Gee, a $2.2 million house in Noe Valley? So what?
Yesterday Valleywag posted about a house in Noe Valley going to two Google employees for $2.2 million.
The 2500 square foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom house on the corner of Noe and Elizabeth (map) is very nice, sure. And the price is double what it would have been n number of years ago and ten times what it would have been in, say, 1980.
But so what? Is anybody surprised that a great house — and refurbished, too, judging from the pix — in a nice neighborhood is really expensive? And as for Google employees buying it — who else do you think has been propping up the Bay Area real estate market for the last three years?
The Valleywag guys aren’t from around here, so they apparently think this is newsworthy stuff. Most of them are likely renting and they have clearly spent no time trying to understand the SF Bay Area real estate market.
Perhaps next week they will report that an undistinguished 1BD/1BA condo in Mountain View goes for $400K. Shocker!
I have a growing feeling that Metroblogging San Francisco is mostly read (and written) by native Californians and longtime (20+ yr.) transplants.
If you read SFist, Valleywag or other similar SF-centric blogs (even Yelp), it is clear that California natives rarely speak on those sites (either as authors, editors, or commenters).
Recent immigrants to California certainly bring fresh perspective to living in this place, which includes pointing out things that we take for granted.
However, in the case above, the newsworthiness was so lacking — even to non-natives — that it ended up being a dismal blog entry.