Zirana City Blog

Zirana’s real estate columnist, John Dozier, writes that Home Sales in Cupertino are doing fine inspite of the grim real estate situation elsewhere in the country. He says ‘ March real estate sales activity for the greater Cupertino area continued at a brisk pace much as it has for the previous few months.  There were 41 closed sales in March compared with 25 for February.  There are currently 51 pending sales.  Pending sales are homes that are under contract, or in escrow waiting to clear inspection and financing contingencies prior to close.  There were 83 homes for sale at the end of March compared with 60 at the end of the February.  There are still a significant number of homes that continue to sell above their asking prices.  The majority of these homes tend to be priced between $900,000 to $1,500,000.  There were 20 sales that closed above asking price.  Most, however, were not significantly over.  In some cases the pricing strategy has affected the outcome, whereby, the homes are deliberately priced below the selling price the seller expects to achieve.  For the most part, prices are holding steady. ”

Full details are in his article at -http://www.zirana.com/cupertino/foreclosures/home_sales_for_cupertino_still_keep_chugging_along.html

Folks in Livermore, CA, organized a Swim-a-Thon benefitting fourteen year old, Korrine Croghan, who is battling stage four choriocarcinoma cancer.  The swim-a-thon that took place was organized by Cindy Gary and was held at the Livermore Community Center, where the lanes of the pool were occupied by swimmers of all ages determined to help Korrine’s cause.

It’s really touchng to see a local community come together for such a good cause. We hope folks in other communities will come together in a similar way for other good causes. A report on the Swim-a-Thon written by Zirana correspondent  Allie Bakalar, along with photos can be seen at -

http://www.zirana.com/livermore/featured_articles/swim_a_thon_for_korrine_croghan.html

Zirana’s Gardening columnist, Mary Crowell, offers great tips in for spring planting in her monthly column for April.

“April is a great planting time, especially geraniums and pelargoniums (try

some of the scented ones), campanulas, iberis (candytuft), penstemon, phlox,

delphinium, hellebores (I saw some gorgeous ones at the garden show), asters,

including Michaelmas Daisy, coreopsis, armeria, aquilegia, (columbine), achillea

(yarrow), geum, althaea (hollyhocks), chrysanthemum (marguerites), artemisia

(Dusty Miller), bergenias, and salvias (Mexican sage and other sages), my

personal favorites. 

Now is the time to plant those summer bulbs such as

gladioli, watsonias (if you have the room), agapanthus (Queen of the Nile),

anemones, cannas, callas (try the green goddess variety), dahlias (tubers), and

ranunculus (rhizomes). ”

For the full article, please click on the following link-

http://www.zirana.com/sanmateo/city_news/gardening_tips_for_april.html

A lot of vehicle burglaries seem to be taking place in Cupertino. In most cases, the burglars smash the glass window and take out the contents. Many of these burglaries take place in broad daylight, while some take place at night on cars that are parked in front of the owners’ homes.

The Sheriff’s Department has issued the following warning-

WARNING:

There has been an increase of vehicle burglaries during the past
month. Please do not leave your portable GPS units, power cords, or
GPS holders in view if you are not with your vehicle. Sunglasses, MP3
players, back packs, etc…need to be out of sight. REMEMBER TO LOCK
YOUR VEHICLES, and be mindful of where you are parking your vehicle.

For more information on the individual crime, please check out the Police Blotter on Zirana-

http://www.zirana.com/cupertino/crime/cupertino_police_blotter_april_7th_13th.html

Welcome to the Zirana City Blog. As you are aware, Zirana presents local News and Information for the various cities it covers. There is special emphasis on school related content. Our goal is to be a one stop shop for all local information. Currently we are providing local Events, Crime News including Police Blotter and Real Estate information including data on Homes Sold, Foreclosures and analysis of local real estate trends. You will also find a lot of school related content like listing of all local schools, API scores for each school, comparison of various schools in the same town, nformation about Pre Schools and After School Activities. There is also information including videos from current college students about their colleges and what they did in High School to get admission to the college of their choice and why they chose that college. On Zirana, you will also find information about local Apartments, Realtors, Restaurants, Salons, Doctors and Dentists etc. There are Forums for you to express your opinion, Classifieds for you to post your notices about items for sales, jobs and activities of interest, Groups for you to join to interact with your neighbors etc.

in this blog we will present some interesting content from the various city websites on Zirana along with our comments on various issues concerning our users. Please feel free to respond to these blog posts with your comments as well as your opinions on various matters.