Is there any good reason to sell your house in Silicon Valley if you do not have to?

The answer is a qualified yes.


This could be a great opportunity to purchase more house for less money than you thought you ever could in the Silicon Valley. You could possibly get your dream home that you never thought you could have afford if you BUY in this market.

The catch is that you need to get over the psychological hurdle that your house was worth anywhere from 10 to 40% more a couple years ago, and concentrate on the fact that the house you want to buy is possibly 10 to 40% LESS than you would have had to pay for it a couple of years ago. It is the price delta of the transaction that matters.

Ask yourself, if I sell my house for X and buy for Y is the difference an amount I am comfortable in financing at historically low interest rates? In addition to financing less money at a lower rate, you have the added benefit of lower property taxes over buying the house a couple of years ago.

Can you ignore the fear and doom portrayed every day on the news that the world is ending as we know it? Can you take the gamble with unemployment rate over 10% in CA?  However, 10% unemployment rate means that about 9 out of 10 people are still working!!!

The market is changing; you know when you have hit the bottom when it starts to go back up. Guess what? It would appear that we have hit the bottom and are on the way back up. Numbers from the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATES OF REALTORS show that we have hit the bottom in Silicon Valley and are on the upswing.

Plus, there are buyers. Buyers that are looking to get into contract before the middle of April to take advantage of the tax credit on their 2009 taxes. The inventory is low for these buyers and they are in MULTIPLE BID situations on several properties.

I am seeing more and more trade up buyers entering the market right now. They will probably have the ability to be smug in 2015 about how they bought real estate in 2010.