Discuss.

As disappointed visitors and new employees discover, Silicon Valley is a dull and ugly landscape of low-rise stucco office parks and immense traffic-clogged boulevards. The fancy restaurants are in strip malls, like you’d find in Arizona or something. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go. Massive arcologies like the new Apple campus are where the tech giants are headed, but until there are living urban neighborhoods connecting these monstrosities, anyone with hopes for a life outside of work will pay a ridiculous premium to live in San Francisco and spend two hours of every day sitting on a bus.

Meanwhile, the areas around and in between the tech giants of Silicon Valley are mostly ready to be razed and rebuilt. There are miles and miles of half-empty retail space, hideous 1970s’ two-story apartment complexes, most of it lacking the basic human infrastructure of public transportation, playgrounds, bicycle and running and walking paths, outdoor cafes and blocks loaded with bars and late-night restaurants. This is where the new metropolis must be built, in this unloved but sunny valley.

And then the new supercity gets linked to San Francisco by an existing boulevard of run-down old malls and decrepit car lots that pours right into the Mission District and downtown SF, 40 miles north. The boulevard is El Camino Real, or California Route 82, the one-time king’s highway that could be a new corridor of high-rise apartments and HQs and restaurants and museums filling in the long gaps between downtown San Jose and Apple/Google/HP/Yahoo/Intel and Stanford University and San Francisco. With local light rail at street level and express trains overhead or underground, the whole route could be lined with native-landscaped sidewalks dotted with pocket parks and filled on both sides with ground-floor retail, farmers markets and nightlife districts around every station. Caltrain already runs just east of Route 82, and BART already reaches south to Millbrae now.

The above is from a piece in The Awl that notes the large number of young, hip techies who may work in Silicon Valley but definitely don’t want to live in a ginormous, boring suburb.  Yes, there are well-paid people out there who don’t want to spend a million dollars for a sixty year old tract house, or even three thousand a month to merely rent one.  So what would you replace the endless clone houses of San Jose with?  Or would you simply raze most of Redwood City and rebuild Manhattan there?

This is also a great time to whip out this map of the region again, to remind everyone what makes The Bay Area So Special.  Pay careful attention to the region along The Street of Kings.

Thanks very much to Apocryphon at MetaFilter for linking to these sites above.

Our post-Christmas closeouts continue!  Today we’re heading up the hill to Santa Cruz County to show that you, yes YOU!! Can!! Afford!! To buy a house!! Thanks very much to Burbed reader wahnny for sending us this bodacious Boulder Creek craptacular.

273 W HILTON Dr
San Lorenzo Valley, CA 95006
$49,900

3 Beds 
2 Baths 
1,400 Sq. Ft.
$36 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1965 
Lot Size: 0.32 Acres 
On Redfin: 21 days
Status: Active
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Community: Boulder Creek
MLS#: 81242647
Stories: 2
County: Santa Cruz

Property damaged by 2006 slide on Boulder Creek golf course. Engineering reports and county reports on file. Drive by only. DO NOT ENTER PROPERTY. CASH OFFER ONLY.

Here’s what wahnny said about this resort location:

Although the photos and listing appear to match the reality of the area (made worse with recent rains), the dreaming still continues.

You’ll be having pleasant dreams in this Golf Course abode!  They’ll be so amazing that’s why you’re only allowed to drive by. 

Nobody’s allowed to enter the property until you’ve paid your cash offer.  If that isn’t proof that The Bubbles Are Back, we don’t know what is.

We’re sure you can clean up that 2006 slide on Boulder Creek golf course, if you can find where the engineering and county reports are “on file.”

If you haven’t already gotten up at 5 a.m. to start shopping for holiday bargains, you’ve still come to the right place!  Thanksgiving is over, so get on your steel-toed cyber boots, the better to kick your fellow shoppers out of your way!  Yes, it’s time for Burbed‘s Black Friday Sales, where we find the absolute rock-bottom in housing prices all around the Bay!  And we’re opening an hour early just for you!

Here’s how Black Friday Sales will work this year. We’ll again feature the cheapest properties in each county all around the Bay Area, plus some of our favorite cities.  But we won’t forget that our readers are sending in listings as well, so you just never know if each day will be a Sale Property or something else entirely.  You’ll just have to tune in every day to find out.

Let’s begin our sales in Silicon Valley, because even Googlers like to bargain-hunt.  Here we go, the absolutely cheapest house in all of Santa Clara County!  Ready?

8282 Murray Ave #97
Gilroy, CA 95020
$18,000

1 Beds 
1 Baths 
542 Sq. Ft.
$33 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1966 
Lot Size: — 
On Redfin: 38 days
Status: Active
Property Type: Mobile Home (Single Wide), Mobile Home (Expando)
County: Santa Clara
Community: Morgan Hill/Gilroy/San Martin
MLS#: 81237950

Pre-owned, 1966 Kit, 1 bedroom/ 1 bath Single-wide mobile home in a senior park (one owner must be at least 55 years of age). Includes refrigerator, washer & dryer and window air conditioner. Low space rent!

Oh, not what you had in mind?  Even with a low space rent of $560 (which will probably double as soon as you finish signing those papers at the title company)?  Even with 15 pictures?

If you insist, there’s this.

5591 CARRYBACK Ave
San Jose, CA 95111
$245,000

2 Beds
2 Baths
1,121 Sq. Ft.
$219 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1989
Lot Size: 2,184 Sq. Ft.
On Redfin: 265 days
Status: Active
Property Type: Attached Single Family
Community South San Jose
MLS# 81208122
Stories: 2
County Santa Clara

Good home conveniently located. This is a short sale. Please do not disturb occupants.

Whatever developer named this street sure has a twisted sense of humor, because it’s a short sale.  There ought to be a Piggyback Lane here too.  Be sure to check out the listing history, because this place has gone pending four different times in the last three years, plus it sold in 2000, yes, twelve years ago, for $247K.

What? You want a detached house?  Okay, but this is your very last chance.

2138 HURAN Dr
San Jose, CA 95122
$248,000

3 Beds
1 Baths
912 Sq. Ft.
$272 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1960
Lot Size: 5,150 Sq. Ft.
On Redfin: 16 days
Status: Active
Property Type: Detached Single Family
View: Neighborhood
County Santa Clara
Stories: 1
Community Alum Rock
MLS# 81240311

Another opportunity to own this 3 bedroom 1 bathroom single Family home located in San Jose. Very close to shopping centers, mall, and schools. Easy access to freeway 101. Sell is an “AS IS “ condition. Some dual Pane windows. Garage converted but permits unknown.

Oh, we’ve got a winner here! This one has everything! It’s also selling shortly, plus questionable permits and for sale as-is.  The listing copy mentioned the “easy access” to 101, but they didn’t mention the just as easy access to Reid-Hillview Airport. Hope you like the sound of takeoffs and landings!

And remember, more Black Friday Sales to come!

San Jose: Crews use huge trucks to clear junk from hoarder home

By Mark Gomez, San Jose Mercury News
Posted:   03/15/2012 06:24:40 AM PDT, Updated:   03/15/2012 08:03:03 AM PDT

Crews were in their second day at a San Jose home removing mountains of debris so massive that workers used two hauling trucks, each capable of carrying 72,380 pounds of material, to get the job done.

As of Wednesday morning, they still hadn’t made their way into the backyard.

The extreme makeover at 226 S. Claremont Ave. began Tuesday after a vote last month by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to declare the residence a public nuisance. The piles of junk, garbage and other items, including worn out bicycles, car tires and animal cages, had become so vast that it was visible from satellite photos.

The cleanup, which is expected to take about five days, ends a years-long struggle for neighbors who live in the otherwise well-kept neighborhood located off Alum Rock Avenue.

Thanks very much to Burbed reader Tracy Tea House, who had sent in an earlier story about the residents complaining about the massive piles of garbage at this house.  Looks like once this story hit both what’s left of a newspaper as well as on KGO-7 television news, the County finally took action.

Neighbors have been trying to have the grounds cleaned up since 2005.  Cleanup orders and fines were ignored by Richard Baker, the 58 year old son of the registered homeowners.  People fortunate enough to live near this local attraction suggested that Richard might be a few hundred square feet short of a McMansion.

Robert and Bessie Baker, Richard Baker’s parents, have both been deceased for ten years, so management of the house was transferred to the Office of the Public Guardian.  This agency will be responsible for inventorying whatever is in the house, as opposed to the mountains of garbage outside mostly headed for the landfill.  Anything of value inside or out would be saved for the Bakers’ estate, over and above this valuable residence.  In addition to Richard, the Bakers also have a daughter living in Santa Cruz who was only located recently.

Richard had been living in the house while collecting treasures, but not recently.  He did show up at the County hearing to object to the the home’s being declared a public nuisance, although the neither the Murk nor KGO-7 reported on what his reasons were.  He attempted to postpone the hearing because he had been in the hospital, but was unsuccessful. We’d guess the County’s embarrassment over things getting to this point trumped a hospital stay.  Remember all those fines Richard blew off?  Guess they did.

Okay, enough rewording the newspaper and TV articles.  Let’s have a look at this house.

Better have a good look at the driveway, too.

Wow, the Streetviews actually look worse than the satellite view.  And someone updated this record recently even though the house wasn’t for sale.

So here’s a way Richard (right) and his sister (who had the sense not to show up when cameras were rolling) could save even more money.  We know the County’s going to stick them with that clean-up bill, so every little bit is going to help!

Thanks for the advice, Trulia!  Anyway, do you have a neighbor building a fortification on the front lawn like this?  Tell us about it in today’s Weekend Open Thread!

It’s time for our post-Thanksgiving Black Friday Deals, Deals, Deals!  This series was a big hit last year, so we’ve brought it back, better than ever.  That’s why we opened an hour early this morning.

Every day we’ll feature the cheapest property we could find in a featured place.  We’re also going to keep bringing you the regular listings, because It’s Still Special Here.

Today, the cheapest house in the entire County of Santa Clara!  How much would you pay for an actual house (NOT A CONDO) on an actual lot (NOT PAVEMENT) in an actual city (NOT IN GILROY)?  And it’s not even one of those micro-cottages.  This is a real 3 bedroom, 2 bath house well over 1,000 square feet in size.

But, it’s BLACK FRIDAY, so you have to HURRY!  This one won’t last long because someone’s going to get it in the shorts.

548 SCOTTSVILLE Ct, San Jose, CA 95133
$150,000

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 2
SQ. FT.: 1,101
$/SQ. FT.: $136
LOT SIZE: 3,484 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STORIES: 1
YEAR BUILT: 1979
COMMUNITY: Berryessa
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81129498
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 142 days

Pre-Foreclosure. Must sell 11/27/11. Open House Sunday 11/27/11 2:00-4:00PM. Close to schools, cul-de sac.

Yes, this house must be sold by SUNDAY!  Wow, it isn’t even 80 years old.  An actual house for $150K.  That means if you earn $50K a year, like if you were a really lazy engineer and only worked 20 hours a week while whining at Occupy San Jose the other 148 hours a week, YOU COULD STILL QUALIFY TO BUY THIS HOUSE (provided you haven’t completely messed up your credit by, say, buying a house in the last 10 years.)

No more excuses.  NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY.

Here’s an on-the-ground report from Burbed reader Sam Adu, direct from comments.  In case you were wondering if they were making any more land, it looks like they are.  Unfortunately, this county land is going to end up in Campbell.  Hurry, offers are due Wednesday! Thanks very much for the Open House report, Sam!

The best ‘burbed-esque house I visited yesterday was, of course, in Campbell…or should I say a soon-to-be annexed part of Campbell.

 

1125 SHAMROCK Dr, Campbell, CA 95008
$380,000

BEDS: 2
BATHS: 1
SQ. FT.: 791
$/SQ. FT.: $480
LOT SIZE: 9,558 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Ranch
STORIES: 1
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1954
COMMUNITY: Cambrian
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81135861
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 5 days

Ready for expansion or to bring out the city gardener in you! Adorable home on an almost 10,000 sf lot. Updated – Kitchen, bathroom, dual paned windows, hardwood floors, electrical panel, foam insulation. Schools, Farnham, Price, Branham. This county area to be annexed to Campbell. HAFA approved short sale-can close in 45 days! Open Sat 8/20 1-4pm. Don’t miss this opportunity. Offers 8/23.

I’m always captivated by homes with huge walls surrounding them (i.e. 183 Dillon, Campbell). It must be how they remind me of my very short stay in a Ghanaian prison during some unrest we had in the late 90s. I wasn’t mistreated in there but all the guys on my street were definitely fearful and we were surrounded by these humongous walls in prison.

Anyways, we visited 1125 Shamrock yesterday. There is a zero lot line in the rear of the house with a giant rear hotel wall (easily seen in pics) abutting the property.

The real estate agent recommended that we paint a mural (or graffiti?) on the hotel wall to pretty it up. I liked to imagine myself throwing a tennis ball against that wall all day long for my lab and waking up all the hotel guests. Who the hell would be getting a hotel room in that part of Campbell though?

Redfin picture #3 of the place has a ‘cat on a dresser’, which is almost as good as ‘dudes on a couch’. It was funny visiting the place because that dang cat was sitting in the exact same spot when we were there.

Right next to that cat (and cropped out of the picture) is a bookshelf full of scientology dvds+books. Black cat + Scientology material + foreboding wall = Mr. and Mrs. Adu high-tailing it out of there.

Too much bad ju-ju at that house for us…not to mention that the house is smaller than the Adus’ current apartment.

Santa Clara County’s fastest-growing population is over 85

By Julia Prodis Sulek and Leigh Poitinger, SJ Mercury News
Posted:   07/02/2011 04:11:05 PM PDT

Phyllis Harding is slowing down now that she’s 89. She’s a bit forgetful and can’t walk too far or too fast. But she’ll be line dancing with her walker at the “Old Fogies Follies” this month, thanks to organized activities at her senior housing community in Los Gatos that is doing its best to keep her healthy longer.

“I’m living forever!” she said with a plucky smile as she got ready to order a new swimming suit for her water aerobics class at The Terraces of Los Gatos.

For Harding and the over-85 set, it certainly seems that way. New census numbers show that Harding is part of the “oldest olds” — the fastest growing population in Santa Clara County as well as the country. The over-85 population increased a stunning 52.7 percent in Santa Clara County between 2000 and 2010, more than any other age group, including 55-to-64-year-old Baby Boomers, which grew 37.4 percent. In San Mateo County, the over-85 population increased 34.9 percent, slightly less than the Baby Boomer population, which grew by 40.4 percent.

In other words, Silicon Valley — a place known since the 1960s for luring millions of young workers and their families to launch the technology revolution — is graying. Over the next 10 years, the number of people over 60 is expected to nearly double, while the number of those 75 or older is expected to triple by 2030, according to a report from the Silicon Valley Council on Aging.  Over the next decade, the 20-to-39 age bracket will decrease the most, by about 2.4 percent, the report says.  [emphasis mine]

The Merc summarized this article as “The over 85 folks are mostly whites living in wealthy suburbs of Los Gatos and Los Altos, but Latino and Asian ‘oldest olds’ are growing quickly.”

Want a house in Los Gatos or Los Altos?  Just wait for these folks to slow down a little more.  Other “wealthy white communities” where you’ll find the growing community of the “oldest old” are “…Saratoga, Monte Sereno… Los Altos Hills and Palo Alto.”

And at some point those homes will change ownership.  According to Nancy Hikoyeda, associate director of the Stanford Geriatric Education Center, 85-plussers are hit with  ”compression of morbidity… multiple illnesses, often including some form of dementia, which make them more frail.”

That’s great news for all those idle kitchen and bath contractors, because the homes probably are as frail as their owners and could use about 40 years’ worth of updates.

This is an Open Thread.  Any homes in your neighborhood that could be up for sale soon due to a little morbidity compression?

$150,000

296 S CRAGMONT Ave San Jose, CA 95127

Beds:	2
Baths:	1
Sq. Ft.:	872
$/Sq. Ft.:	$172
Lot Size:	10,240 Sq. Ft.
Property Type:	Detached Single Family
Style:	Ranch
Stories:	1
Year Built:	1948
Community:	Alum Rock
County:	Santa Clara
MLS#:	81045651
Source:	MLSListings
Status:	Active
On Redfin:	262 days

2 bedroom, 1 bath, across from school. OPEN HOUSE Sunday 6/5/11 2:00-4:00PM.

This is the cheapest house in Santa Clara county north of Morgan Hill. Wow, just look at the size of that lot! This is huge huge huge!

If this isn’t the perfect investment property, I’m not sure what is. Plus, just look at the instant equity waiting for you to tap:

What’s stopping you from buying this house? I bet most of you could buy this with your credit card!

Isn’t everyone on vacation?  No?  Well, you can worry about this, then.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 29, 2011

Santa Clara County Library Authority to Charge New Library Card Fee for Non-Residents of Library District

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CALIF.‑ In response to dramatic reductions in State funding and an increasing demand for library services, on Thursday the Santa Clara County Library District Joint Powers Authority approved an $80 annual library card fee for non-residents of the District, effective July 1, 2011.

Since 1988, the State has reimbursed public libraries for lending materials to non-residents of their district, and any resident of California could get a card at any public library in the state. Demands for service have increased to a point that the Santa Clara County Library District lends far more books to non-residents than District residents borrow from other libraries. At one time, the Library received over $2 million annually to partially reimburse the cost of this service.

In the midst of an increasing deficit, the Governor’s proposed budget includes the elimination of $30.4 million in state funding for three of California’s most valuable public library programs: The Public Library Foundation, the California Literacy Program and the Transaction Based Reimbursement, a cooperative system of borrowing and loaning books that has existed statewide for several decades. The State Budget for Fiscal Year 2012 eliminates all funding for public libraries, including those that are part of the Santa Clara County Library District.

Bet you skimmed the article and thought, okay, they’re dinging nonresidents of the County for using the libraries.  But that’s not what it said.

Cough up another $80 even if you live in Santa Clara County but happen to have picked one of the cities that didn’t ally with the County Library System.  Those unlucky cities, for those of you foolish enough to have chosen where to live without researching your library services first, are:

• Los Gatos
• Mountain View
• Palo Alto
• San Jose
• Santa Clara
• Sunnyvale

You free-riders have been using the Country Library System long enough without paying extra property taxes.  No more!  The party is over on July 1st.  Now if you try to check a book out of a County Library, you’ll be called out as the illegal aliens you are!

But don’t worry, since it’s a holiday weekend, the libraries are probably all closed!  So go check out some Open Houses and let us know what’s HOT!  Or use this Open Thread to bring up anything at all, like you’re working too hard to go on vacation.

Thanks to Burbed reader Real Estater for nominating this article by posting it in the comments on Friday.

Image from USA Today

East Bay tops among California’s most diverse places

By Eric Kurhi and Matt O’Brien, Contra Costa Times
Posted: 03/18/2011 03:20:18 PM PDT

HAYWARD — Close to the geographic center of a city known as the “Heart of the Bay,” Luciano Ruiz peered out the pickup window of a burger joint in what is, by one measure, the most racially diverse neighborhood in California.

“There’s been a mix of people here ever since I grew up,” said Ruiz, 18. “It’s always been mainly Latino down here in South Hayward, but now you see more African-Americans, a lot more Asians. I’ve seen a little increase in Middle Eastern people.”

The 2010 census shows a collection of census tracts in the Hayward flatlands as the most diverse in California and a microcosm of the state’s likely future. Latinos are the largest group, but share the space with many other people. Multicultural churches, mosques and businesses are in walking distance.

Thirty-five miles away, in the Walnut Creek retirement community of Rossmoor, a cluster of census tracts reflect an older, less integrated California. About 90 percent of residents are white and less than 1 percent are African-American in the Bay Area’s least-diverse neighborhood.

“It’s probably accurate,” said Rossmoor resident David Smith of the newly released statistics. “Our population is overwhelmingly white.”

Since this is from the Contra Costa Times, there’s little about neighborhoods in Santa Clara or San Mateo County, and which would be the most or least diverse. East Palo Alto was specifically called out as one of the 10 most diverse communities in California. The diversity index is the probability that two randomly picked people from the area would be of different race or ethnicity. Maybe you might have an idea which neighborhoods you’d nominate?

Anyway, I looked up the data, and East Palo Alto has a DI of 83.4 (the highest was 86.4 and Hayward was 85.1).  Oakland was 81.1. Not mentioned in the article are Sacramento, 79.6, South San Francisco, 79.0, San Jose, 77.1, San Bruno, 76.3, Santa Clara, 71.8, and Sunnyvale, 70.7.  On the other end of the scale we find Belvedere, 16.4, Portola Valley, 22.3, Woodside, 25.2, and Boulder Creek at 26.  Don’t assume that a low DI means white-bread; the Central Valley’s Mendota is 96.6% Hispanic and has a DI of 26.0.

In case you’re wondering how some areas end up with lots of diversity, here’s the secret, according to the above article:

It didn’t happen overnight,” Bogue said. “Just like anywhere, somebody puts a house up for sale, somebody looks at it and somebody buys it.”

Yeah, that couldn’t happen in Atherton, where houses are bequeathed.  But while houses are occasionally listed for sale in homogenous census tracts, the diverse ones, such as Richmond, San Pablo, Pittsburg, Hayward, Vallejo, Oakland and San Leandro have another interesting thing in common.

Local historian Frank Goulart said affordability has also long attracted a broad spectrum of people to parts of Hayward.

“If you want an honest answer, it’s the cheap housing,” Goulart said.

He said many of the homes in the city’s most diverse tracts “were built like shacks.”

There you go.  Diversity is code for crapboxes (like this one above, in Hayward, the City of Diversity).  But don’t worry about it.  The majority of California public school students are now Hispanic, so the Diversity Index must be heading down (see Mendota, above).  That means housing quality will go up, so the Real Bay Area will get bigger!

There’s no danger of that in Silicon Valley, though.  Santa Clara County’s index is a kumbayah 74, almost as multicultural as Alameda County’s state-topping 78.  The least diverse Bay Area County?  Marin, at 45. The overall state index is 72.9, second only to Hawaii’s 81.1.

But what’s more important is housing!  And the county with the highest percentage of vacant housing units goes to Alpine, with a whopping 71% of its housing sitting empty.  For the Bay Area, the winner is Sonoma, with 9.2%, but Santa Cruz’s 9.7% would have beaten it had any of the county physically come into contact with the Bay.  Meanwhile San Mateo and Santa Clara county are both in the 4’s, while San Francisco managed double: 8.3% of the housing units sitting empty.

There’s stats, stats, stats to play with, so have fun courtesy of USA Today.  Data is available by city as well, so go wild and wonder why the city (town?) of Almanor has 100% of their 75 housing units empty.

Photo above: foreclosed home in Hayward, showcasing diversity.