$698 per sqft house in Redwood City that you missed
Reports
MLS: 748418Property Overview
536 5TH AV
Redwood City (Redwood City) 94063
Detached Single Family (Class 1)
Bed/Bath: 2 / 1
SqFt: 730
Lot: 3,000 sq ft
Age: 55 years
List Price: $509,900
Assoc Fee:
FANTASTIC REDWOOD CITY HOME!
A FANTASTIC HOME LOCATED NEAR ALL AMENITIES FEATURING HARDWOOD FLOORS, A SEPARATE DINING ROOM, A WOOD BURNING FIREPLACE AND A CONVETED GARAGE. WITH A COVERED PATIO AND PLENTY OF STREET PARKING THIS HOME WON’T LAST LONG!
Yep, it didn’t last long – look this house is pending, and it’ll probably be sold by the time you scroll to this part of the post.
Now look. You’re screwed. The SuperBowl is coming up, and that means the spring bounce will start. You’ve been priced out of Redwood City forever.
Even worse, look at what you missed out on:
Yep – you missed the first and only house in Redwood City to have an outhouse.
Ouch.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:40 am
“Wood Burning Fireplace”? AAAAAH! The fireplace is on fire! Serves them right for making it out of wood, I guess.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Middlefield & 5th. Yep. Drove through there last night. Luckily, you only have to drive a few blocks to Atherton and experience the Real Bay Area. Place is like walking into a fairy tale.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:08 am
California has always been an innovator…and in Silicon Valley. Now they have innovated insane stupidity.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Don’t know why this kind of house is so prevalent in the Bay Area. You don’t see these junks in southern Cal, or in other states as much. 730 sq. ft.? What were they thinking when they built them?
January 17th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I always imagined houses in Compton to be like this… no?
January 17th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Another bank owned property. The victim is Deutche Bank.
Sales history:
4/18/2007 $547,642 Trustee’s Deed upon Sale Resale Executive Trustee Services LLC Deutsche Bank National Trust Tr 600256773
7/14/2006 Grant Deed Resale Navarro, Vincente A Navarro, Vicente A 452204784
7/14/2006 $650,000 Grant Deed Resale Navarro, Vicente A Castillo, Juan A 452147590
January 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am
> You don’t see these junks in southern Cal, or in other states as much
> 730 sq. ft.? What were they thinking when they built them?
These sorts of houses were build just post-World War 2 when there was a housing shortage for returning vets, and there were US government controls on building materials. I think there were actually restrictions on the size of houses that could be built so there would be enough material to satisfy all the pent-up demand. (Fun fact: 30% of veterans in 1946 were living in trailers or in doubled-up households.) The outlying suburbs of the Bay Area are filled with these houses. They’re always small, on small lots, and with one car garages, and always date from around 1945-1950. They’re even smaller than pre-war houses (my grandfather built his modest house in 1940 with a two car garage, even though he only had one car). By the early ’50’s, the houses were much larger and often better made.
I’d guess that California and the Bay Area have more of these houses because more vets either moved to California, or decided to stay in California, and there wasn’t as much vacant housing as there might have been in other cities.
The houses do exist elsewhere, you just need to find a city where lots of WW II vets settled. Levittown’s houses (built 1947-1951) are the equivalent of these — same era, same small sizes. I’m sure there’s a bunch of these in the San Fernando Valley, Compton, and other suburbs of LA. I’ll bet if you looked around Houston, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Louis, etc, you’d find the same sorts of houses.
Of course, those houses won’t be worth $500K.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
But why don’t the Levittown houses in as awful shape or look as awful?
January 17th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
> But why don’t the Levittown houses in as awful shape or look as awful?
Because the Bay Area’s such a wonderful place that you’d never go to Long Island to see how badly some of those houses aged?
And Van Nuys is justly famous for how well all the postwar housing has been maintained.
Robert
January 17th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Number street (4th, 5th, 6th, etc.) in Redwood City == not good neighborhood.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Burbed, you oughta do a retrospective and follow-up on some of your older posts. See what they sold for and what the state of them is now. I looked at some of the oldest ones, and there are some real doozies.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Yeah, it’s a good idea – i just need some free time…
January 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Actually Levittown is a pretty nice area nowadays. But you can all brag to your friends back here on how great the Bay area is and how you paid 700,000 for a sh*tbox…lol! We see many of you moving here to Connecticut already….
January 18th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
“But why don’t the Levittown houses in as awful shape or look as awful?”
Because in Levittown, it’s worth it to consolidate the properties, tear the houses down, and build something new. Thanks to Prop 13 and insane real-estate prices, doing that would be a massive loser out here in El Baya. Prop 13 won’t let you remodel without killing you on taxes, and the land prices mean that a parking space is worth $100K.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I’ve heard that there are some pretty smart architects in SoCal that can build a new house, while keeping one existing exterior wall so that your house can still retain its Prop 13 status.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 am
> I’ve heard that there are some pretty smart architects in SoCal
> that can build a new house, while keeping one existing exterior
> wall so that your house can still retain its Prop 13 status.
They do that in the Bay Area too — I’ve seen houses torn down to a single wall in the San Jose area. This house probably will never become a pink stucco mansion if only because it’s on a 3000 square foot lot. Not to mention the location.
Not all the post-war houses in the Bay Area suck this much; the ones in Belmont, next to Bay Meadows, or even San Bruno (above El Camino) have been maintained quite nicely. I still don’t want one, thank you.
February 7th, 2008 at 5:25 am
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