The leveling off of the housing market in the Bay Area this spring might seem to herald a new era of more affordable housing in Silicon Valley.

The reality check on that Pollyanna hope was a report earlier this month by Mercury News Real Estate Writer Sue McAllister: Faced with a sluggish market, developers are building fewer homes than expected this year. That’s true not just in the high-cost Silicon Valley but across California, including the Central Valley, where there are fewer government restrictions on growth.

Law firm adds partner to real estate practice: Manuel “Manny” Fishman has joined the law firm Cooley Godward Kronish as a partner in its real estate practice group. His practice focuses on office and industrial leasing, secured lending, the acquisition and sale of commercial properties and the intersection of land-line and wireless telecommunications and Internet-based services with commercial real estate. He joins from the San Francisco office of Stoel Rives where he was a partner. Fishman earned his law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1982.

Hi Gary,
I am at a loss.  My wife and I both work and we have 4 kids.  We make
good money between us but are always living paycheck to paycheck. One
big problem is our grocery spending.  I was looking at last month’s
expenses and saw that we spent over $1800 in groceries over the month
at one grocery store (that is not a typo).  There were a few other
stops in there as well at some convenience stores.  The really sad
thing is we aren’t eating steak and lobster - we eat frozen burgers
3-4 times a week and tacos.