[luckydude]

"Large lot - 13000 square feet". So I'm not anywhere near as good of a commute location, takes me 25 minutes to get to Los Gatos, so getting to Apple is probably 40, but I've got 15 acres, a main house almost twice as big (it's too big in my opinion, just gathers junk, so not necessarily a plus), a barn that we have turned into 1/4th man cave, 1/4 exercise room, 1/4 chicken house, and 1/4 barn, and a 1 bedroom guest house, and a 1500 square foot shop, and a quonset hut you can park 3 or 4 semis in.

All for less than what that buyer paid, admittedly 10 years ago. So it's in no ways apples to apples. My guess is my place is worth about what they just paid. Yeah, my commute would not be great if I worked at Apple, but you guys remember Rands in Repose, right? The manager dude with the blog about managing? Worked at Apple? He's my neighbor. We've got lots of Google/Apple/whatever people up here, you get way way more house and property for your money and you are not living right on top of each other.

If you are house hunting and you want to consider the mountains, PM me, I'll hook you up with an excellent real estate agent. It's definitely not for everyone, if owning and running a generator, tractor, chainsaw seems nuts to you, yeah, not for you (though I didn't know anything about tractors before I moved up here, now I own two and an excavator and do jobs for $1000/day). Happy to answer questions on or off the forum about the mountains, I frigging love it up here.

I'm blown away that people will spend that much for a boring ranch house on a little lot. I could get it if it were downtown Mountain View, that's pretty pleasant, ditto Palo Alto, but Sunnyvale? That seems nuts.

Does anyone else feel like it is a bubble? Or is this the new normal?

[rconti]

I have zero desire to own a big house in the mountains. Like you say, it's not for everyone. shrug The land, house, commute, dealing with septic and water services, all sound like a lot of work.

[luckydude]

It is a lot of work. We've got a saying in the mountains: there is no need for a gym membership :)

But there is some satisfaction from learning how to run a tractor, fetching fresh eggs from the hen house, etc.

I lived in San Francisco for 19 years before I moved here, I like it here fine. Very little in the way of neighbor problems.

It may be an age thing, I remember when I was in my late 20's going backpacking with a friend who said "when I have enough money I'm going to buy 40 acres in the shape of a square and put a house dead center." I remember thinking why on earth would you want to do that? Then I had neighbor problems and the light went on.

I like it but you are absolutely right, it's not for everyone.