Silicon Valley: Job Growth Optimism

Cisco’s new five-building 410,000-square-foot campus near Interstate 880 and Highway 237.

This morning’s New York Times ran an article with some interesting information for anyone house shopping in Silicon Valley. The article, “In Silicon Valley, Steady but Cautious Growth Returns,” quotes data from the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy that says, “Last year the number of new jobs rose by 23,000, the most since 2001.”

To put this in perspective, the Center says that after the 2001 Dot-Com Crash, aka “the Nuclear Winter,” Silicon Valley lost 200,000 jobs, about 20% of the total. Though only 50,000 of these jobs have returned, several major employers in the area are in the process of building new campuses, and this bodes well for job growth. It stands to reason that buying a home within a close proximity to these new campuses is probably a good bet as far as real estate appreciation goes.

New Campuses in Silicon Valley*

—Cisco: 26 acres at McCarthy Boulevard and Tasman Drive in Milpitas (2008)
—Apple: 50 acres along 280 near Pruneridge Rd. in Cupertino (2010)
—Yahoo: 46 acres on Tasman Dr. in Santa Clara
—Google: Mountain View’s Shoreline Technology Park

*Source: Mercury News