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Another beautiful day brought another lunch at a delightful park. Nearby Wyandotte Park in Mountain View is one of the city’s newer parks. This park has playgrounds for children, a small artificial stream with water when a button is pushed, scattered tables and benches, shady areas, lawn (too small for team sports), and art sculptures.
To see more pictures or to learn about other parks, visit my Mountain View parks web page.
Although JLee Realty does not handle rental properties for clients, we watch what is happening in it to better understand Santa Clara real estate. On Sept 17, 2023, the San Jose Mercury News published an article titled “Bay Area rents see biggest drop in 27 months“. The article presents the ease of finding a one-bedroom apartment near Lake Merritt. The article cites ApartmentList.com as a source for the trends they cite, including a 3.1% year-over-year decline for the San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara metro area.
The housing rental market has weakened, but the headline could create a misleading impression. The sky is not falling for the rental market. Look at the graph below created by Zumper.com.
The peak rental price for a 2-bedroom apartment was reached in Aug-Sept of 2022. The “biggest drop” is being calculated from a price peak and isn’t a good choice for judging long-term trends. I’m looking at two-bedroom rental trends because a prospective home buyer or seller is not likely to use a one-bedroom apartment as an alternative to a house or townhouse. Zumper reports current near-record rental prices for 3-bedroom apartments.
The general trend we are seeing is that one-bedroom housing does not have strong demand. Nothing appears to be happening that will lead to lower housing costs. “Affordable housing” proposals seem to be focused on small housing units that are not wanted by anyone who can afford an alternative. House prices have dropped from their peak at the beginning of 2022. Other than that peak driven by interest rate changes, prices have been relatively flat, which means the typical costs actually paid by buyers are increasing because of increased interest rates.
We wanted to have a lunch break, so we grabbed some food to-go and went to the nearby Klein Park in Mountain View. We had a relaxing lunch in a peaceful park.
Klein Park is a medium-sized neighborhood park with picnic tables, a half-court basketball, a children’s playground, and grass areas that are not flat. It is unsuitable for baseball, soccer, or other team sports, but it is great for a relaxing visit, playing frisbee, or taking your kids outside.
To see more pictures or to learn about other parks, visit my Mountain View parks web page.
Many home buyers have heard about adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). They typically have the advantage of lower mortgage payments than fixed-rate mortgages. This enables the home buyer to get a larger mortgage and buy a more expensive home. An ARM comes with the risk that if interest rates rise substantially, the home buyer may be unable to afford the adjusted mortgage payment. With a fixed payment for several years, the home buyer may decide the risk is worth the advantages.
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has several loan programs for home buyers who have trouble qualifying for the mortgage they need to buy the house they want. An interesting but seldom-seen mortgage is the Graduated Payment Mortgage (GPM). These loans have a 30-year fixed interest rate but have lower payments in the first 5 or 10 years of the loan. The payments are scheduled at the beginning of the loan to increase over the first years, paying significantly more of the principal down. In the first few years, they may even have negative amortization. These loans can make sense for new employees or others who expect their income to increase steadily during the first years. The payment increase is scheduled to be 2% to 7.5% each year during the initial period. You can learn more about Graduated Payment Mortgages and other mortgage loans at https://julianalee.com/reinfo/mortgage.htm.
Our passion for Mountain View real estate both enabled us and lead us to support local public education. We were pleased to help the Mountain View Education Foundation through a matching donation pledge. Please help Tk-8 students in the Mountain View Whishman School District by visiting the MVEF website: mvef.org and making a donation.