46,000 to 42,000.

Thanks to Burbed reader Herve for this find!

Between this and the successful IPO of Tesla, it is absolutely clear that the bottom has been reached, and things can only go up up up up up from here on out.

Next year? “Biggest property assessment hikes since the earth was created.” You heard it here first!

Teens jumped in ‘gang-related’ attack

by Nick Veronin
Mountain View Voice Staff

Three teenagers were jumped by a group of about six men wielding weapons outside a convenience store near the border of Los Altos and Mountain View on Saturday night, June 26, a police spokeswoman said.
The victims, a 15-year-old from Stockton, an 18-year-old from Santa Clara and a 19-year-old from Sunnyvale — all male — told police they were confronted shortly before 10 p.m. as they left a 7-Eleven in the 600 block of South Rengstorff Avenue, between El Camino Real and Latham Street, said Liz Wylie, public information officer for the Mountain View Police Department.

The victims, who gave slightly different accounts, said about six men, ranging in age from 20 to 30, jumped them and that some of the assailants were armed with what Wylie described as "a brick like object," as well as a sharp object — perhaps a pen or a screwdriver — but not a knife.

The suspects remain at large.

All three victims had injuries, but declined offers of transportation to the hospital, Wylie said. The 15-year-old had welts and lumps on head and face and three small puncture wounds on shoulder and back; the 18-year-old only had complaints of head pain, and 19-year-old had puncture wounds on arm.

Before attacking the three teens, the men said "gang-related" things Wylie said. She declined to elaborate on what may have been said, but added that police have a few "very significant leads" in the case. At this time, she said, police believe the attackers to be a part of a gang, but are not sure whether the victims are in a gang; they indicated that they were not, she said. A Mountain View gang-suppression team is working on the case.

A public service announcement. Be safe out there!

1488 GILMORE St Mountain View, CA 94040

$895,000

Beds:	3
Baths:	2
Sq. Ft.:	1,215
$/Sq. Ft.:	$737
Lot Size:	5,115 Sq. Ft.
Property Type:	Detached Single Family
Style:	Ranch
Stories:	1
Year Built:	1954
Community:	Miramonte
County:	Santa Clara
MLS#:	81024760
Source:	MLSListings
Status:	Active This listing is for sale and the sellers are accepting offers.
On Redfin:	3 days

Great home in prime neighborhood w/ Los Altos schools awaiting your designer touch! Cozy living room w/ FP overlooking the back yard. Gleaming hardwood floors. Master bedroom suite w/ two closets & newly remodeled tile-finished bathroom. New interior doors. Dual paned windows. Peaceful backyard w/ raised planter beds & wooden deck for relaxing and entertaining. Newer roof. Two car attached garage.

Everyone is looking to go green these days. Actually, I don’t think that’s true… but everyone says it so it must be true.

This house is green. Look! There’s no grass! Grass is the enemy of mother nature. Instead, it has ecofriendly concrete. Hurray! And all for a low $737 per square foot. Wow what a deal!

But… uh… is it just me or is there something funny going on with those clouds?