Let’s finish out the week with a double dose of Mountain View Bubble 4.0: this house is a floor wax and a dessert topping. Today’s featured property was brought to you courtesy of Burbed reader bublidoo.  Thanks very much for a listing so aerated that we had to go to four different sites until we found a photo of the actual house as it exists today.  Yep, pending in a week!

460 N Whisman Rd
Mountain View, CA 94043
$1,149,000

Loan Payment: $4,000/mo
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 3&1/2
Size: 1,999 sqft
$/Sqft: $574/sqft
Type: Single Family House
Year Built: 2013
Lot Size: 4,960
Days on Movoto: 9 days
Neighborhood: Whisman
MLS#: 81305578
Status: Pending – Do Not Show

Stunning newly constructed custom 4/3.5 Craftsman located on a great lot close to downtown MV, Google and easy commute routes! This gorgeous open floor plan inc. 2 master suites, one 1st floor, 3.5 designer baths, gourmet chef?s kitchen with granite counter tops & stainless steel appliances, large island w/counter seating & sliding doors to patio. Perfect for entertaining! Close to top MV schools!

So why is this house nominated for a big ol’ Burbed hug? Let’s check in with our reader whose very name implies Bubble 4.0.

wanted to point out this stunning, newly constructed custom craftsman to you. If it was near good schools or downtown Mountain View (the description claims both … but not sure about "near"), perhaps the price could be justified. But what we’re looking at here …

is an asking price well over a million bucks for a single family house (yes, stunning, I forgot, sorry …) on a small lot within the vapor intrusion study area. And the listing comes on the heels of super fun coverage by burbed, the local TV channel, and the Mountain View Voice. One has to wonder why the agent didn’t include "Buyer to attend meetings on toxic vapors. Walk to Google Offices!"

Perhaps there’s been too much super fun coverage already? In that case, no pressure … and hope you had a chuckle.

Cheers!

Oh no, bublidoo, you can never, ever, ever have too much Super Fun.  Want some more?  Let’s look at this house over on Redfin, where’ they’ve pulled down the listing and are featuring the before photo (singular) and listing copy. 

Did we mention how much we love Pending/Do Not Show?  It’s like an extra set of presents we completely missed behind the Christmas tree!  And speaking of extra presents, look what we found on Zillow.  This is like finding out we’re celebrating Chanukah too, as an added extended family holiday, with bunus presents!

Wow, who knew that side of the family was so artsy?  (Or too klutzy to use a camera?)  Must be because of those good schools.

Anyone can buy a million dollar house in a prestige area.  Well, anyone who had the sense to join the right company before they went public, that is.  But it takes a Special someone to buy a seven digit priced property in the land of homes that cost Not A Lot Of Money™.

1501 OBURN Ct
Campbell, CA 95008
$1,149,000

4 Beds
3 Baths
2,255 Sq. Ft.
$510 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1986
Lot Size: 9,594
Sq. Ft.
On Redfin: 2 days
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 2
Community: Campbell
MLS#: 81304821
Style: Contemporary
View: Neighborhood
County: Santa Clara

Beautiful Executive Campbell Home on Extra Large Corner Lot located in a Cul de Sac. Inviting Master Bedroom Suite with Walk in closets featuring Large Master Bath, Separate Shower and Jacuzzi tub. Oversized 3 Car Garage with extra storage space. Large Backyard has Private Patio with Running Waterfall. Side Yard has Storage Shed/Workshop. Award Winning Campbell School District with High API Scores

Are you thinking Lord of the Manor? Or is this more Can’t Even Qualify For Real Gray Area?

To which we say, does it even matter? The listing won’t even show you any inside photos. You want to see the inside, you had better buy this house, and quickly, because it’ll be gone before you know it.  Get the begging letter ready, bring your prequalification paperwork, and an extra suitcase full of cash for overbidding.

At right is the kitchen from the previous (2008) listing, which called out the granite and stainless.  The current listing copy doesn’t mention the kitchen at all!  Instead it goes on about the jacuzzi and the garage you can’t see instead.  And really, is there anything you can do about it? Well you could rent for the rest of your life, but who would respect you? Wouldn’t you rather live in a house like this and have a close, personal relationship with a series of banks for the next 30 years?

The bubble is back, and this $1.15M house in Campbell says you are its bitch. 

Here’s a great story we found via Inside Los Gatos, and by “great” this time we actually do mean “great.”  It’s got a number of hot buttons, so fire up your righteous outrage!

Los Gatos Family Continues to Fight School

Edwards family says school won’t let their kids attend because of nut allergies. Los Gatos Union School claims the family doesn’t live in the right district

By Stephanie Chuang, NBC Bay Area, Tuesday, Oct 23, 2012, Updated 9:15 PM PDT

Edwards family says school won’t let their kids attend because of nut allergies, school claims the family doesn’t live in the right district

In a story we first told you on NBC Bay Area last Friday, the tension between one South Bay family and the Los Gatos Union School District (LGUSD) is coming to a head.

Tuesday morning, the Edwards family walked 9-year-old Ella and 7-year-old Sarah into the Van Meter Elementary school office – only to be greeted by the superintendent and two police officers.

“That’s when my heart sank, when I heard there were police officers just to prevent my girls from going to the school they belong in,” said Shuly Edwards, the girls’ mother, before she began to cry.

This story has a mom claiming her daughters have been kicked out of five different schools because of their nut allergies.  It has a district superintendent retorting the family is scamming the district because they actually live elsewhere.  It’s got threatened lawsuits. And of course, it’s got video of the girls being cute on cue. 

Due to all the highly pressurized and flammable contents, we hope this will lead to a veritable flamefight lively discussion. And just to pour some gasoline on the fire, we’ll get you going with some of the ruder observations from ILG’s own commenters.  Below is the first video, with more background on the Edwards’ nut allergy claims.

Here are some of the juicier rumors from Inside Los Gatos. (Burbed provides the comment summary as-is and without any implied warranty for accuracy. Some material appearing herein may not have been meant as a factual statement.)  The photo at right is also from the blog.

• This family has a home in Campbell mom’s sister is renting from them
• The same family was asked to leave Mulberry School (private) because of unreasonable food demands of others; mom is a troublemaker.
• The same mom was in a different news story about her chronic migraines (Confirmed!)
• Van Meter Elementary already has a nut-free lunch table
• Family provided two addresses and the first one was fictitious; were investigated for 5–6 weeks.  They have until next Wednesday to provide all paperwork or they’re out again.

We laugh at the foolish reporter in the follow-up video (top) for comparing Los Gatos Elementary to Moreland and Campbell school districts. Stephanie Chuang asked administrators at the latter two if they had ever called police to resolve a residency dispute.  As all readers of Burbed know, only Real Bay Area cities have Real Bay Area schools worth lying to get your kids into.

We haven’t been shy about sharing our educational “reform” position with you: we distrust the charter school movement.  We believe they are a means for private corporations to strip school boards of their resources and teachers of their benefits by providing cut-rate education under the false flag of “school choice.”  After all, corporations exist to make a profit.  Would you really want your child’s education outsourced to the lowest bidder?  Of course not!  That’s why you’ll pay anything to live in the Real Bay Area!

Charter Schools’ Negative Impact on the Educational System

Charter schools are being implemented all across the country, whether parents want them or not.  This is happening because some very wealthy people, not one of them with any education background, see this as a way to profit at the expense school boards and teachers unions.  Much of the current “school reform” movement has been taken over by tons of money from foundations from the Walton (Walmart), Gates (Microsoft) and Broad (construction and insurance) families and, of course, the Koch brothers.  These groups have completely derailed real school reform in favor of their plan to corporatize our educational system.

All that money crowds out real reform in favor of forcing charter schools, despite their lackluster performance despite their ability to cherry-pick students.  There are stories everywhere of neighborhood schools forced to close, fire all the teachers and administrators, and then reopen as charters, despite complete opposition from the affected teachers, parents and children.  Needless to say, this is most likely to happen where parents are not well-represented in the political system.  That is, this process is most likely to happen in poorer neighborhoods rather than wealthy suburbs.  Remember Waiting for Superman (which is, of course, pure propaganda)?  The Bay Area school in the film was in Redwood City.  And look at all the corporate charter schools that have popped up in Oakland and San Jose.

Click on through to find out what happens next.

(more…)

Looking for something a little easy on the budget?  This house doesn’t cost a lot of money.  Thanks very much to Burbed reader sonarrat for this fine find in San Jose: a prewar cottage right in the middle of everything!

878 N 4th St
San Jose, CA 95112
$495,000

BEDS: 2
BATHS: 1
SQ. FT.: 832
$/SQ. FT.: $595
LOT SIZE: 6,850 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STORIES: 1
YEAR BUILT: 1939
COMMUNITY: Central San Jose
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81149902
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 101 days

Charming 2 bedroom 1 bath home located in Hyde Park. Detached 2 car garage, wood burning fire place, hardwood floors, dining room and interior laundry. Located near parks, schools, shopping and downtown amenities. 101, 880 and light rail nearby. Large lot with room to expand. Do not disturb tenants.

This lawn sure doesn’t suggest it’s in the middle of a city of just under a million people, does it?  Why, this could be the suburbs anywhere, provided they were building suburbs in 1939.

Love the handy waste receptacles!

But why didn’t the agent mention the magnet middle school across the street, guaranteeing lots of traffic coming in from all over San Jose?  Plus, if you want to enroll your child in any program in SJ Unified School district, just hop across idyllic 4th Street, as this school doubles as a year-round enrollment center!  You’ll be first in line, and you can always sneak back home to refill your thermos!

Have you ever heard that life just isn’t fair?  It’s true.  You know what really isn’t fair?  School funding.

Some California schools get twice the funding — and more — of others

By Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News
Posted:   02/26/2012 05:37:03 PM PST, Updated:   02/27/2012 03:09:47 AM PST

Thirty-six years after the California Supreme Court ordered the state to fix its unequal system of funding schools, a gaping disparity remains between haves and have-nots.

And it may not improve much any time soon.

A scathing report on California’s school finances not only repeats the indictment of an inequitable, insufficient and irrational funding scheme, but also details how California spends on average $620 less on a student living in a high-poverty area than one in an affluent neighborhood.

The report by the Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based education advocacy group, also attacks the complexity of California school financing. "The system is a haphazard collection of arcane and hard-to-navigate policies that manage to hide funding disparities from district leaders and policy makers, not to mention parents and the public," the report, released last week, reads. "The maze of programs and formulas makes it nearly impossible to understand whether dollars ever reach the schools and students for whom they are intended."

Here’s the report by Education Trust-West mentioned above.  Clearly this is a complex problem, which would probably require a 40,000 word essay on the topic to identify the problems and begin to propose some reforms and solutions to this mess. 

I could create lots of lovely charts, comparing and contrasting financing among different districts in the Real Bay Area (by going here to Ed-Data, and clicking Districts and then Compare Finances).  I could brood over these 40 pages of state and local per-student revenue by school district across the entire state. 

Then I could make a bunch of sarcastic comments so you couldn’t tell if I was in favor of replacing all public schooling with Google Search or wanted to buy every government school student a gold-plated Tesla Roadster to ensure they showed up on time.  (Plus I would make sure I got the statewide school parking lot contracts via no-bid.  And a Lamborghini.)

The heck with it.  We’ve been having some beautiful weather, so why doesn’t everyone merely gripe about school funding, Prop 13, basic aid vs. revenue limit, and “voluntary” donations in this thread while you all pretend I said something brilliant.

This is also an Open Thread for everyone who doesn’t give a foreclosed lien about school funding.

It’s always fun when a house previously featured on Burbed comes back for a second look. Sometimes it’s a flip that’s awful in a new way, sometimes it’s the same problems ensuring that the house will be bidless for a long, long time.  Today’s Mountain View mansion, courtesy of Burbed reader dollarbin, has some changes since its last appearance, but it’s not just the house that’s had things moved around.

290 CHIQUITA Ave
Mountain View, CA 94041
$888,000

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 3
SQ. FT.: 1,565
$/SQ. FT.: $567
LOT SIZE: 4,414 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Traditional
STORIES: 2
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 2009
COMMUNITY: Downtown
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81150934
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 48 days

Curb Appeal-Perfect 10. Own this 2.5 yr old Single Family Home for the price of MV townhomes and Condos. Warm & BEATIFULLY designed. Very energy efft/extra insulation w/ E. Eff appls. Showroom finish 2car garage. Gated access for added security/privacy n kids to play. Walking dist. to Downtown restrnts/shops/farmrs mrkt/CalTrans & Parks. Xcllnt APIs for schools. Nice fenced back yard w/ patio. NO HOA Dues.

And here’s a reminder of how the house looked in its previous incarnation:  (warning, 180 comment thread)

Here’s what dollarbin has to say about why you should take another look at 290 Chiquita:

One of burbed’s most talked about houses is back on the market, baby!

What’s more, unlike 2009, it now sports lucky 8′s in the price tag.

Plus, unlike 2009, the assigned elementary school will be Castro, rather than having to schlep your kids across El Camino into the fancy side of town to attend Bubb with all of those obnoxious rich kids.

Also, thanks to Habitat for Humanity, you’ll have new neighbor families enjoying “eight ownership homes for ‘very low- and low-income families’ ” at 300 Chiquita Ave.”

You may object that the “Xcllnt APIs for schools” was not intended to be a factual statement, and there will be BMR housing next door.  The crime rate might be higher than you’re comfortable with.  You may not be too excited about the sex offender who lives around the corner on Villa Street.  And two different Redfin agents complained about how small the bedrooms are.

None of this matters in the least.  The agent presents picture #21 to refute all Negative Nellie natterings.

Start your overbidding!

Today we have a guest post from Burbed reader dollarbin. This post came out of an email discussion we had about the last submission and how wonderful it is to live in Google’s backyard.  So what could possibly be better than property in Mountain View?  I think dollarbin has the answer to that: South Palo Alto.  Really, really, really South.

Please give dollarbin a big, warm, Real Bay Area welcome to Burbed’s front page as today’s Guest Blogger!

 

670 SAN ANTONIO Rd #23, Palo Alto, CA 94306
$615,000

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 2.5
SQ. FT.: 1,382
$/SQ. FT.: $445
LOT SIZE: 1,176 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Townhouse
STORIES: 1-3 (Low Rise)
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1979
COMMUNITY: South Palo Alto
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81134112
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Pending Without Release
ON REDFIN: 73 days

The BEST DEAL IN PALO ALTO! Compares well with Mtn View properties * Beautiful yard with deck. New paint. New flooring in kitchen and powder room. Granite slab counters, updated baths, stainless steel appliances. 2-car attached garage. Close to commute arteries and shopping. HOA fee includes earthquake insurance. Mtn. View Schools. Monta Loma Elementary (834).

As a matter of fact, I did move into z2amiller’s ‘hood, although our place doesn’t quite have quite as much character as theirs. I will have to give him or her the Burbed handshake at the next Monta Loma secret cabal meeting. We’ve been getting a lot of Burbed love lately, there’s plenty of idiosyncratically maintained and modified houses here.

Here’s another listing that has been amusing me for some time:

"The BEST DEAL IN PALO ALTO! Compares well with Mtn View properties"

This seems like reverse marketing, wouldn’t you want a place in Mountain View to compare with Palo Alto properties? Despite the 94306 address, this place is for all intents and purposes in 94043, including Mountain View schools. We toured this unit back in July, I think it was the third open house we actually went to.

At that time, they didn’t have the fact that it is Mountain View Schools on the listing, and the showing agent only told us when we asked directly. Perhaps they were hoping a buyer would assume Palo Alto Schools and not actually check. Sadly, with the recent price cut, they lose the lucky 8′s though. Hopefully they’ve cleaned the carpets since we toured.

Another curiosity is that it sold for $1,567,500 in 2003, so you’re looking 900K in instant equity.

Actually, I’m not deep in the game, but I’m assuming this price was part of a multi-unit sale, particularly if you look at property tax records.

Well, that certainly got your attention.  I’d like to direct you to an excellent, dare I say seminal piece of reporting on the elephant in the California real estate room: Proposition 13.  I’ll quote a few grafs here, but I really would like you to read the entire piece.

California Diminished by 1978 Tax Revolt Shows U.S. in Decline

By Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg/Businessweek
October 17, 2011, 12:23 AM EDT

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) — California voters approved Proposition 13 to rein in property taxes that had doubled in 10 years. More than three decades later, that rebellion has mortgaged the state’s future, saddling it with the nation’s highest debt and lowest credit rating.

The measure led to reductions that dropped per-student school spending from seventh to 29th nationally, prompted cities to pursue sprawling retail development to compensate for lost revenue, and pushed the state into budget gridlock, including a $705 million revenue shortfall announced Oct. 10, by requiring two-thirds approval for any tax increase.

“Proposition 13 set up an unfair and dysfunctional two- tiered system of property taxes,” said Kevin Starr, a history professor at the University of Southern California and the author of a series of books on the state. “It choked off a source of revenue, and the lack of that revenue has brought California to the edge.”

The measure, approved in 1978, was the inspiration for an antitax movement that has taken hold of the public discourse in Washington and in state legislatures throughout the country. It caps real estate levies at 1 percent of a property’s most-recent sale price. Before it passed, local governments could raise revenue as they saw fit.

Here’s a few more colorful quotes from this story:

• “You couldn’t invent a crazier system,” [Santa Clara County Assessor Larry] Stone said in a telephone interview.
• “It’s had a profound impact on multiple levels,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan research group in Sacramento. “The one that’s underestimated is the shift in decision-making from the local level to the state. All of our public systems have been affected by our seemingly perpetual budget crises.”
• “Prop. 13 has had the unintended effect of favoring commercial property owners at the expense of homeowners,” [Los Angeles Mayor Antonio] Villaraigosa said Aug. 16 at the Sacramento Press Club. “Let’s apply Prop. 13’s protections to homeowners and homeowners alone.”
• “This is a nightmare,” said Mohammad Islam, San Bernardino’s assistant superintendent who has worked in school finance for 22 years. “It’s impossible what the state is doing to us.”

Yet despite all California’s budget woes (as described by Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair), there is no organized movement toward either doing away with, or even modifying Proposition 13 to a homeowners-only tax adjustment.  While presented as a way to keep senior citizens from losing their homes to skyrocketing property taxes, Prop 13 has become a windfall for commercial and corporate property owners instead.

Meanwhile, California’s public school system has declined from seventh in per-pupil spending to 29th according to this article. If you go by this NEA report, it’s 36th. According to this article from KQED, it’s 42nd.  Or 43rd.  Or 46th.  More importantly, education quality has dropped as well.  California ranks 46th of 51 (50 states plus District of Columbia) on test scores in 2003.  This more recent ranking had California come in 30th (but this appears to be a different series of grades).

That NEA report said we’re #3 in prison spending per capita, though!  Woot!

Now, if you don’t think an educated citizenry is an important goal, then you can tell me to shut up already about school funding.  But I suspect most knowledge workers (such as Silicon Valley engineers or San Francisco creative class members) would want our schools to return to their previous high quality, and that means starving them is not in our interest.

Let’s hear from someone else who doesn’t agree with that.  Furthermore, this is someone who writes a San Francisco real estate blog.  Here is his complete takedown of that 2600 word Bloomberg piece.  Ready?

Prop 13 Isn’t Squeezing Anything

Bill Quick, San Francisco Real Estate Blog

The political big spenders absolutely hate Prop 13, because it cut off their unlimited access to the piggy bank of private property taxation.

The truth is, our spending on essentials like education, public safety, and other bottom-line items is not being constricted by Prop 13. It is being choked off by the propensity of governments at both the local and state levels to spend money on tens of thousands of pet projects and pet constituencies, rather than paying for services that voters feel are the most basic. We’re not broke because our state “salary” (taxes) is too low, it’s because we spend way too much on non-essential fripperies.

Wow, I’m speechless from that relentless chain of brilliant logic!  And to be fair, when I called Quick on his heavy use of facts and supporting evidence, he did respond with this:

Enjoyed your sarcasm! I’ll be looking forward to your piece supporting runaway property taxes and booting retired boomers into the street, too. Of course, California’s housing economy is in such great shape that property tax hikes should be just the ticket for rocketing us to even greater heights!

Right.  Because interest rates and inflation are exactly the same as they were in 1978, and property tax assessments are rising faster than college costs.  Then there’s this:

Here’s a bunch of stats on California’s tax and business climate. Short takeaway: We’re in awful shape, with one of the highest overall tax burdens in America.

The bunch of stats are from the Tax Foundation, so I looked into just who they are and what their real motives are.  They’re funded by high-minded humanitarians such as the Koch Foundation (as in Koch Brothers) and ExxonMobil. They obviously have your interests in mind rather than those grabby one percenters!  Would you expect anything less from a group founded by the CEOs of General Motors and Standard Oil other than whether grannies are getting taxed out of their Cayman Island Corporations and have to bunk in their Swiss bank deposits?

Paul Krugman (a know-nothing economist who won a stupid Nobel) accused this group of committing “deliberate fraud” in their evaluation of Obama’s jobs proposal.  This isn’t the first time he’s questioned their methodology, either. But let’s drink to “the tax is too damned high” Kool-aid that the Tax Foundation is pouring.

It’s a lot cheaper than actually fixing things.

Here’s what happens when you head over to a site called apiscores.com: you get a map with little pins representing how well each school scores on the California API.  It’s all sunshine and rainbows!  At least the pin legend uses a rainbow, where 1, the lowest ranking, is really bad apple red, and 10, the highest, is the purest purple.

I don’t know what they’re doing with that light blue for rank 6 (they should have used something more like teal or at least aqua), and the dark purple they used is more suggestive of blue (and a lower score) than the light purple.  So given that whoever made the map didn’t spend enough time playing with the Color Wheel during Art Class (which has been cut to raise API scores), let’s have a look and see who’s in the Real Bay Area (RBA) and who isn’t.  Remember, the deeper the purple, the larger the college fund balances!  And the redder, the deader (at least in real estate terms).

Whoa, check out that swath that runs northwest through southeast alongside I-280.  Does that area look familiar?  It should.

Obviously there’s more to being in the RBA than just having top school scores (you also need to be score top sushi and get to the GooglePlex in a reasonable amount of time), but it’s nice to have confirmation that this map was onto something.  Admittedly this RBA map used purple the way the school score map used green, as a mixdown.  But the core RBA comes through on both:

Anyway, zoom in on your neighborhood and check out what color your neighborhood schools are.  The more you embiggen the map, the more pins pop up, so if you can’t find a particular school, you may have to zoom in some more or not show as many school types.

This is a Weekend Open Thread.