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I think your comment contains more substance than the article, and I'm glad you made it. Silicon Valley is only moderately nice. Many other communities in California offer better architecture, larger lots, better managed traffic, and more access to nature. The rest of the U.S. wildly exceeds SV in terms of what owners get for their property value.

I think that the premium of living in Palo Alto is the access to opportunities. Being able to have a short commute to some of the highest-paying jobs in the world should carry a large cost. Even a "poor" family of a lawyer and an engineer can expose their children to fantastic opportunities. If the engineer's company goes under, she can transition to its competitor across the street. I'm exaggerating a little here, but opportunities are great for people already in the constellation of trendy tech companies & startups.

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Thank you for being charitable about my whinging comment, but I need to challenge you on the idea that parents moving to Palo Alto are exposing their children to fantastic opportunities. Palo Alto doesn't have the best public K-12 in the country, and it's not an especially nice place to grow up, is it?

Their kids go to Harker and Castilleja, which can actually claim to be some of the best schools in the nation.

And of course there is a decent college nearby, just sayin :)

(and to your point about moving to Cambridge to go to Harvard...sorry, but many of the techies -do- have ties to Stanford...and if your parents went to Stanford, you will be shortlisted when you apply...AND EVEN FURTHER, if your parents make a donation of a certain large amount, Stanford effectively pre-selects you, this has been communicated to people I know personally who have already made the donation in question...so yes, some of the residents can probably already start buying red sweaters)

That's like moving to Cambridge to give your kids the opportunity of going to Harvard. They aren't going to Harvard.

The legacy bonus is real, but not as large as you might imagine. Most legacy applicants are rejected. And admission by donation exists, but it requires $M+ donations, at least at a comparable school that I know about.

If it were easy for kids from Palo Alto to get into Stanford, Stanford would be full of kids from PA. In fact, only 36% of Stanford students are even from the state of CA. Top schools value geographic diversity in the admissions process, and the top applicants (in quantifiable areas like SAT score) are highly concentrated in a few areas. Moving to those areas will not help your kid get into a top school. If you want your high-SAT-score kids to get into Stanford, have them graduate from a random high school in Kansas.

Well hopefully my comment didn't imply that living in Palo Alto meant you were destined to go to Stanford...but there IS a real connection...many residents went to Stanford, and for better or for worse, many have already made the outrageous guaranteed-admission donation, which , as you say, is in the millions.

Tech money is literally raining down on Stanford. The only thing left to upgrade on the campus is to line the gutters with platinum. Its sad given that San Jose State actually educates more local workers...but connections to Stanford are a real social network for some of these people.

but I need to challenge you on the idea that parents moving to Palo Alto are exposing their children to fantastic opportunities

I have been told that Cupertino has some of the finest schools, hence the reason for the high housing prices, and other demographic factors. Ignorance talking here, but am I wrong to assume that some of that "good schools" would bleed over to Palo Alto? It would be one thing if Palo Alto were some slum leftover from failed 70s housing projects, and though wealthy it may be the schools haven't caught up. But AFAIK Palo Alto has been wealthy for decades.

East Palo Alto is actually a slum that was perniciously excluded from the resources of Palo Alto for decades. Only recently were the residents permitted to access the better PA schools and more easily cross the barrier into Palo Alto.

The above is just interesting trivia, from what I understand Palo Alto schools have always been good.

To be clear: I totally believe the Palo Alto schools are good. But lots of places --- really, a whole lot of places, have fantastic public K-12 schools. In fact, as long as you're willing to settle in a suburb, pretty much every major metro area in the country does.

Cupertino does have great schools. That is more a factor of the cultural heritage of the city - it has a rich history of attracting Asians, who have instilled the schools with their drive and focus on education. The only negative people will ascribe is the high pressure to achieve at schools like Monta Vista.

Aside from articles in the NYT and Mercury News about Palo Alto-area children committing suicide due to stress, it's a great place to expose your children to economic opportunity. Is it a nice place to grow up? That's a different question.

It's pleasant, it's safe, it's got a walkable town square. Bicycling from Palo Alto to Mountain View is not terrifying for an 11-year-old. I'll say it's sufficient. It's better than where I grew up but that's not meaningful. I agree that the nicer neighborhoods of almost any other metro in the U.S. would result in a better childhood due to a better sense of community and less chance of the parents being house-poor because they spend 70% of their disposable income on their mortgage.

Your comment was germane to the conversation because it rightly contrasts the bizarre practice of sending house owners requests for sale with the low intrinsic value of the property. A rational person should question why a tiny unrenovated house next to a loud commuter train line that operates 19 hours per day would be worth $2.1 million.

People living in Mountain View or Sunnyvale have access to the same set of opportunities. Yet, median home prices in Palo Alto are 2.48M compared to 1.43M in Mountain View or 1.39M in Sunnyvale[1]. So the question still remains - why pay the price premium of >1M?

On most of the metrics except public schools, Palo Alto fares similar to nearby "cities". And while public schools in Palo Alto have higher ratings than Mountain View or Sunnyvale, you have the option of private schools (which are better than public schools in PA) for 20-25K/year, which still comes out to ~300K per child.

So I am still baffled by the price premiums one is willing to pay for a house in Palo Alto or Cupertino.

[1] http://www.zillow.com/palo-alto-ca/home-values/ http://www.zillow.com/sunnyvale-ca/home-values/ http://www.zillow.com/mountain-view-ca/home-values/

edit: I am using examples of MV/Sunnyvale only for those who like south bay due to weather/opportunities/current situation etc. Median home prices of >1M in those suburbs are still ridiculous, and someone considering moving to SFBA may benefit by exploring other parts of the world, if they are not tied to SFBA for whatever reason.

This is a much better point than the dumb point I made at the top of this thread. The commute from MTV to Palo Alto is humane even by the standards of other cities. What is drawing people to pay PA prices? Do people really just live 80% of their life within walking distance of their PA house? Because otherwise, you really need a car out there, even if you don't have a driving commute.

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