San Jose is the third-largest city in California and the tenth-largest city in the United States with a population of about 946,000. Like most of the Bay Area, San Jose has a Subtropical Mediterranean climate. San Jose is surrounded by mountains on three sides, which provides natural shelter from rain and results in the city receiving about a third of the rainfall compared to other parts of the Bay Area.
San Jose’s economy is a technology powerhouse, as the city is home to major facilities for numerous tech and web giants including Adobe, eBay, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, just to name a few. This massive accumulation of technology companies has led to the area adopting the nickname Silicon Valley, and the presence of these businesses is an integral part of San Jose’s economy.
One of many reasons that Silicon Valley continues to thrive is the new talent consistently pumped into the companies from the surrounding universities. Bright minds come from all over to attend engineering and computer science programs at University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco State University, California State University, and Stanford University, among others. San Jose is an extremely affluent city, as it has the highest median income of any U.S city with more than 280,000 people.
The San Jose real estate market peaked from 2006 to 2007, and experienced sharp declines from 2008 to 2009. Since 2010, the market has leveled out and demonstrated stability, making it a great time to invest in San Jose property.