The Belmont-Redwood Shores School District is considering reducing the number of middle school choices. There are currently three middle school programs. Ralston school has a comprehensive sixth…
Fewer Middle Schools In Redwood Shores Possible
The Belmont-Redwood Shores School District is considering reducing the number of middle school choices. There are currently three middle school programs. Ralston school has a comprehensive sixth through eigth grade education and has 1,099 students enrolled in the 2025-26 school year. Both Sandpiper and Nesbit have kindergarten through eighth grade instruction. Sandpiper has 123 students with 45 vacancies. Nesbit has 135 students with 33 vacancies. The district predicts there will be 290 fewer students in the next six years. Choices under consideration include keeping Ralston open as the comprehensive option and one of the other two schools as a smaller alternative. The second choice would be to keep two schools open and balance the enrollment between them. In the 2024-25 school year, 40%…
Do Silicon Valley House Prices Follow A K-Shaped Trend?
Concerns about a K-shaped economy have entered the housing market. An important question is “do Silicon Valley house prices show a K-shaped trend?” The answer could be important to you whether you are a home buyer, a home seller, or a real estate investor. A K-shaped economy is a trend where wealthy people have greater wealth growth than average or low wealth people have. This may imply that luxury house prices rise faster than average house prices. The question is thus, do they? Luxury House Prices vs. Average House Prices A quick look for a K-shaped house price trend can be done by comparing Atherton house prices (luxury houses) to Redwood City house prices (average houses). Although house prices significantly different in Atherton and Redwood City, the appreciation rates…
Mortgage Deductions For New Home Buyers vs Prop 13 For Old Buyers
Proposition 13 in California is blamed by prospective home buyers as being one of the reasons buying a house is so expensive. “Long-time homeowners aren’t paying their fair share.” What we rarely see is that income tax deductions for mortgage interest favor new home buyers. Taxes never make anything cheaper unless a tax “refund” is given for taxes that weren’t paid. Long-time homeowners will typically have much lower mortgages and thus much less opportunity, if any, to deduct their mortgage from their income taxes. Long-time homeowners bought their home at a lower price and thus a lower mortgage, and have also paid off a significant portion, possibly all, of their mortgage. With time, standard deductions grow and the mortgage interest decreases, the value of the mortgage deduction can…
Real Estate Agent Commission
A big change was made to real estate sales in 2024. Now, a real estate agent has to get a written agreement with a potential buyer before they can tour a home with them. Much of the rationale for this change centered on the fact that home sellers typically paid a commission to the real estate agent who represented the buyer. Claims were made that sellers should not be forced to pay for the buyers’ agent and that buyers should pay for their own agent. In Silicon Valley, real estate commissions have been negotiable for many years. The default practice has been that the sellers pay all commissions, and the total commission is approximately split between the sellers’ agent and the buyers’ agent. A benefit is that the buyer does not have to come up with cash to pay a…
Can Protected Trees Be Removed
Cities enact their own tree protection ordinances, which are specific to that city. A long-time Palo Alto resident recently posted about his protected tree removal attempts to force his neighbor to remove Coast Redwood Trees whose roots were damaging his foundation. We reached out and talked to him for several hours. One of the points that came up was that the city department in charge of managing protected trees apparently enacted regulations to appease the local tree preservation group Canopy. After two years of court cases and numerous discussions, the owner of the damaged house was left with the understanding that the city expanded its protection to other tree types and sizes to appease Canopy, reducing the organization’s opposition to the removal of specific trees. Even if you…
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