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$782,000 Over Asking For a House in Sunnyvale (mercurynews.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A house in Sunnyvale just sold for close to $800,000 over its listing price. Your eyes do not deceive you: The four-bed, two-bath house -- less than 2,000 square feet -- listed for $1,688,000 and sold for $2,470,000. "I think it's the most anything has ever gone for over asking in Sunnyvale -- a record for Sunnyvale," said Dave Clark, the Keller Williams agent who represented the sellers in the deal. "We anticipated it would go for $2 million, or over $2 million. But we had no idea it would ever go for what it went for." This kind of over-bidding is known to happen farther north in cities including Palo Alto, Los Altos and Mountain View. But as those places have grown far too expensive for most buyers, future homeowners have migrated south to Sunnyvale, a once modest community that now finds itself among the Bay Area's real estate hot spots.
This is a class war, friends. And the classes are all the people who just happened to be born a few years earlier, against everyone else who got here later.
They got theirs, and put into place all the rules and regulations about property taxes, development restrictions, crappy public transport, that allow them to keep their rents / payments low, and screw everyone else who equally wants to live and work in the area.
You hear all these old (yes, old) local residents complain about being "forced out" of their homes and neighborhoods, and sure they're sympathetic and it's fashionable to rail against "gentrification". But how about the thousands of young people/families/workers who can't find a place to live or rent at a reasonable price when they move here? Who's advocating for those people? I would argue they are more severely impacted in their lifetime earning and career potential by the cost of living here, and I side with them, not the rich (yes rich) people who've lived here for 30 years and are established.
I'm tired of the local-level complacency and Nimbyism, and the California regulatory and legal process that make it possible for so many young workers (who are what is going to keep us successful as a society) shut out of living affordably and reasonably in one of our most important economies.
Yeah. I live in a small town of about 15000 people, with a large and stable employer, which has led to a a very strange and hot real estate market for a place 50 miles away from anywhere.
When I was shopping for a home, I made a habit of inspecting the cabinet hinges in every room and bathroom. I don't care about a shiny new granite countertop. Cheap $0.50 hinges means corners were cut, and the place will likely fall apart. Nice Blum hinges on even the smallest cabinet? That's a winner. I am sure there are other things to look at too, but hinges worked for me pretty well as a 'tell'.
However, they can't actually afford a $6K per month mortgage payment
Then something is jacked up if they qualified for it.