OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – Faced with a transit strike, San Francisco Bay area commuters got out the door earlier than usual Monday and encountered crowded roads and lines for buses and ferries after Bay Area Rapid Transit train workers went on strike.

However, rush hour did not come to a standstill as feared, and some travelers who used carpool lanes and other options added relatively little time to their commutes.

Two of BART’s largest unions went on strike after their contract expired the previous night, halting train service for the first time in 16 years.

The walkout promised to derail more than 400,000 riders who use the nation’s fifth-largest rail system and affect every mode of transportation. Transportation officials said another 60,000 vehicles could be on the road, clogging highways and bridges throughout the region.

Traffic at a toll plaza of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was heavier than usual early Monday. People also lined up to take buses that were leaving from a few Bay Area Rapid Transit stations.

Alameda-Contra Costa Transit buses into San Francisco carried more passengers, with some waiting for more than a half-hour to board, riders and bus drivers said.

“It’s pretty crazy,” said Young Choi, 34. “It’s creating a pretty chaotic feeling in terms of the commute situation.”

Choi, an architect in San Francisco’s financial district, got dropped off by a friend in Berkeley from Walnut Creek around 6:30 a.m. so he could catch a bus after hearing about the strike.

He normally left for work later but was navigating a new route so he wanted to get an early start.

Alejandro Illidj, 20, woke up two hours earlier than usual to get to his job at Nordstrom in San Francisco, but he had to wait for a bus with room to accommodate him.

“More power to the unions, but at the end of the day, how are we supposed to get to work?” said Illidj, a University of California, Berkeley student. “How is the economy supposed to work?”

The strike was called after an 11th-hour effort failed to produce a new contract by the deadline of midnight Sunday. Both the unions and management said they were far apart on key sticking points including salary, pensions, health care and safety. BART workers picketed outside stations Monday.

“A strike is always the last resort and we have done everything in our power to avoid it,” said Josie Mooney, a negotiator for Service Employees International Union Local 1021.

“Our members aren’t interested in disrupting the Bay Area, but management has put us in a position where we have no choice,” said Antonette Bryant, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555.

Negotiations fell apart Saturday and the unions walked away from the table. California Gov. Jerry Brown’s office had urged both sides to resume discussions Sunday with rush hour on the horizon.

But talks between the two sides came to an end Sunday night with BART accusing negotiators of walking away from the bargaining table, while the SEIU countered in a statement that management “threw in the towel.”

The unions, which represent nearly 2,400 train operators, station agents, mechanics, maintenance workers and professional staff, want a 5 percent raise each year over the next three years. BART said train operators and station agents in the unions average about $71,000 in base salary and $11,000 in overtime annually. The workers also pay a flat $92 monthly fee for health insurance.

BART spokesman Rick Rice said the agency had upped its original offer of a 4 percent pay increase over the next four years to 8 percent. The proposed salary increase is on top of a 1 percent raise employees were scheduled to receive Monday, Rice added.

The transit agency also said it offered to reduce the contribution employees would have to make to pensions, and lower the cost for health care premiums.

BART’s last strike lasted six days in 1997. The transit agency handles more than 40 percent of commuters coming from the East Bay to San Francisco with the Bay Bridge handling another 50 percent said John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Other transit agencies in the region urged commuters to consider carpooling, taking buses or ferries, working from home and, if they must drive to work, to leave earlier or even later than usual.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said the city will offer increased transportation options, including at the airport. BART said it will let commuters use parking lots at their 33 stations free of charge for the purpose of carpooling.

___

Zaveri reported from Berkeley, Calif.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Article source: http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/22728984/sf-bay-area-braces-for-first-day-of-transit-strike

Protesters angered over an anti-Muslim movie burned down the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens grew up in San Jose and graduated from Piedmont High School in 1978 and went to college at the University of California Berkeley. 

VIDEO: Who was Christopher Stevens?

Stevens served for the Peace Corps in Morocco, became fluent in Arabic and French, and joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991.

“Growing up in California, I didn’t know much about the Arab world,” Stevens said in a State Department video. ”I worked as an English teacher in a town in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco for two years, and quickly grew to love this part of the world.”

The attack that killed Stevens and three other American diplomats was planned by a pro-al Qaeda group of extremists, CNN reported Wednesday afternoon.

Stevens’ longtime friend, Daniel Seidemann, said the ambassador knew Libya was a place of great promise, but also one of great peril.

“When he went to Libya, he had no illusions about where he was going,” Seidemann said. “He has probably done more than anybody on the planet to help the Libyan people, and he know going in that this was not going to protect him.”

He spent most of his career in the Middle East and North Africa, including postings to Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, in addition to serving as the deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Libya from 2007 to 2009, during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi.

MORE: How the Benghazi attack unfolded

Article source: http://www.ksbw.com/news/central-california/san-francisco-bay-area/Many-questions-arise-about-anti-Islam-filmmaker/-/5739064/16580404/-/mwkr0qz/-/index.html

Protesters angered over an anti-Muslim movie burned down the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens grew up in San Jose and graduated from Piedmont High School in 1978 and went to college at the University of California Berkeley. 

VIDEO: Who was Christopher Stevens?

Stevens served for the Peace Corps in Morocco, became fluent in Arabic and French, and joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991.

“Growing up in California, I didn’t know much about the Arab world,” Stevens said in a State Department video. ”I worked as an English teacher in a town in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco for two years, and quickly grew to love this part of the world.”

The attack that killed Stevens and three other American diplomats was planned by a pro-al Qaeda group of extremists, CNN reported Wednesday afternoon.

Stevens’ longtime friend, Daniel Seidemann, said the ambassador knew Libya was a place of great promise, but also one of great peril.

“When he went to Libya, he had no illusions about where he was going,” Seidemann said. “He has probably done more than anybody on the planet to help the Libyan people, and he know going in that this was not going to protect him.”

He spent most of his career in the Middle East and North Africa, including postings to Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, in addition to serving as the deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Libya from 2007 to 2009, during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi.

MORE: How the Benghazi attack unfolded

Article source: http://www.ksbw.com/news/central-california/san-francisco-bay-area/Many-questions-arise-about-anti-Islam-filmmaker/-/5739064/16580404/-/mwkr0qz/-/index.html

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Dec 21, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) –
Grosvenor Americas has appointed Sommer Johnson to the position of
Investment Manager in the company’s San Francisco, CA headquarters
office. He will be responsible for Grosvenor Americas’ real estate
acquisitions in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles/Orange
County markets, focusing on value-add office, retail, and apartment
assets.

Mr. Johnson joins Grosvenor from AIG Global Real Estate Investment
Corp. in San Francisco, where he served as a manager. His 15 years of
industry experience also has included positions with Shorenstein
Properties, and Tishman Speyer Properties. He holds a B.A. degree in
economics from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Haas
School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley.

Grosvenor is a privately owned property group with offices in 17 of
the world’s most dynamic cities. It has four regional investment and
development businesses in Britain Ireland, the Americas, Australia
and Asia Pacific; an international fund management business, which
operates across these markets and in continental Europe; and a
portfolio of indirect investments. As of December 31, 2010, these six
businesses had total assets under management of US$17.1bn. Unusual
for a private company, Grosvenor publishes a full Annual Report
Accounts, available at
www.grosvenor.com .

        CONTACT:
        Leslie Braunstein
        Tel: (202) 656 0542
        Email Contact

http://bit.ly/syf9wd

SOURCE: Grosvenor Americas

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/emailprcntct?id=4B0C66429A14CA3D

http://bit.ly/syf9wd

Copyright 2011 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/grosvenor-americas-appoints-sommer-johnson-investment-manager-san-francisco-2011-12-21

Vern Padgett added, “We look forward to having Lisa on the Presidio Bank team. She is intelligent, organized, and her limitless dedication to customers and the community at large aligns perfectly with our corporate culture.”

About Presidio Bank

Presidio Bank provides business banking services to small and mid-size businesses, including professional service firms, real estate developers and investors, and not-for-profit organizations, and to their owners who desire personalized, responsive service with access to local decision makers. Presidio Bank offers clients the resources of a large bank combined with the personalized services of a neighborhood bank. Presidio Bank is headquartered in San Francisco, California and currently operates four banking offices in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, San Rafael and Palo Alto. More information is available at www.presidiobank.com. Presidio Bank is a member of FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender.

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. These statements are identifiable by use of the words “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “estimate,” “project,” or similar expressions. The risks and uncertainties that may affect the operations, performance, development, growth projections and results of Presidio Bank’s business include, but are not limited to, the growth of the economy, interest rate movements, timely development by Presidio Bank of technology enhancements for its products and operating systems, the impact of competitive products, services and pricing, client-based requirements, Congressional legislation, changes in regulatory or generally accepted accounting principles and similar matters. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements which are subject to influence by the named risk factors and unanticipated future events. Actual results, accordingly, may differ materially from management expectations.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50091261lang=en

Article source: http://www.bradenton.com/2011/12/01/3692996/experienced-community-banker-joins.html

Anticipation is growing in the City of Richmond as the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) continues to move forward with the site selection process for its second campus. The University of California, Berkeley-owned Richmond Field Station, one of LBNL’s remaining candidate sites, is being recognized as a shoreline campus location that would inspire researchers to continue to develop innovative energy solutions for the 21st century and beyond. The University of California, Berkeley has developed a Campus Concept Plan for this facility situated along San Francisco Bay that “presents a vision for a new research campus that embraces the existing unique and successful partnership between the University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). An initial campus would combine an LBNL Energy and Life Sciences research cluster, and the existing UC Berkeley Engineering research cluster, on University-owned properties in the Richmond, California southern waterfront area.”

Meanwhile, Richmond city officials are enthusiastically sporting buttons that announce: I ? LBNL. “We’re looking forward to making Richmond the ideal home for LBNL’s second campus and understand the positive economic impact that it would have on the Richmond community,” says City Manager, Bill Lindsay, a Haas Business School alum. “The natural beauty of the Richmond Field Station speaks for itself, and the city will do everything in its power to streamline the process for the developer and welcome the campus into the community.”

The facility will eventually accommodate up to two million gross square feet. These combined research and development clusters are expected to accelerate innovation, technology transfer, and commercialization, while creating jobs. Final selection for the Richmond Field Station developer is expected by early July and final selection of the site from among five other site locations being considered by LBNL is expected in early winter.

From its 32 miles of walkable shoreline trails to its revitalized downtown center, Richmond is a city on the rise, thanks to its competitive leasing rates, enterprise tax incentives and appealing amenities. Richmond already hosts a number of green and applied science businesses including LBNL spinoff Alion, Heliodyne, PAX Water, MBA Polymer and recently acquired Sunpower. And it’s attracting more.

“Moving to Richmond from San Francisco is the perfect fit for our company and our workforce,” says William ‘Billy’ Morrison site director of Hoefer, a division of Harvard Bioscience. The company, which manufactures gel electrophoresis equipment for testing DNA, scoured the Bay Area before settling on a location in Richmond and will relocate in early fall. “Cash is king and Richmond’s real estate prices were the most competitive. But even more important, the majority of our employees live in the East Bay and will now have a much easier and less expensive commute with nearby access to BART and I-580.”

Richmond’s village-like communities are also in motion, re-tooling neighborhoods street-by-street. Downtown revitalization efforts have spawned growing merchant associations and green-tech industry clusters. With a top Richmond site in contention for LBNL’s new second campus, the view is looking very good from Richmond.

###

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2011/6/prweb8602265.htm

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/06/28/prweb8602265.DTL

San Francisco’s effort to transform an abandoned rail yard on its eastern shore in Mission Bay into an urban center is poised for a serious boost from plans by Salesforce.com Inc. to build a sprawling corporate campus in the area.

Urban-planning experts say the arrival of Salesforce will provide a vital stimulus for a once-neglected part of the city. But the bold design for the campus is just beginning a monthslong approval process, and Chief Executive Marc Benioff is leaving open the possibility that the company could simply pick a different location for its new headquarters. Some civic groups and architects, meanwhile, lament that the corporate-driven development isn’t creating the same neighborhood feel as other sections of the city.

View Full Image

Salesforce.com

A rendering of the proposed Salesforce.com campus shows plans for a Jumbotron screen overlooking a plaza.

The Mission Bay redevelopment zone was established in 1998, anchored by a new campus of the University of California, San Francisco. City officials, who envisioned Mission Bay as a center for health care and medical research, say 35 biotech firms now are based in the area and take up more than one million square feet of office space. Salesforce.com, a business software maker now based in the city’s Financial District and South of Market Street, is proposing eight buildings containing roughly two million square feet. Mission Bay also is designed to include 6,000 housing units, half of which have been built so far.

Mission Bay “is the most important thing for San Francisco’s economy in the past 30 years, if not longer,” said Michael Teitz, an emeritus professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley. “The city was headed in a direction that was basically tourism, and some software development during the dot-com boom, but it didn’t have what I’d regard as a solid, modern sector in the economy—and I think Mission Bay does that.”

Yet critics say the large buildings and plazas planned for the Salesforce campus won’t improve what they perceive as an unwelcoming atmosphere in Mission Bay.

“Unfortunately, that part of the city is still a bit of a wasteland, and the project doesn’t do much to change that,” said Eric Corey Freed, the founder of organicARCHITECT in San Francisco. Mission Bay, he said, offered the chance to build a new and vibrant neighborhood. Instead, he said, the area is “a place that feels cold, out of scale and out of touch with humanity.”

Mission Bay is a public-private partnership. Private firm FOCIL-MB LLC uses a developer partner to build the infrastructure, and is reimbursed as the redevelopment agency issues bonds backed by increases in property-tax revenue and fees within the redevelopment zone. The agency has issued $320 million in bonds for Mission Bay, while the area’s infrastructure is ultimately expected to cost about $700 million, said Kelley Kahn, the project manager for the redevelopment area. She added that the project is in year 13 of a 25-year buildout.

Only three of the area’s more than 70 lots have yet to be sold by FOCIL-MB, Ms. Kahn said. Much of the land still unoccupied is expected to be filled by Salesforce.com, which purchased 14 acres for $278 million, and an adjacent UCSF hospital complex expected to open in 2014. Salesforce.com didn’t receive any tax breaks for the campus.

Renderings of the Salesforce.com campus, released earlier this month, feature a flashy design. A public square is anchored by a hot-pink Jumbotron video screen.

View Full Image

Brian L. Frank for The Wall Street Journal

A portion of the area in Mission Bay where the Salesforce.com headquarters would be built.

“That was my idea,” Mr. Benioff, the Salesforce.com CEO, said of the screen. “Putting something like that there can add a lot of energy.” The Jumbotron could be used for things such as employee presentations and public entertainment, he said.

Salesforce.com is hoping for design-review approval from the city by September. “If we can’t get the approvals we could also end up somewhere else,” Mr. Benioff said.

The redevelopment agency’s Ms. Kahn said that while she didn’t anticipate problems with the design review, the pink Jumbotron might face additional environmental scrutiny. Overall, Ms. Kahn said, “we’re generally, based on what we’ve seen, pleased.”

Mr. Benioff argued that a dramatic influx of color in Mission Bay would liven an area that until now has had an “office park” feel.

Mr. Benioff said he first became intrigued by the Mission Bay property when visiting the site of the UCSF children’s hospital he is helping fund with a $100 million gift.

Mission Bay has been the focus of disputes over how to best develop it dating to the 1980s. While the area is physically close to downtown, its location on the opposite side of Mission Creek and Interstate 280 can make it feel remote.

The project’s housing also has generated complaints. A lawsuit originally filed in 2006 by occupants of the Beacon, a nearly 600-unit condo development, alleges flawed construction and insufficient disclosures about soil contamination beneath the building. An attorney representing the real-estate company that sold the condos says buyers were informed of the soil issues prior to the sales, and that the contamination doesn’t pose a danger to residents. The case has been moved to arbitration, said Patrick Catalano, an attorney representing the plaintiffs.

Salesforce.com, which has about 2,750 employees in the Bay Area, expects to house between 8,000 and 9,000 at the new headquarters, designed by Mexico City-based architects Legorreta + Legorreta. The company said it doesn’t yet have an estimate for the construction cost or move-in date.

Write to John Letzing at john.letzing@dowjones.com

Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070104576397610335534024.html

June 15 (Bloomberg) — A surge in wealth from technology stock sales and initial public offerings is spilling into the Silicon Valley real estate market as newly rich workers bid up home values in suburban cities south of San Francisco. Bloomberg’s Cris Valerio reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

A sold sticker is displayed on a for sale sign outside of a home in Palo Alto, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

The Hoover Tower stands at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

A surge in wealth from technology
stock sales and initial public offerings is spilling into the
Silicon Valley real estate market as newly rich workers bid up
home values in suburban cities south of San Francisco.

The median price of single-family houses sold in Palo Alto,
home of Facebook Inc., climbed 20 percent in May from a year
earlier to $1.63 million, the biggest jump since 2008, according
to preliminary figures from research company DataQuick. In
Mountain View, the base of LinkedIn Corp., prices rose 3.1
percent to $957,500, the ninth year-over-year gain in 12 months.

The advances are defying a U.S. housing slump that has sent
national values to an eight-year low. Share sales such as the
IPO of LinkedIn — which doubled on its first day of trading –
and an expected offering from Facebook will fuel a boom in some
Silicon Valley cities into 2013, said Kenneth Rosen, an
economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

“It’s just the beginning of the story and I suspect we’ll
see an explosion in the next couple years,” Rosen, chairman of
the school’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics,
said in a telephone interview. “You’ve got young people with
real money, and it’s not surprising they want to have a house.”

IPO Filings

Almost 300 companies have filed for IPOs in 2011, the most
for any year during the same period since 2000, and more than 10
percent of those are in California, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg. Silicon Valley is the U.S. hub for early-stage
companies, receiving almost 40 percent of the $23.3 billion in
venture-firm investments last year, estimates from the National
Venture Capital Association show.

Pandora Media Inc. climbed 8.9 percent today as shares
began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The online radio
company, based about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Silicon
Valley in Oakland, raised $234.9 million in its IPO. Shares were
priced at $16, above the expected $10 to $12 range.

The real estate gains in Silicon Valley, located primarily
in the San Jose metropolitan area, are mostly occurring in towns
where million-dollar values are already the norm. The median
price in Cupertino gained 12 percent last month from May 2010 to
$1.08 million, and values in Saratoga rose 4.7 percent to $1.62
million, according to San Diego-based DataQuick.

U.S. Price Declines

Housing in much of the rest of the nation is struggling as
foreclosures and unemployment of more than 9 percent weigh on
consumer sentiment. Home prices in 20 U.S. cities dropped 3.6
percent in March from a year earlier to the lowest since 2003,
according to the SP/Case-Shiller index of property values. The
measure has declined 33 percent from its 2006 peak.

In Palo Alto, traffic at home showings has tripled in the
last three weeks, with the average age of potential buyers
dropping from about 50 to the mid-30s, said Daniel Siciliano, an
associate dean at Stanford Law School who attends the tours
because he’s in the market for a bigger house.

“People at startups have a lot of pent-up demand and tend
to spend a portion of their new liquidity pretty quickly,”
Siciliano said of his newfound competition for residential real
estate. “They want to manifest their wealth.”

Past Silicon Valley property booms started in Palo Alto,
adjacent to the Stanford campus, and Cupertino, home of Apple
Inc. (AAPL), because of those institutional links and their coveted
public schools, said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for
Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. Buyers
from China have also been drawn by education resources in
prestige valley locations and pushed up demand.

‘Happening Place’

“We’re a happening place because of the university and a
lot of the folks that have been buying are relatively young,”
said Levy, who has viewed downtown condominiums selling for
double what he paid in 2005. “We have the best train service to
San Francisco. I can be downtown in 35 minutes.”

Sean Scott, head of sales for Redwood City-based software
firm Ingenuity Systems Inc., looked at a four-bedroom, two-bath
home in Palo Alto last month priced at $1.8 million. The house
has “soaring ceilings and generous living spaces,” two patios
and a “lush backyard garden,” according to a marketing flyer.

A sale is pending for more than 20 percent above the asking
price, or at least $2.2 million, after five bids were received,
said Denise Simons, the listing agent at Alain Pinel Realtors.

“The market seems to be returning to the crazy days and
the question is whether or not it is a false recovery or a
sustained recovery,” Scott said in an e-mail after viewing two
more homes at $1.25 million or more, and declining to make any
offers. “I suspect that it is a sustained recovery, given the
planned liquidity events with social-networking companies.”

Facebook IPO

Speculation that Facebook will go public in the next year
is mounting even as the world’s largest social-media site
remains silent about its plans. The company may have an IPO in
the first quarter of 2012 with a valuation as high as $100
billion, cable channel CNBC reported June 13, citing people
familiar with the matter.

Some investors have already cashed in equity in their
companies through private share sales, boosting Silicon Valley
housing demand and contributing to price gains, Rosen said.
Stakes in closely held firms can be sold on secondary exchanges
such as SharesPost Inc., which connects buyers and sellers. The
exchange values Facebook at almost $53 billion.

Shares granted to employees of public companies can’t be
sold until 180 days after the IPO, under U.S. securities rules.

New Millionaires

“You will probably see hundreds, if not thousands, of
newly minted millionaires in the next two or three years,” said
Steve Eskenazi, a tech investor in Hillsborough, north of Palo
Alto, where the minimum lot size is a half acre (0.2 hectare).
He sold his portion of an online advertising network to
Sunnyvale-based Yahoo! Inc. in 2007.

“Most people in their 20s who find themselves millionaires
feel it’s their inalienable right to buy real estate, and
they’re typically not price sensitive,” Eskenazi said.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 27, bought a house this
year in Palo Alto, said Larry Yu, a company spokesman. He
declined to disclose details. Zuckerberg paid $7 million for a
5,000-square-foot (465-square-meter), seven-bedroom home in a
“leafy and affluent” neighborhood, the San Jose Mercury News
reported May 5, without saying where it got the information.

The purchase was made before Facebook’s scheduled move to
Menlo Park, just north of Palo Alto.

15 Miles

As more firms go public and workers cash in shares, real
estate within 15 miles of the office will climb, said Rosen, who
gave a presentation at Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Mountain View headquarters
before the company’s 2004 IPO to educate employees on housing.
Sales are usually concentrated in the “middle to upper end,”
he said.

In Cupertino, about 12 miles from Palo Alto, a three-
bedroom home listed for $908,000 got more than a dozen offers
and sold for $950,000 on June 8, said Albert Kao, an agent at
Giant Realty Inc. in the city. The prior owner, who bought the
property in 2002, decided to sell after her children graduated
from the public schools. She made a $290,000 profit before
commissions, Kao said.

Lower-priced areas are still struggling with weak demand.
In all of Santa Clara County, which encompasses some Silicon
Valley cities, prices decreased 5.1 percent in May from a year
earlier to $498,000 as distressed sales pulled values down in
the broader market, DataQuick said in a report today. The drop
was smaller than in the rest of the San Francisco Bay area, with
the nine-county median in the region tumbling 9.3 percent.

Groupon, Zynga

Groupon Inc., an online coupon provider based in Chicago,
filed for an initial share sale June 2 and is hiring engineers
in California, according to its website. As early as March,
Groupon was in talks with bankers about an IPO that would value
the company at as much as $25 billion, two people familiar with
the matter said at the time.

Zynga Inc. of San Francisco, the largest maker of games for
Facebook and valued at $8.8 billion on SharesPost, may file for
an IPO by the end of the month, a person with knowledge of the
matter said June 3.

Those firms are among the companies that will help Silicon
Valley grow by about 20,000 workers in 2011, said Levy, the
California economist. Software publishers and Web portals
accounted for 5,600 of the 13,400 jobs added in the year through
April in the San Jose metropolitan area, according to the
California Employment Development Department.

“We’re at the beginnings of an expansion of the job
base,” said Levy. “There will be a lot of hiring.”

Simons, the agent for the four-bedroom Palo Alto home, said
there were five “excellent” offers for the 2,257-square-foot
residence. It was constructed in 1973 by California developer
Joseph Eichler, who built thousands of “progressive” tract
houses in middle-class neighborhoods, according to a website
devoted to the properties.

“There are people who want to get in and they’re willing
to pay,” Simons said outside the home, which was repainted,
landscaped and staged with furniture before the public showings.
“We’re just starting to see the market come back.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dan Levy in San Francisco at
dlevy13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Kara Wetzel at
kwetzel@bloomberg.net

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-15/tech-ipos-boost-demand-for-silicon-valley-million-dollar-homes.html