????Facebook即將啟動的首次公開募股發行，或許是硅谷周圍這些日子以來信心爆棚的標志。很可能在幾周之后，許多技術人員將由此變成大富豪，這是毫無疑問的。但這次IPO還產生了一個相對較小且鮮有人關注的效應：本已緩過氣的硅谷房地產市場正在陷入瘋狂。

????雖然與Facebook有實際聯系的潛在購房者僅占硅谷全部買家的一小部分，但他們對市場的心理影響卻是毋庸置疑的。特別是在被馬克?扎克伯格稱為家的Facebook總部所在地帕洛阿爾托（Palo Alto），賣家們要么選擇在IPO之前暫停銷售房屋，要么大幅提升了他們的期望值。房產中介機構BrokerMetrics公司提供的數據顯示，在2012年第一季度，帕洛阿爾托市獨戶型住宅的中間價上漲了11%，庫存則下降了57%。

????房產經紀人邁克爾?德雷福斯講了這樣一個故事。一位客戶在帕洛阿爾托老城（帕洛阿爾托市最好的社區之一，史蒂夫?喬布斯曾居住于此）擁有一套住宅。幾個月前，他在向這位客戶提供咨詢時表示，這套住宅的售價很可能在280萬到300萬美元之間。這位客戶認為這個價位太過保守，隨后將售價確定為350萬美元。2個月后，這棟看起來非常普通，面積為3,500平方英尺的住宅最終以390萬美元的價格成功售出。“Facebook的上市讓當地人的信心空前膨脹，他們堅信自己的房子會賣一個非常好的價格，”德雷福斯說。“他們目前不愿出售房屋，坐等其升值。”

????這反過來產生了一個庫存問題，進而驅動房屋售價進一步上漲。“去帕洛阿爾托淘金！”今年初，德雷福斯供職的精品住宅經紀公司的網站上出現了這樣一條留言。德雷福斯表示，“城里每家房產經紀公司都握有一長串買家清單，你幾乎能感受到即將在春天到來的火熱景象。大批買家將蜂擁而至，少得可憐的房源根本無法滿足他們的需要。”

????但如果Facebook的募股表現低于市場預期（Facebook本周發布公告稱該公司營收下降），房地產市場就有可能面臨“一場大崩潰，”德雷福斯如是說。倘若如今持觀望態度的房主由于擔心房價進一步下跌，依然決定出售其房屋，房市的行情就將進一步走低。如果這一幕發生，那可能預示著早有預言的硅谷房市泡沫或許已經出現，并隨之破裂了。

????Facebook效應正在硅谷周圍創造另一個新興的景象：秘密出售。美國房地產房源共享系統(Multiple Listing Service，簡稱MLS)一直是美國人出售房屋的主流渠道。但許多富裕的房主不想在屋前草坪上豎起“待售”標牌，也不想把房屋地址公開在經紀公司的房源清單上或者在網上發布自家臥室的照片。因此，一些經紀公司繞過MLS系統，轉而使用自己的渠道搜尋潛在買家。“嘿……我為你準備了一套房子！”《帕洛阿爾托周報》（Palo Alto Weekly）最近發布的一則消息使用了這樣一個毫無諷刺意味的標題。這篇報道配發了大量住宅照片，其中一棟位于扎克伯格的新家不遠處，是一套7,732平方英尺的殖民地風格住宅（“售價還不到900萬美元！”），另一棟建于1929年，售價1,150萬美元的地中海風格住宅則位于喬布斯家正對面，

????德雷福斯目前有一套打算在私人市場銷售的房子，售價在1,500萬美元以上。他說這套房子將成為帕洛阿爾托市最昂貴的房產。他或許想透露更多信息，但他不能這樣做，甚至連具體的價格都不能隨便向外界公開。

????譯者：任文科

????Facebook's looming public offering may mark high water in confidence around Silicon Valley these days. And it is surely is going to make a lot of techies very rich, likely in a few weeks. But there's a smaller, barely noticed effect of the IPO: an already hyperventilating local real estate market that's now going bonkers.

????Though the number of actual prospective home buyers with Facebook connections is only a fraction of all buyers in the Valley, their psychological effect on the market is unmistakable. In Palo Alto, in particular -- which Mark Zuckerberg calls home --sellers are either keeping their homes off the market until the IPO or ramping up expectations. For the first quarter of 2012, according to BrokerMetrics, the median price of a single-family P.A. home went up 11%, whereas inventory declined 57%.

????One broker, Michael Dreyfus, tells a story. He had a client with a house in Old Palo Alto -- one of the town's best neighborhoods (where Steve Jobs lived) -- and advised the client a few months ago the house would likely sell between $2.8 million and $3 million. Thinking that too conservative, the client priced it at $3.5 million. The unexceptional 3,500-square-foot home sold two months later for nearly $3.9 million. "The locals are all gaga over Facebook and how much their houses are going to be worth," Dreyfus says. "And they're holding their houses off the market."

????That in turns generates an inventory problem, which drives prices up further. "Palo Alto Gold!" declared a post earlier this year on the website of Dreyfus's boutique residential brokerage. "Every real estate agent in town has a long list of buyers and you can almost feel the preparation for a spring frenzy. The hordes of buyers are going to overwhelm our meager supply."

????But if the Facebook offering doesn't perform as well as expected -- and this week the company reported revenues were down -- then the housing market could face "a great big crash," according to Dreyfus. If the homeowners who are now waiting put their homes on the market anyway, worried over further declines, the market would go down more. If that happened, it could be the sign that the long-prognosticated bubble in the Valley may finally have appeared -- and burst.

????The Facebook effect may be creating another burgeoning phenomenon around the Valley: secret sales. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) has always been the mainstream way to sell your house in the U.S. But many wealthy homeowners don't want FOR SALE signs up on the front lawns or their addresses in public brokerage listings—or photos online of the master bedroom. So some brokers bypass MLS and use their own contacts to hunt for possible buyers. "Pssst…Have I got a house for you!" reads a recent unironically intended headline in the Palo Alto Weekly, The story comes complete with unprivate photos of that lovely 7,732-square-foot Colonial not far from Zuck's new place ("just under $9 million"!) or the 1929 Mediterranean for $11.5 million just across the street from Jobs's house.

????One estate currently for sale by Dreyfus is on the private market for what he says will be the most expensive ever sold in Palo Alto -- more than a record $15 million. He might want to tell you more about it, but he can't. Even the price is private.