My latest column raises questions about historic buildings. Should they be preserved at all costs, even if the price is a threat to public safety and billions of taxpayer dollars? Few would argue that’s an appropriate tradeoff, but it’s what has happened in the building of the new Bay Bridge. The current span was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing a motorist, and could collapse again if a ......
The housing crisis that began in 2008 could have a crippling effect on California's ability to provide government services for a generation, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Silicon Valley Communtiy Foundation and Joint Venture Silicon Valley. The problem: Proposition 13, passed by voters in 1978, essentially freezes property taxes on homes or businesses unless they change hands — meaning that today's low property values could mean ......
The man charged with determining the value of South Bay real estate has a message he'd like to share with the public: "Silicon Valley’s economy has finally hit bottom, and is showing meager signs of improvement," Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone said in his annual report, released Wednesday. For the first time in three years, Stone reported, property values actually improved in the South Bay. The total assessed value ......
A few weeks ago, we detailed the travails and planned comeback of San Francisco investor Victor MacFarlane, who famously lost more than $1 billion of CalPERS money on real-estate deals that didn't pan out. MacFarlane had purchased multiple penthouses atop the St. Regis in San Francisco, and spent years building out the space as one luxe penthouse. The economy tanked and he never moved in. He tried to sell the ......
The Wall Street Journal's highly entertaining and frothy lifestyle section over the weekend carried an interview with Danielle Steel. The big news: The glamorous romance novelist, one of San Francisco's most-famous residents, actually lives in Paris now. She doesn't appear to pine for the city by the bay, though she still owns the former Spreckels house on Washington Street in Pacific Heights, which is reputed to be the largest residence in the city. Steel ......
