California News Blog » Silicon Valley

Saratoga Real Estate

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:29:52 +0000

: Image by Wonderlane via Flickr

Saratoga, California, is a city in Santa Clara County in the northern part of the state in the San Francisco Bay area. It is just west of San Jose in the Silicon Valley area and is home to a population of just over 30,000. Saratoga is a wealthy suburb home to many successful residents who work in the high-tech companies of Silicon Valley. The city’s 2007 estimated median annual household income was over $137,000, and Saratoga real estate is accordingly quite expensive, currently averaging more than $1 million.

So far in 2010, the Saratoga market for residential real estate has shown positive signs and seems to be improving overall. According to the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors, the first quarter of 2010, which consists of the year’s first three months, saw 135 new listings of Saratoga homes for sale on top of current inventory of 122 homes, both of which were down from numbers from the first quarter of 2009, when both figures were over 170. Sales showed improvement as well, with 38 single-family homes sold in the first quarter versus only 21 homes sold last year. The average number of days homes spent on the market before closing improved slightly as well, standing at 95 days in the first three months of this year versus 103 at the same time last year. Even home prices showed improvement in Saratoga, a positive indicator for the real estate market’s health. Average prices were at $1.8 million, up from $1.4 million last year while the median price improved to $1.6 million from $1.2 million.

The condo market in Saratoga showed similar mostly positive trends to kick off 2010. There were 19 new condos listed in addition to an inventory of 15 condos already up for sale, down slightly from last year’s inventory of 22. Sales improved significantly, with eight sales this year in the first quarter versus just a single sale in the first quarter of 2009, and the number of days condos spent on the market before selling fell drastically as well, at just 27 days from 239 last year. The average price of a condo sold in Saratoga in the first quarter of this year was $675,375 while the median price was $633,500. Not many conclusions can be drawn against last year’s figure of $618,000, however, since it was based on the sale of only a single condo.

The “Dot-com” Era

admin — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:26:23 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

The “Dot-com” era, also known as the “dot-com bubble” was an economic bubble that lasted from 1998 to 2001 and was a period in which many internet based companies were established. Born largely out of the numerous technology companies such as Google and Yahoo based in Silicon Valley in California, the “dot-com” era gained momentum when many companies found that establishing internet based businesses or simply adding an “e-” prefix or “.com” suffix to the company name often caused company stock prices to shoot up.

Many of the internet based companies founded during this era are known as “dot-com” companies. These companies experiences record-setting rises in stock values, causing many companies to move faster and with less caution than usual. The main goal of these “dot-com” companies was to establish as large a network as possible in order to attract as large a customer base as possible. For this reason, many companies such as Google and Amazon did not see any profit in their first years. Many companies worked upon the wisdom of the day: “Get large or get lost.” However, by 2000, the economy was beginning to lose speed, right after the Federal Reserve had increased interest rates six times during the period of 1999 to early 2000. The dot-com bubble burst on March 10, 2000, when the NASDAQ fell due to what some think was caused by the massive, multi-billion dollar sell orders for major high-tech companies’ stocks such as Cisco, IBM, and Dell, which happened by chance to be processed in the same day. By the end of the dot-com era, many online companies ran out of capital and were acquired or liquidated. However, a few large dot-com companies such as Amazon and eBay survived the turmoil, while others such as Google emerged as mega-firms dominating the online industry.

Silicon Valley

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:44:41 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Situated in the southern region of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, Silicon Valley is the center of the high-tech industry for California. Silicon Valley gained its name from the large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, even though many other high-tech industries have also become associated with Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is also the leading technology hub in the United States.

Since the twentieth century, Silicon Valley has been home to a large, yet still growing, electronics and high-tech industry. Some of the many technology industries centered in the region include radio, television, computer, and military electronics. Some of the many inventions and advances made in technology related to the development of the microprocessor, microcomputer were made in Silicon Valley. Stanford University has also played a major role in the development of Silicon Valley. The university established the Stanford Industrial Park, which is home to where Hewlett-Packard, the popular PC designer and manufacturer was born into a major, established corporation. Eastman Kodak and General Electric are other major technology companies that have established themselves in the Stanford Industrial Park. Some of the other technology companies established in Silicon Valley include Adobe Systems, Apple Inc., eBay, Google, Yahoo, Intel, Oracle, Nvidia, Intuit, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

California’s Economy

admin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:23:40 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Because of California’s vast size, the state is home to a very diverse economy with different regions each containing its own economic base. Hollywood has an entertainment economy, Southern California is aerospace, Central Valley is agriculture, Silicon Valley is computers and high tech manufacturing, and then there are places such as Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley with a wine based economy. In terms of jobs, however, the largest employers are those in trade, transportation, government, professional services, education and health services, and leisure and hospitality industries.

For 2007, the gross state product was about $1.812 trillion, which contributes to 13 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, making California the state with the highest gross state product. Nevertheless, California still faces a budget deficit, causing many legislations being passed in an attempt to alleviate the financial problems. In 2008, the state had the 6^th highest tax burden of any state. Although many of California’s coastal cities are among the wealthiest cities in the nation, agricultural regions such as Central Valley tend to suffer from poverty due to many migrant farm workers earning less than minimum wage.