HOW WILL OUR REAL ESTATE MARKET & COMMUNITIES BE IMPACTED

While there is no official confirmation on record…rumor has it that several tech giants including Google and Facebook have looked at Fireman’s Fund Campus in Novato.

Marin seems the logical next step as tech companies have expanded from the South Bay north into San Francisco. According to the WSJ, “Room to grow is evaporating in Silicon Valley as technology giants’ appetites for expansion are running up against residents… Some communities are already saying they have reached their limits of development, while others signal that day is near, raising questions about the ability of the tech sector to keep expanding in what has long been its home base.” According to Gabriel Metcalf, Chief Executive of the Bay Area regional-planning-focused nonprofit SPUR, “The economy has outgrown the place…The speed of economic change is much faster than the speed of community change.” Space is so tight that tech companies are paying north of $90 a square foot in Mountain View. Those are Manhattan skyscraper prices for 1980s-era suburban office parks.

According to a recent Marin IJ article , “there are reasons why the rumor might be true. High-tech workers living in San Francisco who commute to the South Bay by bus could commute to Novato and back in less time…In addition to that it’s very challenging to find a campus of any significant square footage right now that is currently available in the Bay Area.”

 The Novato campus being vacated by Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. could be a draw for technology or biotech companies, as it is near Highway 101, the Buck Institute and a future Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit station.

It is really exciting to think of the impact of a tech giant such as Google or Facebook landing in Novato. The “Facebook Effect” of a recently developed campus in Menlo Park has resulted in median single-family home prices increasing significantly more than the other surrounding areas over a two year period.

Potential Impacts:

• Housing prices & rents
• Traffic
• Job Market
• Draw of > tech companies
• Suburban=> Urbanization