One of the nicest parks in Sunnyvale is Ortega park. It is situated in the center of a quiet, desirable neighborhood where there is no main road or traffic noise. Being next to Stocklmeir Elementary, it serves many kids and families during the week and mainly the weekends. The large grassy area is used for sports’ games throughout the year at all hours of day. Some people come from other places to play or enjoy this beautiful park. The tennis courts are also used daily and so is the recreation building. I am aggravated by the fact the an antenna that will serve
another city (Cupertino) will be put in our neighborhood near an elementary school in a park where so many kids spend many hours every day. How can we prevent it? What are the environmental effects of RF emissions? Are there long-term impacts of exposure to RF energy?

How did the leaders of our community allowed a commercial entity in a public place, is it greed? Is the city so broke that it is selling itself and the safety of it’s citizens?

Read here about the City discussions and the citizens’ concerns.

Will there be an affect on the home prices in the area? How will it change Sunnyvale blossoming Real estate market?

The inventory keeps growing as well as the number of transactions. Many short sales, Foreclosures and REO (homes that were foreclosed, were not purchased by an auction on the Court house stairs and remained in the banks’ possession) are being sold, some of them with multiple offers. Even the foreclosures in Stockton are being sold out.

There are still many people who can afford to purchase homes. Los Altos and Mountain View and Sunnyvale are getting more balanced, with less multiple offers and more negotiations and concessions toward the buyers. Palo Alto, Cupertino and Saratoga are still holding tight. When I see a nicely remodeled house in a beautiful street and good schools I know it will attract many buyers and sell for more than asking price but the rest of the homes are being sold with negotiations, more contingency times and demands from buyers to fix things. This is the sign of a balance market where supply and demands are the main drivers. I did manage to get a “deal” for one of my clients in Mountain View. A similar house, in the same street, is priced for sale at $175,000 more. When you see a for sale sign standing for a long time it’s because the house is on a busy street or it was priced too high. Pricing right is very important especially in a down turn market. If you price it too high you end up chasing the market down by having to lower the price. The house becomes “stale” as we say in the real estate jargon. This is the time for bargain hunters.

Sunnyvale CA is one of the largest Cities in the Silicon Valley, next to San Jose, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Mountain View and Los Altos. About 140,000 people enjoy the stability, the clean air, clean environment, abundance of parks and recreation facilities, beautiful community center and senior citizen center, great schools and fantastic Police & Fire department who shows up in less than 5 minutes when called.

The elementary schools in Sunnyvale attend 3 school districts according to geographic boundaries. Sunnyvale has 4 elementary schools that belong to the Cupertino School District

You can click on the link and view the location. Montclaire, West valley, Stocklmeir and Nimitz

Cupertino Union School District elementary Attendance Boundaries

The kids from the Northern neighborhoods, North of Fremont Ave attend Sunnyvale School District

Some of the schools are as good almost as prestigious as Cupertino schools. Cherry Chase Elementary

and Cumberland Elementary

are very desirable. Columbia middle school is known for the high math achievers. A high percentage of kids who attend Columbia middle finish Algebra before they get to high school. The school received grant from Juniper, a high tech company nearby.

The kids on the East side neighborhoods of Sunnyvale, East of Wolfe Road attend Santa Clara School District in Sunnyvale. Laurelwood Elementary is one of the best elementary schools in that area. The day care before and after school hours enables working parents to leave their kids at school after hours or early in the morning , knowing that they are in good hands.

In a meeting with Larry Stone the Santa Clara County assessor he explained that home prices are determined by the designated school for that property. There could be a considerable price difference between homes in the same street or adjacent street, just because they belong to a different school. The Real estate market is affected directly by the schools. While most of the country is affected by the mortgage market and prices are going down, Sunnyvale is holding tight. The prices are solid. Until now you can still see multiple offers and high home prices.

The real estate market of 2007 looks like a repeat of 2002. The inventory went over 5000 homes and some took more than 200 days to sell. There was correlation between the number of homes for sale and the closed sales. This pattern repeated itself yearly. Lower inventory in January, with less activity and higher supply of home in the summer with more homes getting sold. 2007 started like a normal year but ended with abundance of homes for sale and less activity. The inventory remained high whereas less homes got sold. The laws of supply and demand dictated lower prices and transition to a buyers’ market.

This condition does not reflect the Real estate market of desirable areas. Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View, Saratoga, Cupertino and South Sunnyvale are behaving differently. Many homes in these areas are still being sold for over asking price.

The spring is here and the real estate market is picking up adequately. Inventory is growing and so is the activity. More homes are getting sold. Desirable areas are still hot. Los Altos homes under $2M (if they are priced competitively) are sold fast with bids above the asking price. The same is happening in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino, Saratoga and Sunnyvale. If the property for sale is situated on a nice street near a good school, and is priced well, it will sell with multiple offers over asking price.

Sunnyvale, in the Cupertino school district, it hot. There are hardly any homes for sale in the Homestead High School area or the Ortega Park area, which belongs to Fremont High school; homes are being sold for more that 10% above asking price. There were a few ranch- style regular homes that were priced a little over a million within the last 2 months that were sold for around $1.2M. I wonder how these buyers can afford to pay a huge mortgage, raise their kids, send them to after school activities and even send some to private schools and survive. Many of the engineers were fortunate to work at start-ups, or sell high-tech stocks to finance a large down payment. But how do others who work many hours on a fixed salary survive?

Education is the most important factor in the decision to buy a house. Buyers will do everything to live near a good school. This motivation drives the prices up.
There are other neighborhoods that look nice and clean. They sell if they are beautifully remodeled or very aggressively priced.