Category Archives: Portola Valley

PV School

Q2 Portola Valley Market Update

The numbers:

The market run of 2013 continued through Q2 in Portola Valley, with the median price up 27% ($2,950,000 vs. $2,325,000 in Q2 2012) as a result of continuing buyer demand and low inventory, much as we have seen across Silicon Valley.

median price PV

Looking at Portola Valley overall, the number of days to sell rose slightly compared to a year ago at 44 vs. 40.

average price PV

The number of homes for sale were flat compared to last year at 60, but pending sales and sold homes were up relative to Q2 2012.

supplydem PV

Definitions:

Portola Valley is really four markets (my nomenclature and descriptions):

The Ranches includes the Corte Madera neighborhood and Portola Valley Ranch. Homes are on half to one acre parcels and generally sell between $1.5M and $2.5M.

Central Portola Valley is the triangle of Westridge, Alpine and Portola Road. Homes here are on acre to 5 acre parcels (the Westridge community is mostly 2.5 acres), and sell between $2.5M for a sloping lot to $8M for a newer home with views, usable land and a quiet location. There are outliers like 1260 Westridge which is three lots totally 22 acres with a large house that was originally listed for $25M, reduced to $16M. Lew Platt’s house is in this neighborhood and is currently listed for $24.5M.

Los Trancos Woods includes the pie shaped area of homes south of Alpine Road extending up to the end of Vista Verde Way. Homes here range from cottages on 6000sf lots to large mountain properties on 5 acres or more. 495 Old Spanish Trail is the outlier in this market sitting on 22 acres with big views of the Bay and San Francisco. Currently listed at $15,900,000.

495OST

Ladera Ranch is the neighborhood surrounding the Ladera shopping center on Alpine Road near 280. Homes here are on 6000 – 10,000sf lots and sell between $1.5M and $2.5M. Ladera is in unincorporated San Mateo County, but is almost Portola Valley and the mailing address is Portola Valley, so I’ll include it here as opposed to Menlo Park. Ladera had a huge run on prices in 2012, with an overall jump of 10-15% for the better homes, blowing through the $2M price ceiling. Now the better homes sell for $2.2M – $2.5M. Wow.

What happened:

We saw a number of larger sales in Portola Valley during Q2, including several homes that were on the market in 2012 that didn’t sell, but sold this year as the rising market came to them. With the run on real estate values over the last two years across all of Silicon Valley, even perennial laggards Portola Valley and Woodside are seeing rising prices as a limited inventory of homes is met with increasing demand. Another factor is more buyers who traditionally would have focused on Menlo Park or Palo Alto have been expanding their searches to Portola Valley and Woodside. As prices have soared in closer in markets, the larger homes and more land available for similar prices in Portola Valley and Woodside have become relative deals.

The Crystal Ball/What’s Next:

Expect that the number of homes for sale will remain low keeping steady to upward pressure on prices. With nearly half of the homes in Portola Valley, and the majority of Central PV, being over $3M, rising interest rates won’t have much of an impact on seller motivation or prices.

Portola Valley is a small town and what I call a “destination city”, generally you move there and don’t leave. With only about 1700 homes and another 500 in Ladera Ranch, and a turnover of about 3%, that’s about 75 homes a year. Sort by location and price range and you don’t have a lot of options.

A Realtor Buys a House, Part 6 – I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

You may have noticed there aren’t a lot of houses for sale,
relative to demand lately. This is especially true in Woodside, a town of 5100 people and 1700 homes where we we are
trolling the bottom of the market in terms of price. Last year, the least
expensive sale in Woodside near town (not on Skyline) was $850,000, the most
expensive, $117M. Sadly we were looking toward the bottom of that range. With a
median price of a little over $3M, and close to town town averaging around $5-6M, we
knew that finding something meeting our criteria would be two or three houses a
year, not quite a needle in a haystack, but slim pickings nonetheless.

We already have a number of friends in Woodside, and it’s a
small town, so I put the word out. I told everyone I knew that we were looking
for a home there and our criteria:

·
Larger yard

·
True 2 car garage, 3 cars preferable

·
3 bedroom minimum, preferable 4

·
Good floorplan

·
No weird geological issues, slopes, etc.

·
Late in the game, my wife added “Walk to downtown
Woodside”.

(Remember those from Part 4?)

I scoured Craiglist, and talked to friends, neighbors and of
course, other realtors about what they had “coming up”, meaning listings that
were signed, but not on the market yet. Any opportunity to find a house before
the masses, and also to do a reality check on our criteria against our budget and
location requirements. If we had added “unobstructed view of the mountains” we
would be out of luck. The neighborhoods in our budget don’t have big views for
the most part. The same goes for a Bay view. The geography doesn’t allow for
that.

I found homes mentioned on Nextdoor, occasionally on Craigslist and
learned of upcomings and tracked rumors. I was starting to feel like Colombo
without the trench coat. Meanwhile, we were also expecting our first child in
December so I was expecting that we were in for a long search with a hiatus
over the holidays while we welcomed our new arrival.

(Insert cliffhanger here)

Little did we know how it would all play out.

Thanks for reading……

A Realtor Buys a House, Part 5 – The Ones That Got Away

One of the ways you learn a lot about what you want, because
they are hard lessons, is when you look back at homes that sell that you didn’t
make offers on or get. When you find yourself saying weeks or months later “I
wish we had bought that house”, it crystallizes what is important in your mind.

First there was the house on Brookside Drive in Portola
Valley that bordered a creek. My wife fell in love with the master bath that
had a fireplace, the sliding doors overlooking the creek and the hickory
floors. It had kind of a weird floorplan, but it would have worked for us, the
location was great (this was pre-Woodside requirement), and there was room to
add to the garage (see previous post on criteria). The big wine chiller in the
kitchen didn’t hurt either. We were quite ready on the loan side, so when it
sold in a week with four offers, we sighed and decided to focus on that
neighborhood as a good one, and took away a lot of good ideas for our next
home. 4 out of 5 of our eventual criteria.

Then we saw this one in Woodside Glens last winter. Totally
remodeled, it had 3 of our eventual 5 criteria. It was remodeled about 10 years
ago, was funky in a way we could work with, and utilized the 7500sf lot well.
It lacked the privacy I wanted, even with a stockade fence and gate in the
front, and the garage was unusable for a car, let alone a car and small SUV.
The crawlspace had been built out into a media / storage room, and we went back
three times trying to convince ourselves that it was worth $2M to us.
Eventually, someone else decided it was worth that to them and put us out of
our misery.

This house broke our hearts. A little above our stretch
number with some issues involving water under the slab foundation and some
imposing cracks in the framing that had been patched and painted. It’s on a
half acre with an unobstructed view of Windy Hill in a great setting. The house
is an open mid-century modern (think Eichler) which my wife really likes. My
in-laws came along because they are house junkies, and as we sat at the table
on the patio and looked at the view, my father in law looked at me and said “You
should buy this house. We will help you.” Gulp. As we looked reports and I
bugged contractors and engineers to figure out how long before it fell down
without major structural and drainage work, someone with more money paid full
price and cash. I think we dodged a bullet, but it was really cool. Did I
mention that in the disclosures the sellers mentioned that during heavy rains
water ran out of the hood over the stove? Whew…..VERY cool house though.

This last one was back in The Glens of Woodside. Still for
sale, it has big interior spaces, a great setting and three bedrooms plus an
office. The garage has been converted into a guest quarters with kitchenette
and a full bath. Not great as a garage anymore because you can’t fit two cars
in it (see our criteria), but potentially a neat man cave. Recessed lighting in
the garage? Works for me….. It is on the One Way part of Hillside and you can’t
see the yard from the house really. If we didn’t have kids, I think we would
have been all over this house. It has a really private setting and the
neighbors are great. Someone will really like it.

If you have read thus far, thank you and I hope you are
finding the series entertaining. As you can see, this has been a long search,
so agents don’t have a magic wand for finding great houses that consumers won’t
know about. We spent two years on this odyssey, so have patience if you are
looking. Most of my clients are in something in about 6 months. The fastest was
three days, the slowest 18 months.

Thanks for reading…..

A Realtor Buys a House, Part 4 – The Must Have List

We currently live in a 3 bedroom tract house that was built
in 1953, probably in about a week. It was great when I was one of four people
bidding on it when I was single. The “two car” garage that barely held a
compact car and motorcycle was sufficient for my needs, and initially I didn’t think the
tiny bathrooms and the dark, galley style kitchen were that objectionable. I
had plans to remodel the kitchen and open up a wall to the living room anyway.
The yard was fine, it had some fruit trees and it wasn’t too much to maintain.

Over the last 6 years a few things bugged me more and more,
like a pebble in your shoe, so when we decided it was time to move, I made a
list of Must Haves, things I wouldn’t compromise on.

· 
Larger yard, 1/4 acre minimum

· 
True 2 car garage, 3 cars preferable (it’s amazing how much stuff a baby has and the car required to haul it all!)

· 
3 bedroom minimum, preferable 4

· 
Good floorplan

· 
No weird geological issues, slopes, etc.

· 
Late in the game, my wife added “Walk to downtown
Woodside”.

Seems pretty easy, right? Ha!

The last one is a killer. The south side of Woodside Road in
Woodside is where you find Larry Ellison’s Japanese village, Tom Siebel, Michelle
Pfeiffer and Charles Schwab. A nice neighborhood, but a little out of our price
range. The other side isn’t much better with horse properties and multi-acre
estates starting in the $5M range. Then there is “The Glens” with all kinds of
interesting homes that were originally built as various lodges and vacation homes for people from San Francisco.
The geology of the Glens is pretty wild, with lots of creeks, rock formations,
narrow little ravines, and narrow, winding streets. Suburbia it isn’t. It is a
very closely knit neighborhood and Halloween there is fantastic.

When you make your must have list, you need to write it down
and carry it through every house. It will save you from yourself. We looked at
a house three times that was 1 for 6 on that list trying to talk ourselves into
it because it was a good location and we liked some of the aesthetics and finishes. It would have
been a disaster. All it had was walk to town.

So – sit down when you aren’t in the heat of the moment,
make your “Must-Have” list and stick to it. No matter how cute the kitchen in
the two bedroom place is, if you need three, walk away.

Thanks for reading……..

A Realtor Buys a House – A New Dad’s Journey Through Hell – Part 1
A Realtor Buys a House, Part 2 – Laying the Groundwork

Where Do I Go?

Where Do I Go?

The popular topic in the local real estate community is the
ongoing lack of inventory of homes for sale. According to our local MLS, the
number of homes for sale in our local market (Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton,
Portola Valley, Woodside) is down 40% – 60% versus this time a year ago,
depending on the price point and neighborhood. Since our are generally has
fewer homes for sale relative to the number of homes and buyers, this inventory
decrease translates to it feeling like there is NOTHING for sale, and multiple
offers on the few homes available are the norm, not the exception.

Adding to this, with the phenomenon of overseas buyers and
recent liquidity events and stock run ups for local companies, we are seeing
more wealth and resources available to purchase homes than ever before. This is
like adding gasoline to the proverbial fire, and driving prices upward at
impressive rates. Check out these charts, showing changes in median home prices
(half of the houses sold for more, half for less) in our communities over the
past year. Palo Alto up 20% 2011 to 2012, Menlo Park 11%, Woodside down 10%
(I’ll come back to that), and Portola Valley up 13%.

That’s better than the NYSE which is up 12.9% over the same
period, and you get a place to keep your stuff too.

So let’s assume you have been sitting in your house in North
Palo Alto for the last few years while your kids finish High School, watching
houses around you sell in a week at prices you can’t believe. You come home,
realize you don’t need a four bedroom house and the property taxes and say to
yourself “Self, let’s cash out!” (Actual clients’ example here). Your next step
would be to call me and say ‘Chris, what is my house worth?’. I’d give you a
range (say $3M – $3.2M) and you would say ‘wow, that’s like $500,000 – $700,000
more than I paid for it in 2006’ or something like that. Then you would ask me
the hard question:

Where do I go?

So you sell your house in Palo Alto and pocket a $500,000
net gain after selling costs, plus your original equity and you are going to
downsize to a three bedroom house. The kids are in college so schools don’t
matter much but you don’t want to move to Napa. Your new budget is $2M so your
property taxes will be lower and your mortgage is something you can pay off
before retirement.

Woodside:

OK, I’m biased as I am currently buying a home in Woodside.
Why? Read my other blog article “A Realtor Buys a House”. For our
fictional couple here, it’s close enough to all the fun stuff you did in Palo
Alto, the market isn’t as tilted in favor of sellers (prices down 10% last
year), and you get some land or a view depending on where you are in town. If
you have little ones, Woodside Elementary School is fantastic. Woodside Bakery
and Buck’s are experiences in and of themselves. Bring your horse.

Ladera
Ranch:

Ladera is really unincorporated San Mateo County, but it is
a closely knit community border Portola Valley with off-street walking paths
leading down to the shopping center and a community center with pool and tennis
courts, so it combines the best of rural and suburban living. Many of the homes
have views and the neighborhood feeds into the excellent Los Lomitas schools.
Convenient to 280 and open space preserves.

Portola
Valley:

Extra space and views of the Bay or open space are hallmarks
of Portola Valley. The small town vibe and peaceful feeling make it an escape
from the madness that defines most of Silicon Valley. Generally, there are more
bikes than cars and the open spaces define the views and feeling. If you feel
like Woodside is getting too uppity and flashy (the locals say too Palo Alto),
then PV is the place.

Emerald
Hills:

Views on a budget. Roy Cloud Elementary is excellent and the
market and prices make for a great downsizing option. You are car dependent,
and the narrow, winding roads will have you trading the Suburban for a Vespa.
If you like Tuscan hill towns, Emerald Hills may be just your thing.

Redwood City:

Redwood City is the largest city on the Peninsula and where
I think the biggest potential for appreciation is. Prices are relatively low
compared to the surrounding cities, and Redwood City has invested heavily in  an urban renewal of its downtown that is
drawing more business to restaurants, The Fox Theatre and the Cineplex. As we
have seen in Mountain View over the past 20 years, an attractive, bustling
downtown leads to gentrification which leads to rising property values. Redwood
City, especially neighborhoods like Mount Carmel, is my appreciation pick for
the next decade.