In Hindsight: College grads, it's expensive, but California needs you.

Byline: Frank Michael Russell

May 27--Here's some news you may have missed last week, based on staff and wire reports.

Monday

You may have heard there's a real estate slump, but that's not necessarily true in the upper reaches of the housing market. In the Bay Area's most expensive communities, luxury homes are holding their value compared with a year ago, about $2.9 million on average, according to First Republic Bank's "prestige home index."

In East Bay communities such as Lafayette, shall we say, "buyers are clearly being more discriminating," the bank reported. On the west side of the bay -- the Peninsula, San Francisco and Marin County -- activity in the luxury market was especially strong in the first quarter.

"A majority of the deals are generating multiple offers," said Hugh Cornish of Coldwell Banker in Menlo Park.

Tuesday

Mountain View Internet juggernaut Google disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it has invested $3.9 million in 23andMe, a biotech start-up that also received funding from Genentech and others.

One of 23andMe's founders, Anne Wojcicki, is married to Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder and president-technology. Google assures us the investment is worthy: "Google's audit committee reviewed and approved this transaction as part of Google's procedures for entering into transactions with related parties," the company said in the filing.

Wednesday

California's bustling economy is threatened by a lack of highly skilled workers, according to a report by the non-profit Public Policy Institute of California. The study said more college graduates moved out of the Golden State (658,000) from 2000 to 2005 than moved in (612,000).

We'll need a huge number of college graduates to meet the demand for highly skilled workers from now until 2025, the study concludes. "For either foreign or domestic migrants to fill California's skills gap would require migration of unprecedented magnitude," said demographer Hans Johnson. "That seems implausible, if not impossible."

Thursday

Dude, it's your choice: You can buy a customized Dell PC directly from the Texas computer maker, or you can buy an off-the-shelf desktop at your nearest Wal-Mart or Sam's Club. (Then again, you could always go with a computer from Hewlett-Packard, Apple or numerous other makers.)

Dell and mega-retailer Wal-Mart Stores said two Dell desktop models -- both priced under $700 -- will be available at U.S. Wal-Mart and Sam's Club locations beginning June 10.

Friday

The subprime-mortgage mess is hurting the nation's real estate market nationwide, according to the National Association of Realtors: Existing-home sales in April were down 10.7 percent from a year earlier.

"We've been anticipating slower home sales because many subprime loan products are no longer available," Lawrence Yun, the group's senior economist.

The median price for all homes nationwide was $220,900 (LOL!), down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

Frank Russell writes the 60-Second Business Break, posted weekday afternoons about 2 at mercurynews.com. Contact him at frussell@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5876.

Copyright (c) 2007, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

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