Sun Rising Over Belwood

Late last month I did a post showcasing a couple of photos I took from my front yard in the Belwood neighborhood of Los Gatos that featured the moon seemingly slung between two palm trees.

A couple of days ago, our daughter exclaimed that we needed to come to the window to see the morning sky. It was not quite 7am and it was positively ablaze. Same palm trees, totally different but equally amazing scene.

These photos are not retouched except for one thing. My flash (accidentally) went off and caused the stop sign at the lower right side of one of the photos to be illuminated in an otherwise pitch black section of the image. I've cloned out the stop sign .... But the sky is untouched. Amazing and true!

Ve Vant Your Blood!
Intero Los Gatos Blood Drive Oct 30th!

Halloween Events and Haunted Houses
In and Near Los Gatos

Are you getting "into the spirit" of Halloween now? Perhaps you're ready to make some plans to celebrate the spooky holiday? Here are a few events near to Los Gatos. You can find a really enormous list of pumpkin patches, haunted houses and other events at Bay Haunting.com too.

It should be noted that unfortunately there will be no Halloween activities or event at Vasona or Oak Meadow Park this year. The Haunted Forest stopped happening in 2005. A local gent wanted to revive it this year but there were too many issues (like getting a bond) and not enough time to pull it off. Maybe next year? I hope so!

October 20, 27 and 31st at the Winchester Mystery House: flashlight tours (these sell out in advance - reserve yours early)

Oct 26 at Old Town, Los Gatos at 5:30pm: Howling Halloween. Bring your dog in costume! Benefits the police department's K-9 unit, of course!

October 26 Los Gatos Public Library at 3:30pm: Halloween stories in Flannel for grades pre-k and older.

Friday October 26 in downtown Campbell: Spooky, Spooky Night. There will be Halloween games & activities, candy handouts from the Downtown Campbell Business Association and more. Admission is $5 for anyone aged 4 and up. Members pay just $3. See the website for the City of Campbell for more information.

Sunday, October 28 3pm to 4:30 pm: Younger children's costume parade (ages pre-kindergarden through 3rd grade) at the Civic Center Lawn in Los Gatos. For more info, see the Los Gatos Observer article on this fun event.

Sunday, October 28 3:00 pm to 10:00 pm at the Los Gatos Theater: Halloween Scare-A-Thon. Sponsored by the Saratoga Rotary Club, these 6 vintage scary movies are being shown as a fundraiser to benefit Rotaplast.

Wednesday, Oct 31 Halloween Karaoke Dance Party At 1 Broadway in Los Gatos

Wednesday, Oct 31 The Los Gatos Brewing Company (130 G. North Santa Cruz Ave) will be having a costume contest on Halloween Night- Wed, October 31st

And ongoing...Gyro's Screamfest (rated R) at Oakridge Mall.

St. Mary's Country Fair in Los Gatos

St. Mary's Country Fair in Los Gatos is an annual event that happens the second weekend of October. This year, my family and I visited it on Sunday morning. It was quieter than we've seen it on Friday nights or anytime on Saturday (esp Saturday nights, which tend to be packed). Really geared towards the littlest members of the community on Sundays, the fair nonetheless has something for everyone then too.

It should be added, too, that while there was a magnificent car was benefit going on at Fisher Middle School for Sara Cole, the Country Fair had a booth to draw donations too. It looked like they were doing well .

I took a lot of photos to share with you - a snapshot in time of a Sunday morning at the fair. I hope you will enjoy the slideshow! (And there are extra still photos to view as well.)

Dio Deka: Great Greek Food in Los Gatos

Today I celebrated a friend's birthday by taking her to lunch at Dio Deka, a fairly new Greek restaurant, in the Hotel Los Gatos. It was the first time I returned there since the restaurant had changed hands and gone Hellenic.

What a nice improvement! The service, food, and ambiance were all top notch.

A nicer setting would be hard to find. The Hotel Los Gatos is one of the most beautiful buildings in Los Gatos, a town already much loved for its scenic beauty. If you haven't seen it, it's almost directly across the street from Los Gatos High School so is in the heart of downtown. The architectural style is Spanish, but it reminds me of the elegant and inviting Santa Barbara Spanish style in particular. Inside, the hotel and restaurant are well appointed, comfortable, classy, and relaxing. Great ambiance.

At Dio Deka, each employee we encountered was warm, pleasant and gracious. Service was never wanting. Their manners and protocol were impeccable. That may sound stuffy, but let me explain by giving an example: in many eateries, even in "fine dining" establishments, patrons are given one knife and one fork. If the utensils are soiled by eating a salad or appetizer before the main course arrives, the used utensils are often given back to the customer if they're left on the plate as it's being removed.The idea, of course, is that the patron is expecting too much to get a clean knife and fork for the next dish. Usually the "old" utensils are put back on the table. But not here. At Dio Deka it's not too much trouble to get it right and provide clean cutlery for each course. It's a small thing but it's representative of the quality of the dining experience here. No detail is too small to get right.

So let's talk about food. My girlfriend and I split a Greek salad for starters. It was artistically presented and offered a wonderful mix of greens, olives, celery slices, split cherry tomatoes and dressing together with a small brick of warm goat cheese. It was delicious. The moussaka appealed to both of us, so that is what we each ordered. Set as a stack of circular layers in the middle of a deep dish, this too offered a very pleasing appearance. And again, the flavors were sumptuous. The sauce was too good not to enjoy too; luckily the table had a basket of bread - just right for sopping up the flavors.

Coffee was enough for me to top off the meal, but we had a birthday to celebrate and my friend ordered baklava. She assured me it was every bit as good as the rest of the meal. And, as with every other course, it, too, was simply very pretty.

We enjoyed every aspect of our meal today at Dio Deka. If you enjoy fine dining and appreciate being pampered, stop in for lunch or dinner. I'll be back!

Dio Deka is located at the Hotel Los Gatos, 210 E Main Street, Los Gatos CA 95030
Tel 408 354-7700. Open for lunch and dinner.

By the way...This is not a paid endorsment, but is simply the response to a great dining experience today. Writing a blog post about the meal was not on my mind when I arrived there at all.
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Updated March 7, 2008: Dio Deka Will "Hold the Ketchup"

Mary Pope-Handy
fan of Greek food...and American

Getting in the Halloween Spirit?
You can visit a REAL Haunted House!

There will be no "haunted forest" at Oak Meadow Park this year, as you may have read recently in the news. But there are still plenty of spooky places to visit for Halloween.

One of them is an old ranch house in San Jose's eastern foothills. It is notoriously haunted, and you can tour it by flashlight this Friday or Saturday evening.

Do you dare?!

For more information, visit The Haunted Real Estate Blog.

Los Gatos Real Estate Market:
September's Numbers are Now In

August is often a quiet month for real estate here in Los Gatos (and Silicon Valley generally), but September and October are very often quite active.

This year, August was far better than September. The "mortgage mess" seems to be at fault. I noticed mid-month that we weren't getting anything like normal activity. The numbers bear this out.

A very clear way of measuring the market activity is by looking at the absorption rate or "months of inventory". This is a look at how long it would take for the current inventory to sell if no new homes came on the market, but sales continued at the same rate.

As an example, imagine a bathtub full of water. If no new water is added to the tub, how long would it take for the water to drain out? That's how the absorption rate, or months of inventory, works.

Tonight I ran the absorption rate going back ten years. (If you want that much data, email me - I'll send you my excel spreadsheet.) For the sake of simplicity, I'll share with you just the numbers going back to early 2007.

The numbers below all represent "months of inventory" for the Town of Los Gatos in 2007 (includes 95030 and 95032 zip codes, but not 95033, which is county and not town area and has a different market):

January 3.7
February 3.55
March 3.93
April 3.02
May 4.64
June 3.27
July 3.37
August 3.75
September 5.79

As you can see, September is much worse than the rest of the year. It is true in most of the county that the market somewhat flipped into a more severe buyer's market in September. Sales were down, listings up. There's downward pressure on pricing, and we are seeing buyers unwilling to pay the prices of a few months ago.

That said, 2006 was in fact much worse a market than 2007 has been overall. September's jump with the absorption rate is a concern. Will this be a blip, or is the market going to behave more like 2006?

Buyers are on hold because interest rates are up. This week a buyer client of mine emailed me that rates are .75% higher than he was expecting. So he's going to wait until rates come down (or prices come down enough to compensate).

When buyers wait and inventory rises, prices come down.

The sellers who respond quickly will not find themselves chasing the market down. It is difficult to make price reductions when mentally we've already decided that a home is worth a certain amount. But like the stock market, the real estate market is always in flux. A fair price in July is an overly high price today in the minds of buyers.

Buyers: buy now, while prices are soft. Refinance later when rates improve. Just make sure you get a good loan that you can live with if rates go up rather than down.

For more information, data, and opinion on the market, please visit my online Real Estate Report. There you will find the latest stats on not just Los Gatos, but all the cities within Silicon Valley and the major districts within San Jose.