Open House This Weekend In Palo Alto

Make sure to come out to my open house this Sunday.  The address is 1212 Fulton Street and it is a charming home with a guest house that you will not want to miss.  The home has 3,100 square feet that has been updated and has hardwood floors on the main floors and carpeting upstairs.  There is a lower level studio with a kitchen and outside entrance.

There is also a 600 square foot guest cottage with kitchen and loft style bedroom that is perfect for renting or extended family members.

The price has just been reduced to $2,998,000 so it is a great buy at the new price.

Please come by and say hello.

Is Paperless The Way To Go? A Funny Example.

I love technology and use it in any way to help me in real estate. Whether it be to better communicate with my clients or make the offer process easier or just to track homes and what is on the market. Most people around the office know me as the tech guy as I try to help the technically challenged agents as it can be a daunting experience for agents who just haven’t used technology in their business.

One of the agents who is sometimes technically challenged sent me this funny little video about our ongoing technology vs paper debate. I think you will get a kick out of it, it’s very short so take a look.

The funny video.

Open House: Old Palo Alto Charming Home

Come visit my open house this weekend at 580 Washington Avenue in Old Palo Alto. I’ll be there Saturday from 1:30-4:30 and Sunday from 1:30-4:40pm.

Home is 2,000 sf, 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths and located on a cul-de-sac. Great Palo Alto schools and walking distance to shops and restaurants. The house is charming with updated kitchen and bathrooms plus a nice outdoor area for barbequing and entertaining. Asking price is $2,795,000.

Palo Alto real estate has been on a tear lately and prices have been ramping up due to the lack of inventory combined with lots of buyers who want to be in Palo Alto. There are only 27 homes on the market in all of Palo Alto, but more specifically, there are only 7 in the 2-3 million dollar range and only 3 homes at any price in Old Palo Alto.

Stop by to say hello and sign up for my off market list of available homes in the area.

President Obama in Atherton

President Obama and the throngs of secret service will be here Thursday as the President visits our town of Atherton. He will start with a brunch at the home of Liz Simons and Mark Heising and then job on over to the home of Marcia and John Goldman for a lunch. Both stops are obviously to raise money for the democratic party so there will be Atherton’s finest paying top dollar for a meal with the leader of the free world.

Various roads will be temporarily closed around the Alameda de las Pulgas and Valparaiso areas, so I would definitely avoid those routes around Walsh Road and the Stockbridge/Selby lane areas.

The President will see some of the top real estate this country has to offer as well as lots of construction activity. There are so many homes being built, fixed and updated that driving through many streets in Atherton and Menlo Park will surely convince the President that the economy is surging and people are working. Atherton real estate as well as the area has had a surge in prices over the past year and ranks one of the highest priced areas in the country.

Alain Pinel Realtors Silicon Valley

We at Alain Pinel Realtors have been releasing high quality videos that give buyers a feel for different areas. Today, we released the Silicon Valley video. Take a look.

If you are looking for luxury real estate all along the Peninsula and Silicon Valley in areas such as Los Altos, Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Palo Alto, Mountain View and other areas, please consider me.

Steve Wozniak Home For Sale

Steve Wozniak’s once owned home is on the market for $4.395 million dollars in Los Gatos.  The Apple co-founder owned the home several years ago and it has  undergone changes since he lived there, but for Apple followers, it’s still the home of the Woz.

The home has 7,500 sf, 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and sits on 1.1 acres.  It’s wonderfully updated and shows like a home costing over 4 million dollars should. It has beautiful views, wraparound terraces, pool with waterfall, Koi Pond and much more.

Luxury real estate sales and listings are up in the SF Peninsula area and a home that has the history of being lived in by a former Apple co-founder will bring lots of interest.

If you are an un-represented buyer and need more information or would like to see the home, please give me a call.  I can be reached at 650.543.1202 or emailed at gkurtz@apr.com.  The home is listed by Art Sharif and I have spoken to him several times about the home and bringing my buyers to see it.

Billionaires Living In Palo Alto

The highly anticipated Forbes list of billionaires shows that an unusually high number of them own Palo Alto real estate.

Ten of those billionaires live there to be exact.  Palo Alto real estate has been surging all year, now with the list showing that 10 billionaires live there, I’m guessing even more people from around the world will want to check out the real estate market and see what it’s all about.

The highest ranking billionaire to live in Palo Alto is Larry Page of Google, whose net worth is estimated at 23 billion.  Not bad for a 39 year old guy who looks like he’s about 20.  I think he owns the entire top floor of the condos on Alma street, so that is one nice penthouse condo.

Mark Zuckerberg comes in at the second highest ranking billionaire to live in Palo Alto and has a net worth of $13.3 billion.  He bought the house from an agent at our company last year and it’s just a nice home in a nice area and he didn’t go crazy with a mega mansion.

Laurene Powell, wife of the late Steve Jobs, comes in next on the list of Palo Alto billionaires and holds a net worth of $10.7 billion.  They have lived in the house on Waverley Street for many years and recently completed a renovation after Steve’s death.

Seven other billionaires from the Forbes list own Palo Alto real estate that they call home and can be read by clicking on the link below.

Palo Alto real estate billionaires

I have met or worked with several of the billionaires on the list and know the on and off market listings in Palo Alto quite well.  If you are in need of an agent to buy or sell a home,  please don’t hesitate to contact me at 650.543.1202 or gkurtz@apr.com for a confidential conversation.

Atherton Real Estate owned by several of the Forbes Billionaires

The Forbes Billionaires list shows that the richest people in the United States call Silicon Valley home and several own real estate in Atherton.

Atherton real estate is owned by Eric Schmidt of Google, whose net worth is estimated at $8.2 billion,  Charles Schwab, financial broker,  at $4.3 billion, George Roberts of KKR at $4.1 billion and Meg Whitman of HP/ebay at $1.9 billion.  Charles Schwab’s home is listed by my office at Alain Pinel and can be seen if you are an interested buyer, please give me a call.  Meg Whitman is a neighbor of mine and I know her house is not currently on the market, but we’ll see how it goes at HP this year!

Atherton real estate is obviously a good investment as the smartest and the richest have put their money down in this prime area. For the complete list of billionaires and where they live, see the link below.

Forbes US Billionaires

I work with a lot of high end clients who want their privacy respected and are interested to buy and sell real estate in Atherton via “off market” transactions as well as on market.  If you are interested in buying or selling, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 650.543.1202 or gkurtz@apr.com.

Palo Alto Housing Inventory Lower Than You Think It Is

It’s the end of February, the weather is a bit warmer and all is well in Palo Alto.  All except the housing inventory as the numbers remain unseasonably low.  Broker tour for the city of Palo Alto is on Friday, so that means most agents put their new listings on MLS by early Thursday so their new listing can make it on the Friday broker sheet.  As of today, there are 29 homes for sale in all of Palo Alto, and a total of 8 condo’s.  The average number of sales in a month for Palo Alto is somewhere in the 40′s, depending upon the month.  Knowing that 5 of the 29 have been on the market quite a while and probably not an easy sale, this means that all buyers are after about 24 homes.  But, the real number to look at is to take the inventory of 29 homes and separate them out by price range.  You have 8 homes in the 3 million plus range, 8 in the 2-3 million range, 10 in the 1-2 million dollar range and 3 under a million.

The price range is the true identified of what is out there as most buyers fit into only one of the price ranges.  For example, if you are looking for a home over three million, then you don’t really care to see the homes in the 1-2 range so your inventory is really only the 8 in your range.  So, housing inventory is a very personal number that is always a subset of the big number all the agents talk about.  For most buyers, there are really approximately 8 homes in the Palo Alto housing inventory that they really care about.  This shortage of housing inventory is why prices are going up as I know there are more than 8 buyers out there so it tends to create the situation where a buyer just wants to buy a house and they pick one of the 8 they see as the inventory doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

So, until more people decide to sell, this housing inventory number is much smaller than you think it is.

Selling Your Home: Quick Tips Before You Sell