Close enough, jym.
That is not good. I wonder what google earth sat maps looked like before slide for those homes.
Cbreeze, you know more than I do even though I talked to my friend a couple of days ago. I knew the house was sale pending but I didn’t know the price was cut. 
I think the house is supposed to close within a week. At least that is what I was told.
My friend doesn’t talk about the house much.
Whoa, dstark. Your friend’s house almost tripled in value in under 2 years???
No. Jym626, the owners are doing a Coralbrook or an artloversplus.
They are flipping the house. The house is remodeled.
They still must have done well. Thats a big increase, even with the $ and sweat equity.
Fiancee sent an adorable photo of her young niece, who is visiting, crouched down on the patio by where DS’s fiancee had written in chalk, “Home sweet home”.
has anyone besides me fallen in love with the google history map feature? Look what sat on dstark’s friends lot in 2007 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.306314,-121.901006,3a,75y,351.86h,83.83t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sHkNuKDzzJj-_FpuXHouPgw!2e0!5s20070901T000000
Unless this is an April Fools’ joke, SF maybe too expensive for BABA…
Booooooooo. 
The article says they already have 2 offices in SF, but are considering Seattle so they can steal employees from Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Nice.
Seattle real estate for employers is significantly cheaper than than SF.
Housing is cheaper for the employees, too. Add in no personal state income tax in WA and you have the ability to recruit more talent, even without “stealing” employees.
I am not even sure what that means. People are not locked into employment contracts for life, and there is a great deal of flux in many corporations in terms of retention of employees. So many factors go in to why employees leave a job. I guess the better question is how to make good ones stay?
Seattle is a great place…traffic and grey skies, excluded.
Everything is cheaper than SF!!
There were issues with employee poaching in CA a few years ago that led to some litigation and subsequent polices about that. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/silicon-valleys-poaching-case-growing-debate-employee-mobility/ In the article above, Alibaba already talks about “luring talent” from Amazon and Microsoft. http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/morning_call/2015/03/alibaba-scoops-up-seattle-area-microsoft-amazon.html
Not saying its illegal, its just sometimes smarmy. They plan to set up competition with Amazon and poach employees.
Oh yeah, no doubt smarmy business recruiting away talent.
I think I would be conflicted jumping ship from Microsoft or Amazon or similar to go work for Alibaba. I have not heard good things about products sold on that site (poor quality, fakes, misleading advertising) - wonder what their workplace culture is like.
Wow. Interesting read on the no poaching article, jym. Thanks for posting.
Happy to help. This was a bit of a problem!
My son and his GF both received a three year contract and are moving to Seattle so yes these employees are being given contracts. They also both decided to live in Seattle over California because it is much cheaper. Housing alone is cheaper and they have 0% state income tax which is incredible! California’s state income tax goes up to 12.3% which is STEEP!
They spent all summer comparing the two places. My son was interning in Seattle while his GF was interning Mountain View last summer. My son couldn’t handle all the California fines and he was not happy with the housing quality/prices either. He says there were cameras every where monitoring your speed - even for bikers! That’s interesting. I’m actually very happy he isn’t going to Calfornia. Those taxes are insane and they are bankrupt which is worse. Its definitely a beautiful state but very costly.
Newjersey17, we were native Californians that relocated almost a year ago to WA. Rents are cheaper, homes are more affordable and trees are abundant. And coffee and beer. Nice to have an extended contract for some stability.
I cannot see myself ever moving back.
Oh that is good to hear! I’m so glad my son got to see both places so he could make an educated decision! He was gung ho on California at first but once he experienced it, he changed his mind and ended up really liking Seattle.
I’m sure they will be going through a similar house hunting process that @jym626 went through. I can already sense it being such a difficult process. These kids have so much to learn and it is so hard to explain all the little details by phone! I may just jump on a plane and help them out. It is such a daunting process!
As a Seattle area resident and a frequent visitor to Silicon Valley, I can say that SV has better weather than we do, but we are pretty comparable with SF.
House hunting here is way easier than in SF. I suggest renting for a bit to become more familiar with the area.
Seattle weather may be comparable with the Sunset and Richmond Districts of SF. Especially the outer areas.
I like Seattle. I am glad people who live in Seattle like where they live.
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Washington/annual-days-of-sunshine.php
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/California/annual-days-of-sunshine.php