Silicon Valley Braces For Facebook Riches

Silicon Valley Braces For Facebook Riches: As Facebook becomes an open, Silicon Valley is buzzing in anticipation of “instant billionaires” that could soon be looking for ways to spend their new wealth.

Eight years after Mark Zuckerberg started the company in a dorm room at Harvard, the stock market debut of the social media giant is expected to cost up to $ 100 billion.While Zuckerberg and other longtime collaborators benefit the most, an initial public offering on Wednesday and could make millionaires of most companies rank and file.

Local estate agents say they expect the IPO – U.S. $ 5 billion, easily the biggest technology companies – to increase the already high home prices, as the new rich people in social media giant to start shopping. “It will have a big impact,” said Pierre Buljan, Silicon Valley real estate agent showing the house for the young leaders of technology. “I think, with 1,000 new millionaires, they will need a place to live.”

Buljan said his typical client often tries to “modern, high-tech facilities” near the airport, and good schools.

“They do not like the things their parents lived in,” he said.

Typically, customers pay cash for a house, said that could range from 4,000 to 15,000 square feet (372 to 1393 square feet), depending on family size. Real Estate Agent Dawn Thomas said he already sees house prices are rising in areas around Menlo Park Facebook headquarters, and expects to continue.

“You get all these instant millionaires in the streets,” said Thomas. “The stream is already happening.”

Thomas described his tech-savvy home buyers as “very, very green-minded” and looking for small, well-equipped, energy efficient homes and high-end amenities.

“They do not want McMansions, ‘” he said, referring to the giant house can devour energy. Thomas and Buljan warned that it will take time to see the full effect of the IPO. Parts of Facebook will not actually begin trading on Wall Street before the end of this year. The company’s social network can also take measures to avoid buying craze has caused, which may cause another bubble.

Buljan said he felt it warned that Facebook will soon be a millionaire to take their time when buying a house, to avoid flooding the market and employees, in fact competing against each other. “They are very young, 20 and 30, but the fact that they get good Execs warnings inside the company,” said Buljan. “They do not want to be on Facebook has all these crazy off the purchase.”

This is good advice, according to Sam Hamadeh, executive director of financial services research firm PrivCo. Hamad said that the staff is generally able to sell their shares within 180 days after the company goes public.

But he said he would advise members to resist the temptation to take out strongly against the holding company of property or cash as soon as these six months are up. Since last IPO, “many people were devastated by the suppression advances big houses”, which then could not afford, when stock prices fell, Hamad said.

Instead, shareholders are selling slowly and said I did not expect higher prices for an indefinite period. “When you start selling, everyone can start selling,” said Hamad. “Among the IPOs and six months, you’ll be surprised how quickly stocks can sometimes tank.”