Rex Manor

Roughly bounded by the Central Expressway, Farley Street, West Middlefield Road and North Shoreline Boulevard, Rex Manor is a traditional and somewhat middling Mountain View community. It is almost exclusively residential, spanning about 0.6 square miles of ordinary, middle-class ambiance. The area does hold an original charm that can make Rex Manor desirable for some, but thats not the case for the younger generations soon to fill up homes within Mountain View’s rising businesses.

Rex Manor’s residential ambiance is underwhelming, at best. The area is dominated by boxy, single-story homes, most of which were built within the mid 1900‘s (and are somehow still standing). They tend to be situated on small and flat, 50’ by 115’ lots, and are usually not consistently maintained. For instance, while some are accented by white picket fences, others are blemished by chain-linked ones. Also, most of these homes afford modest community amenities including two-car garages, tree-lined streets and those thick (but trimmed) bushes you might see when you’re visiting an elder.

There are, however, a couple newly developed homes sprinkling the neighborhood, but they are far too few to make a lasting impact on the overall impression of the neighborhood. For numbers sake, house values are in the range of $500,000 to $800,000. You also have your selection of a few moderately attractive, two-story apartment buildings within pockets of the community. While they only provide minimal landscaping, they are listed at a reasonable $500,000.

Young families tend to send their children to the middle-of-the-road such as Theurkauf Elementary. Other schools within the district include Crittenden Middle School and Los Altos High School, none of which garner an above average reputation. For your shopping needs, there is a small commercial block located along Shoreline Boulevard that provides a Safeway along with some chain restaurants and fast food spots.

Like a lot of the area north of the Central Expressway in Mountain View, this is an older neighborhood filled with fairly worn down looking homes from the 1950’s and 1960’s. You will find a fair number of apartment buildings here as well.

There are some large homes on the northern end of the neighborhood but they really do not give you a sense of wealth. In fact homes here really don’t break the million dollar barrier. I think there are number of reasons for this. One is that the area really does have a run down, unkept look to it. When you drive through (except up on Middlefield Road, perhaps) the homes just look very weathered and somewhat ramshackle.

The apartments, for example, are of that 1960’s boxy kind of apartment that have completely lost their appeal in the 21st century.

The other thing that is sort of a drag on property prices is the mediocre local schools whose tests scores are about equal with the nationwide average. The local school, for example, right at the heart of Rex Manor, Theuerkauf Elementary has average scores across the board, with an API of 5 and California state tests averaging at about 50%.

That is not horrible, but given the great nearby schools it seems worse by comparison.

Those are the main reasons I think for this ceiling on home prices is here. That said, homes are not exactly cheap here either compared to other locations. These older homes here still fetch at least $500K and sometimes (especially when they have not been foreclosed) even rise as far as $800K.

I suppose, I can see this neighborhood slowly starting to develop into a coveted area. They are after all right at the edge of a commercial area with a number of office parks just to the north. (Though this actually might work as a deterrent for some workers who would not want to live within sight of their bosses. Taking a sick day to just go into town or something might be a little nerve racking.)

Overall, it still seems overpriced to me.