How's the Silicon Valley real estate market doing? One way of taking the market's temperature is to check in on the number of short sale listings (most of which will become bank owned properties in time).

In many areas of Santa Clara County, the number of short sale listings is not rising much, if at all. Here's a quick peek at a few of the markets in the Santa Clara County (the San Jose, or Silicon Valley, area):

As you can see, of the San Jose or Silicon Valley areas being tracked here, Blossom Valley and San Jose as a whole are experiencing rising numbers of short sales, while many of the West Valley communities are fairly flat or rising only slightly.

What seems to be happening is that the entry level markets are taking the biggest hit while the more expensive areas are a little more insulated from the rising numbers of short sale properties for sale in Santa Clara County. This has been the trend over the last 6 or 9 months and it appears to be remaining consistently true.

There's an old real estate adage about Location, Location, Location. Realtors tend to tell buyers to "buy the most home in the best neighborhood you can afford". Sometimes buyers heed this advice, but often they are infatuated with granite, stainless steel, and other finishing touches that may induce them to buy in a less desireable area. It's a hard temptation to resist, but the current market bears out the old wisdom that location is the MOST important thing in home buying.

If you'd like assistance with buying or selling your Silicon Valley home, please contact me now!

Warm regards,

Mary Pope-Handy
Keller Williams Realty
Serving all of Silicon Valley since 1993

Where is Los Gatos in relation to the rest of California? Folks thinking of moving, or visiting here, are often a bit puzzled. Often telling them "it's a part of Silicon Valley" doesn't help much, either. Possibly more helpful: it's at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area, about a half hour from the bay. (And right now, with several counties in southern California burning, some may ponder whether we're anywhere near all of that. We aren't. This is technically "northern California" though right on the verge of "central coast".)

From Los Gatos it's a half hour to the beach at Santa Cruz (south/south-west). It's 90 minutes to Carmel and Monterey (south), an hour to "the city". It's close to San Jose and often the townsfolk do get into the San Jose spirit especially if the Sharks are on the ice!

Here's a link to the map of Los Gatos on Mapquest. And here's one from Google.

Distances from San Jose to some Large Cities

San Jose is the town's nearest big city (it has just shy of a million people and is more populous than San Francisco). Downtown San Jose is about 15 -20 minutes. San Jose is a sprawling city, though, and some of it brushes directly against the Los Gatos border (in the Cambrian Park and Almaden Valley regions of the city).

From San Francisco, Los Gatos is about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes south, on the inland side of the coastal foothills.

Los Angeles is pretty far away. It would be an hour south by plane from the San Jose airport, but by automobile it's at least 6 hours (if you drive fast) but more likely 8 hours and possibly longer if you hit traffic going into Los Angeles proper - which is likely. San Diego is about 9 hours by car - unless you drive like a maniac!

Here in northern California, in Silicon Valley, we are relatively unaffected by the fires that ravage the southland. But the ties between the regions are strong - we have sent many firefighters there (leaving some in reserve "just in case"). I have 20-30 cousins living in San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles Counties. We are not near them geographically - but our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time of natural disaster.