What is Silicon Valley?

Silicon Valley is the area, sometimes known as the Bay Area, between San Francisco and San Jose in California, which is home to some of the largest high-tech companies in the world.  Imitated world-wide but never duplicated, Silicon Valley has become a magnet for companies and enterpreneurs alike who want to make a mark in the continually evolving high-tech market.

The attraction of coming here to work for these companies and to live in this gorgeous part of California has its downside – it’s created a huge increase in home property prices over the last 10 years, so a house you could buy in, say, Sunnyvale, for $300,000 (3 bed, 2 bath) is now probably worth around 4 times that much.  Good for those who bought a long time ago, bad for those who are looking to buy their first home here.

And don’t forget those to include those property taxes when working out your salary requirements for relocating here –  property tax is an annual tax calculated as  a percentage of the purchase price of your property – around us, it’s 1.1% – so if you buy your house for $1 million, you will be paying $11,000 a year until you sell! Nasty…