As we have all heard… over and over again, the housing market has been taking since the 2008 crash.  The recovery has been hampered by strict lending practices, lack luster economy and backlogs of toxic loans keeping house off the market, but still waiting in the wings.

Many people have been slowing getting back into the housing market, except for one small group. Those who were lucky enough to be in or invested in one of the many tech companies that have IPO’ed lately have been hitting the south peninsula hard!  The median price of single-family houses sold in Palo Alto, jumped 20 percent in May from a year earlier to $1.63 million according to the research company DataQuick. In Mountain View, prices rose 3.1 percent to $957,500, the ninth year-over-year gain in 12 months.

And its not done yet..

There are going to be many more IPO’s coming in 2011 and 2012 and if past performance holds, there will be a flush of new money coming into the valley. Given this success, there will be more VC money coming into the valley and that is going to drive prices up even further.