San Jose has become one of the most visited places in the past years. It has now become a booming industry in Real Estate. San Jose has a total land area spanning 174.9 square miles. This city is considered the third largest in California given its population of at least one million people. San Jose can be found amidst the mountain ranges of Diablo and Santa Cruz.

From its humble beginnings as an agricultural land, San Jose has evolved into a prime real estate industry. This is further boosted by the rapid increase in the number of high technology corporations setting up within the area; hence, the city is now famously referred to as the Capital of Silicon Valley.

Planning to Buy or Rent a House? Here are some relevant statistics on housing units based on gathered data for the year 2000:

It was reported that there are more than 280,000 housing units in San Jose. Of the total, an estimated 99% are built in the urban areas while only 1% is located in the rural section of the city. At least 60% of the housing structures are privately owned and occupied by the San Jose residents while the rest are up for rent.

The available housing units in the area can be classified into three types - homes, condominiums and apartments. Given its reputation as a tourist destination any day of the year, houses, apartments and condominium units that are for rent in San Jose register an insignificant vacancy rate of less than 2%. This same rate holds true even during seasonal periods.

It is interesting to note that most of the privately owned houses are mortgaged. A lot of these are even mortgaged a second time and/or coupled with a home equity loan. Only 15% of these are mortgage-free. It is therefore advisable that you check the status of the housing unit you wish to buy, whether with mortgage or not, in assessing and coming up with the appropriate bid price.

If you are really interested in purchasing a vacant or for sale housing unit in San Jose, you must be willing to pay, on the average, around US$427,800. This is due to the fact that most of these privately owned homes have significantly high-assessed values. If you just simply want to rent a house, as you cannot afford a downright purchase, an average monthly rental is roughly US$1,287 to US$15,444 a year. Take note, however, that these estimates were conducted in 2000 and have surely gone up.