patrick.net

I am not touching the USD denominated bonds - in any shape or form - even with fears of recession. Many other currencies give much better interest rate and can potentially appreciate at the same time.

I am mostly in stocks. For bonds, I advocate global bonds, in particular I have mentioned MERKX many times. I hold it, and my cost basis is much lower than the all time high it is currently hitting. It's a short term Euro bond fund, with a lot of Gold in its portfolio. Do your due diligence.

Jim Jubak on MSN investor wrote a nice article on how bonds are more risky right now that stocks. It should be available in their commentary archives.

Hence the Fortress remain strong. I do not see the job market taking a sharp turn to south. So unless 30yr FRM rates go over 7%, you will not see any cracks in the Fortress. In fact they will keep becoming more desirable, postponing their day of reckoning.

Stuck,
That brings up an interesting point. The bearish-est (sorry) scenario would be that the CDO/CLO mess leads to severe credit tightening (much more than right now), drying up the money flow. This would have a significant impact on HF money and probably in a "chain reaction" effect VC money. This would also have indirect effects on the established tech companies in the form of belt-tightening from their customers. IE, economic slowdown and possible recession.

I'm not predicting recession, and I'm not trying to "out-bear" anyone, but I see this scenario as a distinct possibility.

Skibum,

It is definitely a possibility. Although I am not sure how co-related the credit crunch is with the startup funding. Have people been investing borrowed money into startups ? Randy and SP might offer better insight. If I were to venture a guess, I would say not much of the money in high tech VC funds comes from borrowing. Investing in start ups is considered very risky, all or nothing bet. No one is promoting them as AAA rated ;-) So most likely people are just putting hard cash into these funds.

On the other hand (!!), there are competing factors. One of the main reasons for the job loss in the BA was outsourcing. There was job growth in big tech companies. It was just in India, not here. Outsourcing is becoming less and less attractive. Thank the falling USD. Exporters will have "more" earnings. So job market - at least in high tech - would remain strong, IMHO.

skibum Says:

Who’s going to make the first troll call?

I’ll give “sa” the benefit of the doubt. By his/her posts, it appears he/she just recently bought in the “Fortress” (FSBO), and is here to assuage any buyer’s remorse by touting the high demand in the “Fortress.” The choppy grammar in fact leads me to believe he/she in fact is of the “Fortress” demographic - Asian, probably an engineer.

i would never buy a house in BA even if the houses were to drop another 30%. i did tell in one of the posts other day that i thought the houses were were overpriced in 2000-2001 time.

I have lived in bay area in the past. I have been wrong in the past twice about fortress leads me to believe what i stated and it has nothing to do with grammer/asian/engineer.

oh wait! somebody is bitter that they missed the opportunity and its probably got something to do with asian/engineers.

Hence the Fortress remain strong. I do not see the job market taking a sharp turn to south. So unless 30yr FRM rates go over 7%, you will not see any cracks in the Fortress. In fact they will keep becoming more desirable, postponing their day of reckoning.

From my conversations with friends, the job market is heading anywhere but south. Job hopping is going on like crazy in the tech sector. It's pretty hot and only going to get hotter.

Crud.

-JBR

"From my conversations with friends, the job market is heading anywhere but south. Job hopping is going on like crazy in the tech sector. It’s pretty hot and only going to get hotter."

True, but that is not uni

“From my conversations with friends, the job market is heading anywhere but south. Job hopping is going on like crazy in the tech sector. It’s pretty hot and only going to get hotter.”

True, but that is not unique to Silicon Valley, Bay Area, California or even the US where total unemployment is 4.4%.

I'd be very careful in assuming that things will continue the way they are indefinitely. Your comment sounds so Summer of 1999.

StuckInBA Says:
I am not sure how co-related the credit crunch is with the startup funding. Have people been investing borrowed money into startups ?

Short answer is: No, the money being poured into startups isn't 'borrowed' money in the direct sense.

Longer answer (but still brief :-) ) is:
However, if you look at the entire risk-reward continuum, excess liquidity depresses yield across the spectrum, which forces investors to accept higher risk to get a certain yield - i.e. give money to less promising start-ups.

A credit-crunch does not happen in isolation in one sector. It means that investors in all sectors demand higher yield for a given level of risk. You have to 'give' higher yield to attract the same money, and startups which are structurally incapable of offering this yield will choke.

That is a little oversimplified, but you get the idea.

Also, if there is a real credit-crunch, it impacts business expansion and consumer spending as well. The secondary (and higher order derivative) effects of that will also make it difficult for risky prospects on the edge.

SP

Here's an intersting tidbit:

In spite of all this talk of the Silicon Valley fortress and its present white hot economy, current inventory for June 2007 for Santa Clara County is now only just a tad lower than it was 6 years ago in June 2001 (dot-com implosion in full swing) and is actually at its highest for any June since then:

http://www.creeksiderealty.com/bay_area_real_estate/2007/santa_clara_county/7jul.htm

Somebody please explain this....

Apart from the 10yr yield I also closely watch the USD. A few days ago I thought the USD has hit a bottom. I was wrong. The yen, euro and pound are all strengthening.

Every other nation that has a strengthening currency is trying to fight inflation, and making their currency even stronger. We have a weakening currency and still pretend that inflation doesn't exist, thereby weakening the USD even further.

Fed has no intention of increasing the rates. The future of USD really doesn't look that bright. If they actually do the unthinkable and raise rates, housing will tank - even in the Fortress.

So how to profit from this ? IMO, hedge against the USD. If the Fed reduces the rates, you will benefit. If they raise the rates, you will find houses cheaper.

eburbed said:
From my conversations with friends, the job market is heading anywhere but south. Job hopping is going on like crazy in the tech sector. It’s pretty hot and only going to get hotter.

Job-hopping isn't a reliable indicator. There is a mind-boggling number of startups right now that are offering extremely attractive salaries for tech workers to jump ship. From past experience, I can tell you (a) this won't last and (b) it won't end well. Most of these startups are on a short funding leash, and destined to go into a tailspin when the next funding round comes up.

SP

tannebaum :

Every single indicator is showing BA real estate market under stress. There are reduced price listings, short sales, increased YOY inventory, increased foreclosures, decreased YOY sales, decreased YOY asking prices. Even before registration became necessary, our troll-o-meter was also trending downwards.

Certain areas remain prime. So by continuously rezoning the Fortress and using the flawed statistical measure called "median price", we can maintain the illusion that the Fortress is really strong.

You know, Monta Vista houses are still fetching a bidding war. Don't look at San Jose. Everyone wants to live only in Cupertino, right ?

How about a new thread-

Will Bear Stearns transition itself to become the Carmax of used houses?

A credit-crunch does not happen in isolation in one sector. It means that investors in all sectors demand higher yield for a given level of risk. You have to ‘give’ higher yield to attract the same money, and startups which are structurally incapable of offering this yield will choke.

I am trying to wrap my mind around the credit crunch. How will that play out ? Wouldn't the Fed try to fight it by lowering rates and encouraging investment ? If the risk-free rate goes down to say 3%, wouldn't it make it less risky to invest in a start-up ? Wouldn't that stroke the buyout flames stronger ?

I agree with your second part. The credit crunch will definitely affect the customer and eventually rest of the economy.

skibum Says:
does anyone think the national housing mess will ever substantially affect the “Fortress” in the Bay Area?

Not the national housing mess.

The Bay Area housing mess will affect the fortress. Fortress prices now reflect the lagging effects of extremely loose lending, low interest rates, speculation, extreme school-fetish, a tight job market and two-income professional families. They also now reflect "spring selling season" stickiness to the point where we are close to overdue for an 'unsticky' leg.

Keep an eye on the cliff. Don't just watch the lemmings.

SP

Well I don't know about other areas in the "Fortress" but I started paying a little attention after seeing the houses on Sydney Dr in Sunnyvale (from a previous post).

A quick recap: 3 new houses, one on the corner of Fremont (a very busy street), across the street from an apartment complex. All about 2500 sq ft. All selling for 1.35-1.375m. I didn't like the floor plans at all.

2 months later, 2 are sold (1301 Sydney Dr, the crappy corner house, and 1305 the middle house), the last one 1309 Sydney Dr is pending.

There was another new construction house at 1461 Flicker Way at 2460 sq ft. 20 days on market and its marked as pending. Asking price was 1.369m.

And it's not just new construction. Here's another one:

761 Inverness Way: Asking 1.248m at 2573 sq feet. Pending after being on the market 13 days.

575 Torland Ct: Asking 1.428m at 2584 sq feet. Pending after being on the market 11 days.

Of course not every house is that hot. Here's another one that is now pending, and it took 63 days to get there: 1003 Persimmon Avenue. Of course it's only $1.25m at 1,927 sq ft, which translates to $642 per sq ft for a 45 year old house. I would assume they didn't get their asking price but who knows.

And then there are of course a bunch of houses that won't sell. There are 136 houses selling in Sunnyvale after all.

But there are "only" 37 houses that are active/pending in the 94087 zip code. Of those 37, 13 are sale pending.

We'll see what the final price is when they post in the newspaper. Days on market info from Redfin. Number of houses from the MLS site.

Feel free to spin this any way you want. Personally, I decided I wasn't going to look to buy a house anytime soon, and I'd be interested to see what other people make of this data.

SP,

RE: The liquidity crunch, I couldn't have said it better. My understanding is that yes, VC money isn't directly "borrowed" money, but if/when the private equity guys and the corporate entities that fund a lot of startups get hit by the double whammy of less free-flowing cash and higher levels of risk aversion, the highly risky enterprise of startup funding will take a hit.

oh wait! somebody is bitter that they missed the opportunity and its probably got something to do with asian/engineers.

I'm not bitter at all. RE: the reference to Asian engineers, I am only making an obtuse, albeit possibly incorrect inference that your poor grammar suggests you are not a native English speaker.

we can maintain the illusion that the Fortress is really strong.
You have to admit that the Case/Shiller Index numbers for the BA are an amazing thing. Despite crumbling at the periphery (CC and Alameda Counties beyond the hills), "prime areas" are having to do some heavy lifting to keep the index slightly up. No median tricks, just shear brute force (witness DQ Mill Valley numbers).

Another East Bay Anecdote from a BBQ
Couple not living in BAP (and probably cannot afford to live there) is concerned as their kids are approaching school age. Probably cannot afford private schools either. They don't like it, but have started looking east through the Caldecott Tunnel... pssssssss.... town-by-town, this is how the ship will eventually sink.

You have to admit that the Case/Shiller Index numbers for the BA are an amazing thing.

EBGuy,

That's an interesting point. The Case-Shiller index refers to "San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Area" for the Bay Area. According to their methodology:

http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/SPCS_MetroArea_HomePrices_Methodology.pdf

this includes SF, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Mateo, and Marin Counties. So the "Fortress" isn't even included in the calculation. I wonder in which direction same-home resales in Santa Clara County would skew the index? On the one hand, the "Fortress" probably would raise the index. On the other hand, the bulk of sales, and therefore resales, are non-Fortress within the county.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveonaCar/TheRepoManIsGettingBusy.aspx?page=1

Repossession agents in areas hit by foreclosures say they've been picking up vehicles both from people struggling to keep their homes and from those now left without work: construction workers, pavers, landscapers and real-estate agents.

"It is actually stunning the number of cars we're taking from people who are supporting the local real-estate market," said J. Patrick Altes, the president of Falcon International, a recovery agency with offices throughout Florida. "It's almost the type of thing where we see it and you wonder if anyone else sees it. . . . It's like they turned off the spigot."

It did become reality for me. In 1989 (during the previous BA housing bubble).

I got bad vibes from the "buyer's agents" I dealt with. One of them was the spouse of my thesis advisor at the time I was working on my thesis. Since he had some influence over my success at school, some might think the arrangement was a conflict of interest. No matter. Nothing personal against her but the process seemed sleazy.

We did our own looking, then hired a lawyer to help with the buyer's diligence, write the offer, close out the deal.

ConnorG,

Nothing wrong with CraigsList, but look carefully for actual individual landlords. Your worst enemy is the Property Management Empire. Whether they be a large corporation, or a RealtWhore doing some slumlording on the side, they are professionals adept at screwing you over. I find a depressing number of CraigsList ads, when I go to see the house and meet the landlord, at some point they will reveal they are part of the REIC. They make very poor landlords because they are not interested in keeping the house in best condition, just good enough to keep turning a profit. They'll want to run a full credit check on both parties, sign a 12-page lease plus 3 ancillary documents saying basically they agree to do nothing and if certain things break it's not their problem to fix it.

Every "family" landlord I've had, the contract has never been more than a few pages and we worked out that what I would repair (and give them receipts for) and what they would take care of, shake hands done. I agree to take good care of their house, they agree to let me live there for money it should be that simple.

In general, very little money in a VC's limited partnership (the investors) is borrowed. At least not borrowed directly. The threshold to invest in a VC fund is *very* high. Aside from the statutory minimum wealth requirements which would exclude most of us, the top-tier funds usually have minimum investments in excess of $10mm, and with very strict terms. You have to make capital call on demand, and you cannot redeem your investment for some years. People who play at this level are the true wealthy, not 4th-tier hedge fund-of-funds type of investors.

Funding of venture funds is very strong right now in tech almost across the board. I don't know much about biotech, but investment in software, hardware, telecom/infrastructure, greentech, energy, and electronic entertainment is the strongest since the last peak. Given how fund cycles work, that means probably 3-4 years of brisk startup funding from today forward, even if credit tightens and the investment market sours. The market for VC is cyclical and lags the macro economy because of overhang.

Randy H said:
investment in software, hardware, telecom/infrastructure, greentech, energy, and electronic entertainment is the strongest since the last peak. Given how fund cycles work, that means probably 3-4 years of brisk startup funding

Possibly - however, it is worth noting that this still does not mean the startups that got funded in 2006/2007 will continue to get money for the next 3-4 years. e.g. a biometric startup in SF burned through a 9-digit war-chest, and is now struggling to stay afloat (and is losing engineers).

Also, much of what you said (threshold to invest, redemption restrictions, etc.) applies to how venture-funds assure themselves of access to money. Not necessarily a guarantee that the money will continue to flow into a given startup.

SP

I love this story - it's about the house that collapsed in SF earlier this year. More details have emerged:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/24/MNG6EQKRPF1.DTL&sn=002&sc=602

Ben Coleman, the Century 21 broker who sold Lam the house, later distributed a flyer with a photo of the cottage. It read, "We just sold this dump for $125,000 over asking price! Imagine what your property is worth!"

I wonder if the buyer saw those... oh wait... he probably didn't care.

"This guy was trying to do all the work himself," said Wycko, a senior environmental planner with San Francisco's Planning Department. "He is not a contractor, but he was out there, hiring day laborers, getting deliveries from Home Depot, doing his own excavation, removing tons of dirt, pouring his own foundation. The house wasn't even anchored to anything. It was basically sitting above dirt -- on a grade. Eventually, gravity took over."

Wycko estimates damage to their place at about $30,000. If their foundation is undermined, he believes the figure will jump by $40,000 more.

"In retrospect, there was a pretty comprehensive effort on (Bill Zhou's) part to hide what he was doing," Wycko said. "He had tarps basically suspended over the back of the house so no one could see his work. If someone is doing foundation work, you are required to give notice to neighbors. We received no notice."

-rolls eyes-

I'm surprised he wasn't using some lead paint from the Thomas The Engine factory.

eburbed,

Loved the house collapse story.

Why do young couples get so desperate in getting into house?
What would they do now -- file bankruptcy.

Also, much of what you said (threshold to invest, redemption restrictions, etc.) applies to how venture-funds assure themselves of access to money. Not necessarily a guarantee that the money will continue to flow into a given startup.

Venture funds seldom prefer to return investment to the LPs. Therefore raised capital becomes overhang and more often than not gets invested in portfolio companies or rolled into the next fund.

Any company that's burned through 9 figures in 1 year is well outside the profile of a VC funded startup. Many companies don't even raise much more than that on public markets. Considering the IRR VCs target, the valuation placed on a company funded by that much venture capital must have been many billions of dollars. What was the company?

It looks like the NYT has finally caught on to what's been discussed here a while back, that the high end of the RE market is doing much better than the low end:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/business/11leonhardt.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

Interesting how they kick off the tale with Mill Valley - maybe they read Randy's posts about his recent searches??

Login needed, but here are some excerpts:
_________________________

Can’t Sell Your Home? Maybe It’s Priced Too Low

By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: July 11, 2007

Given that the real estate market is supposed to be in free fall, some strange things have been happening recently in Mill Valley.

High-End Sales Fairing Better It is one of the expensive suburbs of San Francisco just over the Golden Gate Bridge, and much of the housing market there seems to be doing just fine. One three-bedroom house sold for $1.4 million last month without ever being officially put on the market. The seller accepted a pre-emptive bid — $20,000 above the asking price — from somebody who had heard that the house was about to be listed for sale.

“The homes that are having a hard time selling are the average-priced homes,” said Vanessa Justice, a real estate agent with Pacific Union GMAC in the Bay Area, where the median house price is about $750,000. For upper-end homes, she said, “it’s actually pretty crazy right now.”

It has been a while since real estate agents used the word “crazy” in a positive way, but Ms. Justice is onto something here: the high end of the market is surviving the slump much better than any other segment. Even as foreclosures keep rising and overall sales continue to plummet, more expensive homes have staged a bit of a comeback in recent months. They’re spending less time languishing on the market than others, and their prices appear to be holding up better.

This split in the market helps explain why the sales of Manhattan apartments, some of the priciest homes in the country, have remained fairly strong. The national trend has gone largely unnoticed, though, because neither the federal government nor the National Association of Realtors — the main sources of housing data — report statistics for different price segments.

But after just about every home sale, documents must be filed with a local government office. A research firm called DataQuick Information Systems gathers these records, and a New York Times analysis of them shows that the story of today’s real estate market is really two different stories.

In the Boston area, for instance, the number of homes selling for at least $1 million plummeted to 619 in the first five months of 2006, from 773 in the period in 2005, according to DataQuick. But the number jumped to 711 in the first five months of this year.

In the New York region, sales at the top end — that is, homes in the most expensive 5 percent of the market — have also been rising, while they have been falling in the middle and bottom of the market. The same is true in the San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; Denver; and Houston areas. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Miami, high-end sales are down but not by nearly as much as sales in other price segments.

Separate statistics from the California Association of Realtors also show million-dollar-plus homes to be selling better than others in that state.

(snip)

There seem to be three main causes of the split in the market. The first is that affluent families continue to do better than others, thanks to healthy income gains and a rising stock market. “To some extent, it is the rich getting richer,” Andrew LePage, an analyst at DataQuick, explained. “The folks who don’t rely solely on a weekly or monthly paycheck seem to be doing better.”

The upper end of the market has also been helped by an influx of well-off foreign investors whose buying power has grown with the recent decline of the dollar. Hard as this may be for an American to imagine, New York, San Francisco or Miami can now seem like a bargain, compared with London, Moscow or Sydney. Jason Haber, an agent with Prudential Douglas Elliman in Manhattan, said he had recently taught himself how to convert square feet into square meters — you divide by 10.8 — because of all of the international buyers traipsing through New York apartments.

Finally, both the recent rise in interest rates and the problems in the mortgage market have had a much bigger effect on low-income and middle-class buyers than affluent ones. It’s become harder to get a subprime mortgage, while the uptick in interest rates this year has added about $100 to the monthly payment on an average fixed-rate 30-year mortgage.

As Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, summed up the market: “The low end is getting creamed. The middle is struggling. The high end is running on its own dynamic.”

It’s tempting to conclude, then, that the top of the housing market has somehow become bubble-proof. And some real estate agents will doubtless make this pitch to buyers who are on the fence. But it is almost certainly wrong.

In fact, the very top of the housing market — the sprawling vacation homes and 10,000-square-foot mansions — seems to be doing considerably worse than merely expensive homes. Ines Hegedus-Garcia, an agent in Miami, recently looked at sales volumes there and found the market for homes that cost $1.2 million to $2.5 million to be holding up decently. The situation was much worse for those priced above $2.5 million.

There are also a couple of areas, like Washington and San Diego, where the high end of the market, broadly defined, is already doing about as badly as everything else. So perhaps the recent comeback won’t last long in other cities.

Remember, it’s not as if the wealthy are immune to irrational exuberance. Just think back to the 1990s — or the 1920s. Any asset can end up becoming overvalued. Right now, though, there is a bit more of a rational explanation for home values at the high end of the market.

OO,

I know you have a healthy interest in American healthcare v. nationalized healthcare, so you might be interested in this:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042072.htm

The best way to fix the healthcare system is to let it fail.

When the problem starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees significantly, there will be action. There is no need to be proactive. It will not work.

The gravity defying act is still going on.

MLS 732997.
A 3 bed / 2 bath house of 1032 sqft for 839K. Over 800 per SQFT !!

ZipRealty has an interest meter and it is at highest level for this house. And this is not even in Monta Vista area. The madness just keeps feeding onto itself.

This beauty is smaller than my rental apartment which costs me less than 2K in total rent+utilities. Of course my rental does not have granite counter tops. So maybe that's why. I am definitely going to track for exactly how much this house sells for.

StuckInBA:

Just checked that MLS number. The address is: 19435 Calle De Barcelona, Cupertino.

This listing is approaching a month (27 days) listing time so it's not exactly flying off the shelf. "Interest meter" (whatever the hell THAT means) doesn't necessarily equate with "ready and able to make an offer".

"starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees"

They're not the canary in the mine...maybe more blind mole rat. They'll continue to get tax-revenue paid care and commend their doctors' attention, since they tend to get more expensive/higher margin care.

The best way to fix the healthcare system is to let it fail.

When the problem starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees significantly, there will be action. There is no need to be proactive. It will not work.

The problem with a passive, laissez-faire approach is that the "solution" will come too late for millions of bankrupt uninsured or under-insured. And any Boomer-designed solution may only benefit Boomers and seniors, while mostly leaving Gen-X and younger out in the cold (recall Prop. 13?).

When the problem starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees significantly, there will be action. There is no need to be proactive. It will not work.

Speaking of parasitic Boomers and/or seniors, did anyone else see the story about the predictions for California's future population that just came out? Supposedly there will be 60mil Californians by 2050, and most will be Latino. The article I read (sorry, can't remember the reference) actually stated outright that the working-age population will be more than enough to "support" the Boomer population, in terms of doing jobs to support them (health care, etc), pay taxes for their entitlements, and yes, buy their homes from them...

I'm glad the Boomers will be able to continue their freeloading ways well into this century.

The US has a truly perverse healthcare system where some of the cheapest/most cost effective care is out of reach for a big chunk of the population. Meanwhile, the taxpayers (including many many uninsured taxpayers) are paying for tremendously expensive and ineffective end of life care without even batting an eyelash.

Speaking of parasitic Boomers and/or seniors, did anyone else see the story about the predictions for California’s future population that just came out? Supposedly there will be 60mil Californians by 2050, and most will be Latino.

Well, IIRC, the state is already majority Latino, which is ok by me, as long as they happen to be Latinos who regard CA as American soil and obey U.S. law --which is not always the case around where I live (L.A. County).

As far as hitting 60 million by 2050, that projection is questionable. For one thing, we don't currently have enough fresh water for that many people + agriculture to support them all. Perhaps great strides will be made in desalination technology and/or drastically cutting per capita consumption, but this remains to be seen.

Another looming question mark is peak oil. According to some world production estimates, we are either at or just past peak extraction levels, with gradual-but-steady YoY declines predicted from here on. Nearly doubling our current population without a ready and (this is critical) scale-able substitute would be tough to achieve, unless average living standards drop far enough to accommodate this. Around L.A., I guess that means 20 illegals to a room vs. the current 10 per room (just kidding... sort of).

Randy H Says:
Any company that’s burned through 9 figures in 1 year is well outside the profile of a VC funded startup. Many companies don’t even raise much more than that on public markets. Considering the IRR VCs target, the valuation placed on a company funded by that much venture capital must have been many billions of dollars. What was the company?

It wasn't in just one year, I think it was more like 3 years. They went through about 250M in that period, including acquisition of a couple of smaller companies. It is a company up in San Francisco that works on biometric technology.

You're right about the funding, of course. They were funded by multiple VC's at first and then through institutional investors in subsequent rounds. Their latest attempt to raise more money didn't succeed, and based on a couple of people I know there, their tech talent is leaving in droves.

SP

RE: the Mill Valley story

I was going to write a thread on it. But I'll just let the word "bullshit" stand.

High end homes here are sitting and sitting and sitting. The only one of the half dozen I'm tracking that have sold in the past 4-5 months was bought out through some kind of "arrangement" because the little-old-lady was a pillar of the community or something like that.

Seriously, someone needs to look into good, old fashioned price-fixing here in Mill Valley. The realtor cabal here is so f-ing corrupt.