by Mary Pope-Handy | Aug 20, 2025 | Buying Tips, Communities, Gilroy, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Relocation
Odor problems are a sensitive topic, whether you’re talking about someone just in from exercising or a whole town or neighborhood. Home for sale with a periodic stench? That won’t be listed in the MLS, and it may be down played (or absent) in the disclosures. This can be very upsetting if you learn it only after you move in.
The most common issues in Santa Clara County seem to relate to agricultural areas, food processing, or sewer and/or waste processing. Other issues can stem from standing water (bad idea as this can also breed disease bearing mosquitos) or nearby restaurants (breweries, barbecues, fried food, and coffee roasting can be stinky). Being downwind of any of these can get unpleasant.
On a much smaller scale, it’s possible to have a bad neighbor who creates an odor nuisance, making life unpleasant. I’ve had clients tell me of neighbors who “go out to their back yard and smoke pot every day”, making my client’s back yard an unpleasant place and nearly unusable. Other bad neighbor problems can be from yards with too many pets and not enough cleanup.
For folks relocating to Silicon Valley, though, it’s important to be aware of smelly or potentially smelly areas. The locals know about them – and you should, too.
Communities with well known odor problems
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by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Aug 1, 2025 | Market reports, Market trends & statistics, Real Estate, San Mateo County (The Peninsula), Santa Clara County (The South Bay), Santa Cruz
Today we’ll share the market reports for three Silicon Valley Counties. These are from July 2025.
Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, and Santa Cruz County are the areas covered below. Generally, “Silicon Valley” is 95% within Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus a little of Santa Cruz County and a small part of Alameda County. Alameda County uses a different MLS system, and we don’t usually sell there, so we are not covering it in this post.
Each section below includes first the data for single family homes and then condos and townhomes for each region.
If you’re ready to dive a little deeper, we also provide regular monthly market updates on some of the popular communities within Santa Clara County over at my Valley of Heart’s Delight blog. Scroll the most recent ones here.
July 2025: Three Silicon Valley Counties
Santa Clara County Real Estate Market Report for July 2025
The first of the three Silicon Valley counties is Santa Clara County – home to San Jose, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Santa Clara, Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, and a number of other cities and towns. This county is the heart of Silicon Valley.
If you’re having trouble reading any of the charts on this page, click to open the full size image.
The market is clearly cooling with longer days on market, fewer sales, and a falling sales price.
The condominium and townhouse report for Santa Clara County
While it had fewer than half the sales of the single family home market, the condo and townhouse market is experiencing similar trends, though prices are on the rise again after an earlier summer low.
Keep reading for updates on the San Mateo and Santa Cruz county markets.
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by Mary Pope-Handy, Clair Handy | Jun 10, 2025 | San Jose, Almaden Valley, Blossom Valley, Cambrian, Communities, Downtown San Jose, Willow Glen
Click to view full size
What does it cost to buy a single family home in the city of San Jose? There are many San Jose districts and their values vary by about 2-to-1 from the highest to lowest priced areas in this large, sprawling city with about 1,000,000 residents.
In this article we’ll take a look at the main, fairly well defined districts and discuss the cost of purchasing a house in each one. After each small description, there’s a link to a post on my popehandy.com website for that area.
You can also find relevant information on my Valley of Heart’s Delight blog, SanJoseRealEstateLosGatosHomes.com – just click on the “Neighborhoods” link.
Lastly, if you’d like to see a map of where these parts of SJ are located, please click on this link to find this article with a helpful map: San Jose is big and sprawling: where are the districts?
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by Mary Pope-Handy | Apr 17, 2025 | FAQs, Lifestyle, Recreation, Santa Cruz
Planning a beach day? Watch out for beach traffic!
One of the many lures to the San Jose area and Santa Clara County (SCC) generally is the fairly close proximity of the beach at Santa Cruz, Capitola, Rio del Mar, and other scenic places that line the Monterey Bay. From most of SCC, it’s under a one hour drive. If you live in Los Gatos, it could be just half of that. That said, not all trips over the hill are created equal when it comes to beach traffic. Go on a regular weekday in summer and it’s pretty much a piece of cake. Go on a summer weekend or holiday and it’s a whole other matter!
Capitola Beach as seen from the Pier – photo by Mary Pope-Handy
If you live in Silicon Valley, a trip to the beach usually means a drive “over the hill” via highway 17’s pass through the Santa Cruz Mountains to the sandy beaches of the Monterey Bay. It’s a beautiful drive through lush redwood forests with occasional views of Monterey Bay and wild mountain valleys. Since this is the main route between Santa Cruz and the Santa Clara Valley, and a winding mountain pass, it doesn’t take much to create a traffic jam that can stretch for miles.
Weekdays, rush hour, and traffic jams
Commuter traffic mostly flows north into the San Francisco Bay Area in the morning, returning south into Santa Cruz County at the end of the work day. Rush hour can double or triple the time it takes to get where you’re headed. Stalled cars or collisions can take longer to clear and cause even longer jams since much of the pass has no emergency shoulders and some stretches can be quite remote.
But you aren’t a commuter – you want to visit the beach and enjoy your day off! Most of the locals know this about holidays or weekends and the shore: go early or don’t go. Especially when the weather is hot!
How early is early enough?
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by Mary Pope-Handy | Sep 19, 2023 | Communities, FAQs
Map source: SCC Map. Image edited by Clair Handy.
Silicon Valley residents will sometimes refer to “South County”. Where is it? This is the area south of south San Jose where you find Gilroy, Morgan Hill, San Martin and nearby areas.
View the approximate area on Google Maps.
Agricultural Stronghold
The South County region of Santa Clara County is the last real stronghold of agricultural land in the valley (that plus the eastern range by Mt Hamilton). There you will find many orchards, vineyards, farms and ranches even today.
As you drive through Gilroy you may catch a scent of garlic – particularly if you drive highway 152 toward Pacheco Pass as you go past a garlic processing plant! In summer you may have visited the famous “Garlic Festival” at least once, though the annual event has sadly been discontinued in recent years.
Neighbors and travelers alike can enjoy the roadside fruit stands. Visitors can enjoy seasonal events such as fruit picking, pumpkin patches, cut-your-own holiday tree farms, and more. And for just the adults, of course there are vineyards and wineries as well!
And equestrians from beginner to advanced will find plenty of horse properties here with boarding stables, arenas, and lessons.
Fun for the Family
Gilroy Gardens Amusement Park is another major attraction with fun for the family and seasonal celebrations.
It is home to the discount Outlet Malls (at Hwy 101 at 152 east), so if you live in or near South Bay, it’s likely you will eventually find your way there! Residents can enjoy plenty of shopping and dining areas around the community, including downtown Gilroy which is a hub of community activity and events as well as home to the Historical Museum.
There are plenty of outdoors activities to engage in, such as golfing, hiking, camping, and water sports, to name a few.
Moving to South County
Want to relocate to South Santa Clara County?
The area has plenty of appeal! Homes and land tend to be more affordable in this area, and whether you’re looking for an off-the-grid ranch, vineyard mansion, or a suburban new construction home there’s something for everyone!
But traffic can be an issue. For many people working in the Bay Area the South County is a long commute. In addition, commuters are mostly reliant on 101 which can slow to a crawl in rush hour traffic.
The region also has somewhat harsher weather. This part of the Santa Clara Valley is farther from the Bay and it’s temperate water-front climate, so gets more inland weather. Although air conditioning is becoming more standardized in Silicon Valley, it was adopted in these inland communities first due to the more intense dry summer heat they experience.
Many San Jose area residents consider it a good place to retire since they can downsize to a comfortable home and often pay much less than a comparable home might cost in Los Altos, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Willow Glen or Almaden and at the same time get more home. A number of my clients have spoken of wanting to retire into the Eagle Ridge Golf Course area for that very reason.
by Mary Pope-Handy | Jul 25, 2023 | Relocation, San Francisco
Coit Tower in San Francisco, photo by Mary Pope-Handy
How hard could relocating from San Francisco to Silicon Valley be? It’s the same time zone, the same “San Francisco Bay Area” region, and depending on which part of Silicon Valley you target, the drive time could be all of 20 minutes – or perhaps well over an hour.
Relocating from San Francisco to Silicon Valley can be a little bit of a culture shock, which is surprising given the close proximity of the two areas. What’s so different? In short:
- Scenery
- Density / Sprawl
- Weather / Climate
- Parking / Transit / Traffic
- Events & Dining
- Housing Sticker Shock
We’ll go over each of these below.
Silicon Valley Scenery
Most noticeably, the scenery is different.
You won’t be seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, facing frighteningly steep hills, or catching a view of the Pacific Ocean from the Cliff House when you’re in Silicon Valley. Nob Hill, the Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, Union Square, Market Street, Mission Dolores, the SOMA district and so many other colorful parts of the city will be places you visit on weekends rather than drop in on some evening for supper. The scenic beauty of San Francisco may be the thing you will miss the most if you move out of that fabled city.
Beauty isn’t absent from Silicon Valley, though! There are views of the San Francisco Bay in many places (Foster City and Redwood Shores especially). Scenic vistas of the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains can be enjoyed from many locations in the South Bay, especially Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos, and the Almaden Valley in San Jose. Part of Silicon Valley reaches into North San Jose, Milpitas, and Fremont, where views of the eastern foothills can be quite lovely, too. Some of these communities have a high elevation and can see the bay as well as the valley.
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Odor problems are a sensitive topic, whether you’re talking about someone just in from exercising or a whole town or neighborhood. Home for sale with a periodic stench? That won’t be listed in the MLS, and it may be down played (or absent) in the disclosures. This can be very upsetting if you learn it only after you move in.
