San Jose High-Rises Keep Sales Up in Santa Clara County

If you haven't checked out this article from a few days ago, published in Mercury News, you really should--it bears good news for buyers, sellers, and people just interested in an indicator from the real estate front about how the economy is going downtown San Jose. While new home sales in September were pretty dismal throughout California, one pocket in Santa Clara showed an opposite trend.  In downtown San Jose and parts of Palo Alto new condo sales were up nearly 150% from the previous year. 

Some of the condos were high-rise, expensive properties, and almost all of them attracted a specific kind of buyer--tech workers, empty nesters, people who'd been renting downtown for a while. There's an interesting question lurking behind this boom in condo sales--since the burst of the housing bubble, are condos in prime downtown areas simply a safer investment? Do people feel more comfortable purchasing condos over houses these days, or is this a matter of coincidence? What do you think?

Click here for the full story, written by Sue McAllister.