California Drought

[Tom]

Anybody notice how the drought is affecting real estate sales/prices?  I'm thinking of moving to the bay area to be with family.

 

Thanks

[Kelleytoons]

But what would you drink then?

 

(Sorry, couldn't help.  My daughter lives in the Bay Area and has not noticed any lowering of prices -- just the opposite).

[Adrian_L]

I don't think real estate prices react that quickly to temporary crises.  There may be a lull in the market which benefits prospective buyers and renters.  My suspicion is that prices will continue to rise in trendy west coast areas such as Bay Area, Seattle and Vancouver.

[Kelleytoons]

Yeah, and all seriousness aside, drought is not going to be a factor for folks living in California unless their industry revolves around the use of water.  If anything, it will make real estate more desirable, since they won't have to fork over the money to maintain expensive lawns and other greenery.

 

Now, if you are looking to buy farmland then you might have a good chance of getting something cheaper (although right now the drought isn't affecting farmers, as the idiot governor there is holding them outside of the rationing, despite them being the entire issue).

[Marc Smith]

KT.

 

yeah its kinda funny.   Residential use of water accounts for less than 10% on average of water use.  heck even commercial irrigation (landscape golf) is only about 1%  while food production is about 75%.

 

some mind boggling numbers...

 

don't even what to think about how much water is used to  make a gallon of milk..

 

The big "waste" from an agriculture stand point is poor quality irrigation, and "washing" of fruits/veggies, cow, chickens, ect..

 

a retrofit of irrigation is extremely pricey,  and if we don't wash off our food while its undergoing production  you run  the risk of food borne illness.

 

So while I applaud CA for putting some hard fast limits  Ie drawing a line in the sand, so to speak.  its not really going to be enough.  They are not targeting the prime user/waster of the water.

 

While its nice to paint the picture of golf courses water the turf or homeowners wasting water by taking long showers or washing their cars,  the gains to be made are on the industrial/agriculture side of things...

 

http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/how-many-gallons-of-water-does-it-take-to-make.html

[mtb9153]

Speaking as a resident of the SillyCorn Valley since 1966 the land values haven't changed much so far.  House comps in my neighborhood are still hovering in the $500-800k range depending on location in the valley and upgrades.  Might be able to pickup a fixer upper in the $300-500k range.  Not sure about the present stand the Gov has for the farmers but they are going to be getting less water for their crops than they did last year.  This will have an effect on most of the veggies and fruit all across the country since a good portion of produce comes from California.  Find Cali some water and things might not be so bad.  I'm calling the water patrol on my neighbors who continue to waste water on their expensive lawns and plants.  Brown is the new Green.  My front yard is dead so should be everyone else's.

[zalusky]

I am in Cupertino with a 1960s 2000 square foot 2car garage single story house.  Our house is probably in the 1.8 million range.

Of course its been remodeled a bunch.  On the other hand 1100 square foot never touched houses are going for 1.1 million.

 

Housing prices are crazy because there is no inventory for sale.  There is a lot of high density being built if you like that sort of thing.

 

Even during the down turn houses in the core valley: Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino took virtually no hit.

[stevedebi]

I am in Cupertino with a 1960s 2000 square foot 2car garage single story house.  Our house is probably in the 1.8 million range.

Of course its been remodeled a bunch.  On the other hand 1100 square foot never touched houses are going for 1.1 million.

 

Housing prices are crazy because there is no inventory for sale.  There is a lot of high density being built if you like that sort of thing.

 

Even during the down turn houses in the core valley: Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino took virtually no hit.

Wow, I thought our market was high here in LA. Ours is a 1951 build, about 1450 sq ft, valued at around 400K or so.

[Adrian_L]

Smallish houses (2000 sq feet) in better areas of metro Vancouver are regularly selling for 1.5-2 million these days.  Canadian dollars........but still.......  

[RockwallRick]

A fixer upper for $300K!!! :drop:

[Marc Smith]

Rock

 

That's about like the dc metro area

 

We moved up from Florida in 2000 and bought a 30 year old fixer upper for 250k. Might have been about 2000sqft on a 1/4 acre

[markd]

In Indiana you can buy a nice 2000 sf house for around 130k. I bought my fixer upper condo in a nice neighborhood for 21k, seriously.

[HotPotato]

Median home price in my town is a cool million bucks. I can't imagine living outside of California...but I can imagine moving to a different part.

[markd]

I can't imagine living in California, I tried and came back here and have been here since 1984. In spite of what you may have heard the people are nice here and it's cheap to live here. A million will buy you a nice mini mansion here.

Edited April 18, 2015 by markd

[Noah Harbinger]

(although right now the drought isn't affecting farmers, as the idiot governor there is holding them outside of the rationing, despite them being the entire issue).

 

Anyone whose water right was acquired after 1914 is receiving between a 75% and 100% cutback this year. Those whose water rights extend further back (some water rights are older than the US itself) expect to face a 50-60% cutback. 

 

I'd say farmers are doing their part. And I'd say you should check your own understanding before you go around calling people idiots. 

Edited April 22, 2015 by Noah Harbinger

[Marc Smith]

Largely missing from Brown’s appeal was the one industry that uses more water than anything else in this state but has already been brutalized by the drought – agriculture. As Californians mulled Brown’s unprecedented order, some wondered why farms were not being asked to sacrifice more. Brown ordered farmers to report more information about their use of water. But he sheltered the agriculture industry from a mandatory 25 percent reduction in water use in cities and towns

 

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article17268866.html#storylink=cpy

 

The farmers drop in water usage Has not been voluntary though. Their drop in usage has been a result of the water just not being there, ie. Well dried up. No natural rain falling.

 

As I mentioned earlier farmers could do more. Get rid of overhead irrigation. And convert to drip. The problem is that it's not a cheap conversion. Get better environmental monitoring. And only water when the plants actually need it. There are many sensors and programs available. I use some on campus.

 

But as I mentioned as well if we cut back on ag/industry usage. We run the risk of some increases in food borne illness if the food and equipment isn't properly washed during production and handling....

 

Put a mandatory reduction on server farms. Many large ones use cooling towers which chew through tons of water. But then we can't not let people use their computers.

[Kelleytoons]

Yeah, and Brown has ALWAYS been an idiot -- don't need this latest thing to change my opinion (he's about the same as his father -- I lived in California for many decades and suffered them both).

[SPL Tech]

Put a mandatory reduction on server farms. Many large ones use cooling towers which chew through tons of water. But then we can't not let people use their computers.

 I have worked in some of the largest server farms in the world--imagine a Wal-Mart filled completely with IT equipment. I have never seen a cooling system that uses large quantities of fresh water. Nearly all server cooling is done by fans and A/C in all of the facilities in which I have worked. The routers, switches, servers, ect have fans which vent hot air into the atmosphere. Then the hot air is removed by industrial A/C systems. The A/C systems do use water, but it's in a closed loop. The heat is removed from the water by using industrial fans blowing through massive coils (radiators).

 

I do recall Google saying they had a number of server farms close to the ocean and they use sea water to cool their gear, but the vast majority of server rooms use air cooling and A/C.

Edited April 26, 2015 by SPL Tech

[Marc Smith]

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/08/14/data-center-water-use-moves-to-center-stage/

 

 15 megawatt server farms uses  360K gallons a day.

 

 The nice thing about the server farms  they can use non potable water.  but  you have ot have access to non potable water.

 

but even farms that use A/C  sometimes still use cooling towers to help get the freon cooled down for a higher efficiency system...

 

we have a bunch of  walmart, and larger, server farms here in Northern VA...

 

Cooling towers. There's obviously ample room for improvement. In 2005, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that "a single high-powered rack of servers consumes enough energy in a single year to power a hybrid car across the United States 337 times." In the average data center, in fact, only about half of the energy is used by processors themselves; the other half is gobbled up to cool the facility. Google says it has been able to reduce the energy needed to regulate the temperature in its facilities to about 20 percent of the industry average, in part by using water-based cooling towers.