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.

Oakmont Market is a small grocery store in Cupertino, on the corner of Homestead Road and Blaney. It was opened about a year ago and it’s getting busier every day. Frederico, the owner, is very modest and not greedy. He goes to the Market at 4:00AM and buys fresh produce every day. He checks the merchandise himself to make sure it’s the best quality. He spends the whole day arranging the place and listening to what the buyers want. I used to drive to the Milk Pail every Friday after the agents’ tour in Los Altos and Palo Alto and buy wonderful fruit and vegetables, fresh bread that was so tasty I would eat half of it on the way home, and European cheeses. When Frederico told me that his brother managed the Milk Pail I told him that I would help him in any way to make his place successful so he can get the same exotic cheese and bread and fresh produce. My Pediatrician friend went there for the first time and told me that it took her an hour and a half to finish shopping because she kept meeting all her Israeli and other patients and talked to everyone. It feels like the neighborhood grocery shop back in Israel where you know everyone and we all give advice, what to cook and how to prepare that chicken soup with the celery root and the parsnip root and what spices to add...

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Frederico is happy to order anything you like, just ask him and you’ll see it on the shelf for the best possible price.

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Can you imagine? In the midst of a market downturn, 15 prospective eligible buyers compete for one home (Carniel). Another home (Richelieu Ct.) was sold for almost $200k more than asking price (with 14 offers) last week. It happened last week in Saratoga. About 6 homes that were priced under $2m were sold for more than 10% over the asking price. Some of them got sold just before the end of the year and some are still in contracts. The rain did not scare buyers away. The same thing is happening in Cupertino, where 12 families competed on one home, and in South Sunnyvale, the Homestead High area, low-end homes in Los Altos (under $2M) and in Palo Alto.Inventory is growing slowly but so is activity.These examples are not valid for every market and definitely not for the entire Silicon Valley. Even in the most attractive market there are homes that are not selling. If they are priced too high, over the market value, they will take a long time to sell and the sellers will end up getting a much lower price when they finally sell. A few examples are a house near Montclaire Elementary School in Los Altos (a highly desirable area) which has been on the market for more than 52 days, and a small house with a huge lot near Nimitz Elementary School in Sunnyvale.Smart buyers are not afraid of looking again at the same homes and offering lower prices. Now is a good chance to get A good deal