When people relocating to Silicon Valley get “sticker shock” on our real estate prices, most of the time they look for more affordable places in which to live that are close by.  Often finding neighborhoods with good schools comes into play.  Or perhaps they simply love the scenic town of Los Gatos but can’t buy in town (95030 and 95032 zip codes are “in town” and 95033 is the unincorporated county areas with a Los Gatos mailing address). The mountains between San Jose and Santa Cruz – the coastal range – is home to a number of communities such as Chemeketa Park, Holy City, Aldercroft Heights, the Lexington Reservoir area (the town of Lexington is under the reservoir now!), Alma, Redwood Estates (Upper Redwood Estates, Lower Redwood Estates) and more.

The Los Gatos Mountains are a specialty area and I don’t usually work them. I frequently will refer them out or team up with someone else who knows a lot more than I do about the unique things you need to worry about if buying up there.

There are many plusses to living in the Los Gatos Mountains: clean air, more open space (less crowding), beautiful vistas, great schools (top rated public schools), lower housing costs. It’s a fabulous place if you have horses or just love more seclusion.  The folks who live in the hills absolutely love their communities and homes.

At the same time, there are special consideration if you live in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Here’s a list of potential issues that mountain residents may face:

• Many residential roads are private & there are private road agreements in place (so owners must agree on paving, clearing brush or trees too close to the road, pay if the road washes out in a mudslide to clear it or if soil beneath it gives way, etc.)
• Utilities: in the valley, we have Pacific Gas & Electric (PG & E) and public water (most of us have San Jose Water).  In the mountains most or many of them have propane gas (not P G & E), they do have electric from PG & E though, and well water.  Our recent drought  – which ended officially this week – was not severe but with a worse drought the wells can run dry and then mountain residents have to truck water in, which is very expensive.  You also must periodically check well water for arsenic and other elements and purity. (Also there’s septic instead of sewer. Not a big deal but it’s one more thing to maintain.)
• Fire concerns – the wildland areas are at risk of fire in summer, so the fire marshall’s regulations are to keep brush cleared a certain distance from your house to help lessen the risk. (Google “fire santa cruz mountains” and you will get a lot of news returns on fire danger and past fires).
• Winter weather issues – the higher elevations can get snow a couple of times a year – doesn’t last long but can make roads impassable (not as low as Chemeketa Park but near the summit and perhaps upper Redwood Estates).  Trees sometimes fall and block roads and driveways during heavy rainfall.  Our redwood trees have VERY shallow roots and I think this is why they come down in strong winds and rain, but I’m not sure.  The lovely trees are green year round, including winter.  They can keep the sun away if you’re in a heavily forrested area, though.  I had friends who lived near the summit and they said that in winter, sunshine never touched their property.  Finally, with all the trees and more severe winter weather in the Mtns, residents there lose electricity more often than we do in the valley (due to trees falling I am sure).
• Beach traffic – the mountain communities are all pretty dependent on Hwy 17 (there are few alternatives) and there’s a wave of traffic tie ups as coast visitors come and go with the warm weather.
• San Andreas Earthquake Fault – runs pretty much down the spine of the coastal range (on or close to Summit Road).  The summit is the “sunniest” area in the mountains, so if I lived there I’d want to be where there’s more sunlight – but that would mean straddling one of the most powerful and most scary earthquake faults on the globe.  I won’t do it!
• Travel time – hwy 17 can be pretty smooth but once off the road, it can be 10 to 20 or more minutes until you get to the house, so the total travel time to whereever you’re going can be long.  That’s especially true if there’s an accident on 17, which is not so uncommon with all the curves in the road.  There is a large grocery store on Summit Road so it is not necessary to drive to the valley for the basics.
• Resale issues – even in a “hot” market, it takes far longer to sell a mountain home than one on the valley floor.  Agents in my office say that on a typical open house up there they get one or two people per hour.  It is not uncommon for a mountain house to take a year to sell. I just checked the average Days on Market and it’s 63. In todays hot sellers market, that’s significantly longer than in the valley but far less than when I last updated this post in March 2011 when the Days on Market were 212.
• Bugs – in addition to drywood termites and subterranean termites, up in the SC Mountains they also have dampwood termites.

If you’re interested in learning more about the mountains, please email me!  I can get you more info and partner with a “mountain agent” to get you the best deal on a property in the coastal range near the San Jose area.

Finally, if you are not sure which area is in Los Gatos vs having a Los Gatos mailing address (which can also happen in pockets on the valley floor), the best resource is the map of the town’s boundaries, which you can find here: http://www.losgatosca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/338

What’s available in the mountains today?

See what’s listed for sale in the Los Gatos Mountain area today.

How’s the market in 95033 this week?