The hot-air balloon takes off.

California Bay Area Mansions Are in High Demand, Due to Tech Boom.  So headlines an 8/11 article on Fair & Balanced—but, in this case, not necessarily Accurate—FoxNews.com. 

As I mentioned over a month ago, the news media is starting to crank out hot air about the Silicon Valley real estate market.  Part of its wide-eyed fascination with us comes from the usual "California, Land of Fruits and Nuts" mentality seemingly shared both by news editors and news consumers across the nation.  Generous credit should also go to a lingering hang-over from the over-the-top dot-com era—plenty of good honest Middle America jaws dropped over that one, and the thinking is that they could be coaxed into dropping again.  Partly its our poor taste in having a fairly decent real estate market while the headlines insist that every area is hip deep in distressed sellers and plummeting home prices.  And partly it's more of the usual "I wonder what the undeservedly rich are doing today?" obsession that seems to inflame the newsrooms of the goofier and more virulent news outlets.

It's fascinating and a bit bizarre to watch yet another Silicon Valley boom described and defined by faraway news media with little insight—and to know that these will be the enduring images of this era, no matter how out of focus, much like a grainy two-second clip of hippies cavorting at a Golden Gate Park be-in stands for another era—but then, I've developed the nagging suspicion that almost every news event gets this treatment.  For example, California Bay Area Mansions confirms that simply by plunking down $7M for a "five-bedroom Palo Alto home" local mogul Mark Zuckerberg has unwittingly and quite possibly unwillingly become the latest poster boy for irrational exuberance, Silicon Valley style.  FoxNews.com also mentions the Russian venture capitalist who "recently set a record by shelling out $100 million for a spread in Los Altos"—actually, that "spread" is in Los Altos Hills, and there's a difference, unless you're a reporter breathlessly chronicling the latest Silicon Valley excess.  (Which reminds me that even in humble Barstow, California's most affordable city, there's a Lower Barstow and an Upper Barstow, and the local real estate ads hint strongly that life is better in Upper Barstow.)  We're even treated to another quote from local "futurist" Steven Levy, which suggests that either the Silicon Valley mythologists read each other or that they're handed the same Rolodex (sorry, contact database).

But buried in all the gee-whiz hype—as if fifty or sixty Mark Zuckerbergs traipse through every Silicon Valley open house—is this nugget of truth:  "In Palo Alto, home of Facebook [and one or two other companies of note, or so I hear] the median selling price of a single family home increased to $1.3 million in June..."  And $1.3 million will get you a California Bay Area Mansion, complete with palm trees, swimming pool, a movie star or two and hey!  that's Mark Zuckerberg hanging around your barbeque.  Right?

Right.

Regular readers know that if JohnFyten.com was important enough to have its own motto, it would be Fair & Balanced & If You're Thinking of Buying or Selling, Call Me.  So in the great Rupert Murdoch tradition of selfless impartiality I'd like to correct any misapprehension Middle America may be laboring under regarding the typical California Bay Area Mansion of the typical Silicon Valley Home Buyer Who Leaks $1 Million Bills As He Walks Through Open Houses.  And since $1.3M is the latest measure of Silicon Valley excess, let's comb the MLS for recent sales at or near that sales price.  Here's what we find:

I don't remember seeing any movie stars.

So, Middle America, envy us our weather, our scenery, our cultural and recreational amenities, our joie de vie, our can-do attitude, our perky sophistication.  But don't envy us our California Bay Area Mansions.

Because your homes are probably nicer.

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