EPA, CA had the highest home price increase during 2016

EAST PALP ALTO, CA is an example what economy and demographics changed concurrently

    Year   	     EPA	    % 

2002
2003
2004 $615,000
2005
2006 $1,120,000
2007 $542,000
2008 $414,258
2009 $321,778
2010 $314,588
2011 $309,012 27.6%
2012 $361,550 117.0%
2013 $464,405 150.3%
2014 $630,492 204.0%
2015 $697,697 225.8%
2016 $913,500 295.6%
The area was hit hard by the Great Recession. A 1200-2000 sf SFH on the avg dropped to 27.6% of peak year value. It did not regroup until 2012. At the end of 2016 it was 2.95X if one bought it at the bottom. During 2016 year avg. homes appreciated +30.9% (913.5/697.7K) !

Major employers like Google, Linkedin, Microsoft as well as Facebook have strong presence. Across from the freeway is Palo Alto. Few can afford to go live on other side and east side gets better with more high tech employees start accepting EPA is just another place calling it home that is still affordable. The demographics have changed to a great deal. It is highly unlikely that during the next downturn home prices will drop that much again. At least Tesla, Linkedin, Microsoft, Google, Facebook dominate different industry. It appears to be a growing neighborhood and Zukerberg foundation is putting a lot of investment into medical and education in this neglected town.

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EPA houses sold at the courthouse for $100-150k…Those investors that held on till now made a killing…

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Many have unloaded. They may have to rent it low and need to tear down or update to get to current price level. Those newer homes near Pulga are selling just over 1M. Not well constructed but they are 2 mil lower than PA across from I-101…

This is a case of higher risk greater return scenario. I doubt it will be down to 26% of peak at next cycle,
Sam Shueh

What’s the next EPA? Will the part of East Bay around Dumbarton be next?

Parts of Oakland. I do not have interest in certain neighborhoods and have passed opportunities w/o regrets.

Another area is Union City. The Condos/town homes are rapidly appreciating. Google got bus leaving from there to work precipitate many single coders to purchase.

Here is Townhome, condo data.
Primary Year Sale Price, Average
2003 $337,500
2004 $394,411
2005 $465,295
2006 $491,557
2007 $479,738
2008 $342,531
2009 $254,413 0.517565613
2010 $255,264 100.3%
2011 $299,611 117.8%
2012 $280,274 110.2%
2013 $375,365 147.5%
2014 $450,960 177.3%
2015 $526,025 206.8%
2016 $545,631 214.5%
.

As for SFH homes in Union City the data is goofy, there was a correction after 2011 at any rate it has risen 8.3% in 2016 or almost doubled from the bottom prime year… SShueh

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I am also watching Union City. Numbers of SFH’s there no longer works for me but some TH’s still do.

Which parts of Oakland? West Oak has seen very steep rise. Surprisingly numbers still work there because rent is also high. Another area I am watching is the southern edge, S of 98th near San Leandro.

It’s scary beyond 35th or so, so I think. I did not really visit those parts due to safety reasons

Union city is not close to anything. Does it have good schools or something?

UC is across from Foster City or Menlo Park-bridge dependent. The quality of schools in UC is no worse than MV. The difference is MV you pay $1.8M and across the bridge is $1M cheaper at 800K. Other choice is pay $5500 rent…

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Bay Area traffic is so horrible now people are compromising on school quality for homes closer to work. A while back folks were talking about SW Sunnyvale prices and how can be even more expensive than Monte Vista area, because 85 is so jammed up that extra couple miles can be excruciating. It’s something I didn’t expect.

So UC and that part of Easy Bay around Dumbarton should have good potential. Provided the bridge traffic is tolerable.

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MV students go to 2 high schools, Los Altos and Mountain View.
As far as I am concerned, both of them are very good schools.
Their 2013 API scores were 895, 861 respectively. (I don’t trust inflated school rating after common core much. So, I use most recent API scores.)
UC has one public high school, James Logan High and its 2012 API score was 736.

From both reputation and API score perspective, I don’t think MV and UC high schools are within similar range.
There are lots of high achieving elementary schools in Bay Area, but not many such high schools. Thus, I guess it is fair to consider high school first when we compare two area’s school quality.

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If enough young professional families move to union city its high school will improve. I have seen that happened to other once undesirable areas.

UC needs to have good schools to be attractive. But California is stopping to produce API metric. In the future, there will be no way to tell the difference between UC and Cupertino schools. Maybe school will be less important in the future?

When API stops to exist, what criteria will homebuyers use to choose community? If they use demographic profile, government can keep neighborhood demographics as a secret. That way, Obama’s housing equality plan will become reality. Basically govenment can remove all the information related to home purchase so that people will buy a house with zero information on neighborhood to prevent inequality in housing.

For Oakland and San Francisco, school is not a concern at all, at least school has no impact on housing price.

I agree with Jane - the common core ranking is too inflated. There will always be savvy buyers who look at 2013 api and extrapolate. I find it hard to believe that a 700 api in 2013 can suddenly be a 9 out of 10 ranked school in the new rankings.

I looked at API scores, college admission numbers to top universities (top3 UC admissions(public information) and top private schools(this information is not public but usually released to parents of that school)), STEM related competition results and reviews from other parents when we bought our primary home.
Families who care about schools look through all available information and know that common core test scores are too inflated and hence not very meaningful.
Moreover, reputation of the school plays out a lot.
Mountain View High and Los Altos High have good reputation among parents.

How much has MV High improved since Google set up HQ there? I wonder if kids of Google engineers improved the school and set up a virtuous cycle.

I looked at API scores of 2004 (the year google went IPO). I don’t think Google influenced MV high school much until then.

http://api.cde.ca.gov/reports/Page2.asp?subject=API&level=School

MV high:806
LA high:791
JL high (UC school):608
Lynbrook:892
Monta Vista: 912

Even before Google time, MV high performed much better than JL high.
Although absolute number of 2004 API for MV high is lower than 2013 API, similar pattern is seen in all other schools as well.
Thus, I don’t think normalized API number (among Bay Area schools) changed much for MV high.

Both the wife and I grew up in UC. Graduated one year apart in the late 90s, but we really re-met each other in our mid 30s.

There is only one high school in UC, and during our time it was nearly 4,000 kids. It’s a little smaller now.

I started working in 2000, and the nice part of about UC was that it was in the ‘middle’ of things as far as the commute was concerned. I worked in Fremont, then Sunnyvale, then San Ramon, then Cupertino, then the City, then San Jose. That spanned from 2000-2006, and it was all a 40min commute, by car or BART to the Ciy. Traffic is a lot worse these days (it was AWESOME back in the 2002 timeframe).

We were both involved in speech and debate in high school. We competed against many schools named in some of these threads. Lowell, St Francis, Bellarmine, CPS and Head Royce in Oakland. There is more than a few I’m forgetting, but the head coach we had was pretty aweseome. He ended up on Oprah and won the MacArthur ward.

Sure, on average these schools performed better than James Logan in UC in terms of academics, but the honors level education was pretty solid. Remember, that this was 20yrs ago and things have gotten a lot more complex.

UC was a place my parents moved to when my dad retired from the military after 20 years. My wife’s father’s family immigrated to the area when she was about 9 years old, about 7 siblings. There’s some damned good Chinese food if you know where to look. The Vietnamese food is also very good.

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http://archive.peninsulapress.com/2013/07/16/squeezed-by-the-foreclosure-crisis-and-booming-silicon-valley-real-estate-east-palo-alto-confronts-gentrification/

Funny how they used to complain EPA was full of crime…Now that is gentrifying, they complain it is forcing the criminal eliminate out…Ultimate chutzpah

How about Pacifica for they next appreciation boom?..Force out the nimbys and replace with high paid techies…Watch out for incessant whinning about gentrification.

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Before Pacifica how about gentrifying Daly City first? People complain about house prices in SF and yet don’t want to move a few miles down to DC, like they have never heard of the town.

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DC is not the best neighborhood. Have no worries. People say they despise being close to EPA. Now they find out they can not afford a 1.2M modest EPA home either. As most realtors say show me your wallet I will show what you can get.
Sam Shueh
Campbell, CA