patrick.net

I currently rent in Almaden, and, I agree that it's no Monte Carlo or Manhattan. The reality is that this place and most other cities around here are still in a bubble and it will take at least 5 years or more + a 50% drop from current price levels, until all the dust clears. My children attended public schools in the area, and schools are worse than many of the schools in other parts of the country where houses are at least 60% cheaper. The weather is nice, but not nearly as nice as in Southern Cal where prices are also cheaper. Pay is also a little higher for tech professionals, but, as we already know only 100K of the 8M Bay Area residence are actually employed in the tech profession. Another point, is that you can not even compare prices around here to prices in other parts of the country, because quality of housing stock in this area is much inferior. Even though the weather outside is much nicer here than in Chicago, for example, I spend most of my time in the house, where heat insulation is not as good, so I actually feel much colder in the Bay Area than I did in Chicago. As far as Almaden is concerned, it doesn't even have a nice downtown area, so would not even be considered as a town, in other parts of the country, and most houses around here, are definite demolition material elsewhere.