Valley of Heart's Delight Blog

Silicon Valley: BUY NOW

In a buyer's market, buyers don't tend to buy, but instead they tend to wait.

I'm here to tell you: if you're in Silicon Valley, BUY NOW.

Between the volume of available homes (and short sales and foreclosures, which are pulling prices down), good interest rates, and now, to top it off, the government's economic stimulus package (that expires in a year or so), it's as good as it gets.

Don't wait.

Get preapproved now. Then go shopping!

It will likely cost you more a year from now!

Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor,  CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley"
Keller Williams, Cupertino, CA  (Silicon Valley)
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax);   408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.PopeHandy.com   www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com   
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com
Blog: www.LiveInLosGatos.com

Foreclosures in Silicon Valley:What do you need to know?

Lately I have been  getting a whole lot of emails from folks who want to buy real estate in the San Jose area via a foreclosure. So I am pleased to share with you my current newsletter edition completely devoted to the subject,
"FORECLOSURES: Looming Threat For Some, Lucrative Opportunity For Others".

Topics include

• "Foreclosure: What It Means, How It Works"
• "Avoid Getting Hooked By A Foreclosure-Related Scam"
• "Contact Lender At The First Sign Of Trouble"
• "Buying A Pre- Or Post-Foreclosure Property?"

I hope you will find this timely edition helpful!  Let me know if you would like to be added to my newsletter list (which is never shared, sold, traded with anyone, ever).

All the best,
Mary Pope-Handy
Realtor, CRS, ABR, e-Pro, SRES, RECS, ASP, ACRE, RECS
Los Gatos
Keller Williams Realty (Cupertino office, serving all of Silicon Valley)

Why Is Silicon Valley CalledThe Valley Of Heart's Delight?

Silicon Valley was once called "The Valley Of Heart's Delight" - did you know that? Many people don't even realize that Silicon Valley is roughly the same as Santa Clara County (or the San Jose area)...with some overlap. So there are a lot of unknowns here in the Santa Clara Valley.

But if you'd like to know more about the last hundred or so years, the information is right here on this blog! Please have a peek at the Valley of Hearts Delight page. Prunes will never look the same to you!

Santa Clara County Online Home Buyer Kit

Is this the year for buying your first home?  If so, you're in luck!  Interest rates are great (and may improve before you close on that new condo or house!) and here in Silicon Valley,for the most part, there is no shortage of inventory.

The housing supply varies from one price point and location to another, but in most of Santa Clara Valley (San Jose, Campbell, Blossom Valley, South San Jose, Willow Glen and more), it truly is a buyer's market.  Sunnyvale, Saratoga, Los Gatos, and the area close to the San Mateo County line are another story - there the inventory is restricted and it's not so much in the buyer's favor. (Forget finding a lot of foreclosure real estate there.) You can read about the market by visiting my San Jose and Santa Clara Real Estate Report. It covers both December 2007 and all of 2007 by area and city. Understanding the market conditions is an important part of getting started as a first-time homebuyer.

Also to help you get started, let me offer you my free, online Buyer Kit. Just click and browse - there are lots of articles to help you get your toes wet on buying your first home! (Similarly, you may also view my online Seller Kit.)

Call or email me if you'd like help in establishing a strategy. I offer a no-cost, one hour consultation to prospective clients and it would be my pleasure to discuss your wants, needs, budget, and timeline with you.

Best regards,

Mary Pope-Handy
Los Gatos, CA

Silicon Valley Real Estate Market UpdateJanuary 2008

What's the real estate market in Santa Clara County, San Jose, or Silicon Valley doing? How's the market in early 2008?

Realtors are trained to say something vague in response to that question, like, "incredible!" Yeah, it's incredible all right - incredibly few homes are selling, but prices are still going up. Make sense of that at a cocktail party!

But seriously, what IS happening?  It's true that it is a strong buyer's market in most areas and in most price ranges (some exceptions DO apply). Most homes are not selling. But the ones that do are selling at a great price.

It's all or nothing!

I have statistics and trends for the hearty among you who'd like to see all the data. You can see what's what in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Almaden Valley, Cambrian Park, Willow Glen... you can see San Jose as a whole or by districts. You can view the county by its towns and cities or as a whole. All of this is available to you on my Real Estate Report, which is updated each month at about the 10th or so, and now also includes an annual report which reviews 2007.

Hunger for more? A lot of folks want tons of info to analyse on the housing market in Santa Clara County. For you, there's also the 18 page pdf version, which you can obtain here: http://rereport.com/scc/print/MaryPopeHandySCCannual.pdf

Right now, it's neighborhood by neighborhood, and one price point can be quite different from the next. Call me and we can go over it together. I do offer a free one hour consultation to prospective clients.

Best regards, and happy New Year,

Mary

Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor,  CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley"
Keller Williams, Cupertino, CA  (Silicon Valley)
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax);   408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.PopeHandy.com    www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com   
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com
Blog: www.LiveInLosGatos.com

Report: How To Buy The MOST Home for the Money
How to Attract More Buyers With Seller Financing
RELOCATION KIT

First Time Homebuyer in Silicon Valley for 2008?

It's the middle of December and homebuying may not be the top item on your priority list right now. Perhaps you're attending Christmas concerts in San Jose or Santa Clara, or shopping, or visiting Christmas In The Park in Downtown San Jose or enjoying an evening Carriage Ride in downtown Los Gatos. There's plenty going on in Silicon Valley right now.

But planning ahead for 2008 is a good idea nonetheless.

What can you do NOW, that will help in 2-3 months, that won't take a ton of focus? Plenty!

• order a free credit report NOW and have a good look at it
• almost invariably, there will be surprises (some things that you forgot about and other things that are simply wrong)
• contact the credit bureaus to correct the mistakes
• take steps to repair any "real" credit issues now!
• and then ask a few trusted individuals (smart and saavy friends, Realtors, or other real estate professionals) for the names of a few lenders. For now, just collect the names and contact info, nothing else.

You can order your credit report online (go to Google or another search engine and type in Free Credit Report and you will see tons of options) and it doesn't take but a minute or two to do it. Reviewing your report should not take a really long time either. So set aside 30 minutes at most to do this now. The sooner your credit is tidied up, the better for you. Mistakes and forgotten problems can really cost you money, so fix it now and be ready later!

And if you have a quiet hour sometime next week, email your handful of lenders. Look for a reasonable response time, willingness to help, and knowledge. Tell them you already have a credit report and don't need it run again (multiple runs of your report will hurt your credit!)

If you're a first time homebuyer, let the lender know that. If you want to live in San Jose, Cupertino, or other cities, there may be first time homebuyer programs that can assist you - but the lender will need to know where you want to live, if you are an employee of that city, town, or school district, etc.

Also... at a party this week I heard that Wachovia Bank has a special first time homebuyer program too. You may have to contact them directly for access to the program, but ask your few lenders about it too.

Now give the lenders a couple of weeks to find all the info you need. You're not in a hurry, and they may have deals that need attention immediately as some folks will be urgent to close within this tax year.

Now relax and enjoy all that Santa Clara County has to offer for the holidays. You can reconnect with the lenders in early January.

Want to read more? Read on!

Can You Name Buyer’s Typical Closing Costs?
Do You Know The Importance Of Title Insurance Coverage?

Selling A Home? What are the Costs in Preparing a Home to Sell in Silicon Valley?

If you are mulling over the idea of selling your Silicon Valley home, one of the issues that might concern you is how much it will cost to get your house ready for the market.

Some costs that you might anticipate include pre sale repairs or improvements. Others might be strictly staging line items.

This morning I posted about this on another site, my Valley Of Hearts Delight Homes blog. I invite you to visit there and get a ballpark idea of what most San Jose or Santa Clara County homeowners might face in terms of the costs in getting a home ready to sell in the current market.

And Happy Holidays to you and yours!

And for further reading...

Seller Kit

Going it Alone Is a Tough Task for Home Sellers

Do you know the best way to go about selling a home and buying a new one so that you won’t get stuck with two mortgages?

Best regards to you & yours,

Mary Pope-Handy

Affordability Improves Very Slightly In Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal just published an article relating to housing affordability in Santa Clara County (the San Jose or Silicon Valley area) that reveals a slight improvement for weary home buyers here "with a 14.1 percent share of homes affordable for the median income of $94,500". Last quarter the percentage was 12.8%. Statewide, the ratio is 12.6%. For more info around the Bay Area and around the state, please see the Business Journal's article, entitled "Valley Ranks #25 in Home Affordability". 

Earthquakes and Home Sales

Earlier this week we experienced a moderate earthquake in San Jose, Los Gatos, Saratoga, and all of Silicon Valley.

For mos of us, it was no big deal - if a big of a wake up call!

But what happens if you are midway through buying or selling a home when a significant earthquake strikes? I blogged about it elsewhere, on www.LiveInLosGatos.com, and I invite you to pop by and read about earthquakes and real estate transactions there.

Watching for Neighborhood Red Flags

Hints that the area isn't a good one may be just in front of you, but you need to know what you're looking for.  If you're serious about buying (or even renting) a Silicon Valley home, visit the neighborhood at several different times over the course of a few days. It may be "OK" on a weekday and horrible on a Saturday night - so check it out!

These are some things I teach my San Jose area buyers to watch out for:

• too many cars on the street (the more, the worse) - sense of crowding
• junky cars
• neglected landscaping
• homes in need of paint
• "bars on the windows" and "security doors" in more than one home on the street
• loud music
• trash and trash cans out when it isn't garbage pick up day
• graffitti

Conversely, indicators that a street or area may be better include these:

• people out walking dogs
• people pushing strollers or exercising in the neighborhood
• tidy homes and yards
• cars that are well maintained
• most cars either in garages or in driveways - street mostly clear of cars
• tree-lined streets
• quiet areas (you don't hear TVs, stereos blaring)
• "pride of ownership" evident - evidence of home improvement projects, for instance

Coming soon: red flags in homes.