A house is a man’s castle - just add a moat in Redwood City
96 Buckingham Ave, Redwood City 94063
$609,000* Status: Active
* Bedroom: 3
* Bathroom: 2
* Year Built: 1924
* Lot Size: 3360
* Square Footage: 1000
* List Date: 4/9/2008
* Garage Spaces: 2* MLS#: 800694
Completely remodeled. Open kitchen with granite counters and stainless appliances. Kitchen overlooks dining area and living room. Remodeled bathrooms. Convenient inside laundry area. Detached 2-car garage. Nice lawn and deck. This is not a short sale!
They say that a man’s house is a man’s castle. This Redwood City house clearly emphasizes that point. Driving by you might wonder “Is that a mini-Costco?” - but then you see the turrets on top and realize “Wow, it’s someone’s castle in Redwood City!”.
You know what this really needs? A moat.
A moat filled with sharks with lasers. Oh yes, how awesome that would be. And of course the requisite drawbridge.
Then you’d really have a Costco Castle.
And it makes sense - after all you live on Buckingham. What’s more fitting for you - The King Owner?
May 6th, 2008 at 7:04 am
The house appears to be positioned squarely in the middle of the yard, as if the owner expected to put in a moat. Or perhaps the owner just wanted to keep an eye on every possible angle of attack. I see that fence and all I can think of is “perimeter fence.” I wonder whether it’s electrified.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:21 am
a moat and a drawbridge would do this place nicely.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:21 am
This house looks like a converted 7-11.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:57 am
That is quite hideous. This gets me thinking, what could I get someplace else “special,” someplace else with lots of tech jobs, someplace with good schools. And I thought to myself, I used to work in Boston, they have lots of tech jobs and are pretty special. What kind of suburban home could I get in Beantown for the same size wad of cash?
http://vow.mlspin.com/idx/details.asp?mls=70738084&aid=BB805598
Now, it isn’t a castle, but it is 3 stories and 5 bedrooms. Oh, yeah, there’s a basement too. But, it isn’t a castle in the not quite Real Bay Area.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Ahh-lin-tuhn. Yep, nice place. About as close to Harvard as this dump is to Stanford.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:28 am
you could mount a chain gun on the top of that house to defend against all those looting, criminal, and bitter as ever renters.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Does Arlington have any smart people or millionaires? Probably not. It’s flyover country.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I think there is a typo in the listing. It should read..
Not a short sale…yet!
May 6th, 2008 at 10:57 am
And it makes sense - after all you live on Buckingham. What’s more fitting for you - The King Owner?
————
Burbed,
You forgot the most important part. Why the name of the street is Buckingham Ave? Because of this PALACE.
Compare with real Buckingham Palace.
How similar! The main entrance. How similar! This is the SF Bay Area version of Buckingham Palace. Just buy this royal house. You may not be Prince William, but you will be The Prince of Silicon Valley.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Hmm, let’s compare Redwood City to Arlington, MA
Median income (2000) (because I’m lazy)
Arlington: $64,344, Redwood city: $66,748
Advantage: RWC
Violent crimes/1000 people
Arlington: 1, Redwood City: 4.9
Advantage: Arlington
% of people with some College, BS, Grad Degree
Arlington: 19.7, 24.6, 28.2, Redwood City: 29.7, 21.6, 14
Advantage: Arlington
I’d say that the folks in Arlington, MA are on the whole better educated, safer and live in nicer houses than those in RWC. They do make 5% less money though. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide who’s smarter.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I think you can get a way better burrito in RWC than Arlington, VA. That alone makes RWC the better choice.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I think you can get a way better burrito in RWC than Arlington, MA. That alone makes RWC the better choice.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I nominate this post to go on the “Best Of” list.
That was so funny it was healing.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
You know what this house is missing? MAWBLE KAHLUMS! Put some on your driveway! Speaking of driveways, this house has the garage in the back, I assume there’s a back alley for the cars? This setup is near Ocean & 19th, San Francisco, and it looks really nice there. Here’s another castle with the driveway in back. Only this one is in SF, so you’ll need a moat with sharks.
Arlington vs Redwood City: This is absolutely no contest.
Population: A - 42,389 R - 75,402 (2000 census)
Arlington is so lame it doesn’t merit a 2006 estimate.
Advantage: Depends what you want, smaller town or medium one.
Median house/condo value (2005): A - $498,200 R - $776,900
Advantage: Redwood City by 50%
Racial diversity - Arlington
Races in Arlington:
* White Non-Hispanic (89.8%)
* Chinese (2.0%)
* Hispanic (1.9%)
* Black (1.7%)
* Two or more races (1.6%)
* Asian Indian (1.1%)
* Other race (0.7%)
* Japanese (0.6%)
* Korean (0.5%)
Racial Diversity - Redwood City:
Races in Redwood City:
* White Non-Hispanic (53.9%)
* Hispanic (31.2%)
* Other race (14.0%)
* Two or more races (4.2%)
* Chinese (3.5%)
* Black (2.5%)
* Filipino (1.6%)
* Asian Indian (1.5%)
* American Indian (1.2%)
* Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (0.9%)
* Japanese (0.9%)
* Other Asian (0.6%)
Advantage - Redwood City for being more able to host a Model UN. Also more ethnic restaurants.
Size: A - 5.18 square miles R - 19.5 square miles
Density: A - 8180 people/sq mi R - 3762 people/sq mi
Redwood City is bigger and less crowded!
Elevation: A - 46 feet R - 15 feet.
Now this is misleading. The elevation is the height of city hall. Redwood City has a great section in the west near 280 that is hundreds of feet up. But the east side is in the flood zone. Arlington is all the same. Redwood City wins on diversity again.
% of never married people 15+: A - 33% R - 29.9
Hah! Redwood City is more stable!
Number of sex offenders: A - 2 R - 135.
Ratio of total population to sex offenders: A - 21195:1 R - 543:1
Redwood City wins on diversity again!
Property Taxes: A - $3576 (1.3%) R - $4624 (0.6%)
Redwood City rates are lower! Even if you buy a house there right now you will only pay 1.15%!
Nearest city of over 200,000: A - Boston (8.5 mi), R - Fremont (18 mi)
I’ve got to hand it to Arlington here.
Nearest city of over 1,000,000: A - Bronx NY (215 mi), R - Los Angeles (354 mi)
And Redwood City retakes the win! LA is further but anyone want to argue in favor of the Bronx? Huh?
And in my opinion, this last comparison is the most important.
Average January/July Temperature: A - 30, 73 R - 48, 68
Average Precipitation January/July: A - 4.4 in, 3.5 in R - 3 in, 0
Average January Snowfall: A - 11 in R - 0 in
Average Sunshine Jan/July: A - 52%, 65% R - 48%, 96%
I rest my case.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Winston, most of Redwood city is a dump. That is why a lot of clueless sellers are ridiculed on burbed because they are uneducated.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Arlington medium is only 500k? Pouleece, somehow all those people from Washington likes to tell me that you need to pay 800k there. And I must have been driving in rural Arlington, their houses are huge and they have much more greens, somehow I remember I was in their downtown (which is nothing compared to Redwood city in crowdiness).
May 6th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
rick, you need to pay $800K if you want to live in the special part of Arlington. You know, the part where if you don’t buy it this very second you’ll be priced out forever!
I leave it as an exercise to you why the market says Redwood City is 50% more special.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Somebody is expecting a lot more than a horse for this kingdom:
Listing Price History
Date Price
Apr 09, 2008 $609,000
May 02, 2008 $550,000 <– ouch! 8% haircut!
Sales History
Date Price Appreciation
Mar 31, 2006 $585,000 –
Mar 13, 2007 $526,500 -10.5%/yr
Aug 21, 2007 $400,000 -46.4%/yr
And there’s some funny business going on with these recent sales, including one mortgage company selling to another one last March, and the current owner, the one who thinks this place went up 50% in a less than a year (snicker), bought it direct from the bank.
Oh do, check out the pictures. The garage has arrow slits too, in case you have to mount an attack from the alley.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
How did people sell houses before granite countertops and stainless appliances? Did people stand around and say, “It’s nice, if only the kitchen had a higher mineral content.”
May 6th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
@16 - I think you have Arlington, VA mixed up wtih Arlington, MA. We’re talking about the MA one here.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
What you can’t see is the arsenel and MREs in storage, assault rifles behind curtains, etc., motion detectors, maybe they even have their own Active Denial System, it’s not *that* hard to build for a decent RF engineer.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
@20, Oops! But there you go, people here are cherry picking the cheap places from the east coast.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
@18, don’t you know? It is spring bounce in full force now, we’ve past the bottom, keep wishing lower prices.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
> 18.and the current owner, the one who thinks this place went up 50% in a less than a year (snicker), bought it direct from the bank.
Looks like the owner/speculator/flipper took advice from someone like RE.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
But this castle has a detached stable with more parapets! Think about all the trebuchets you could store in your very own outbuilding!
May 6th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
25.
Think about all the trebuchets you could store in your very own outbuilding!
—
Hm! Isn’t the lot a bit small for that? May be you need a mini-sized ones.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
http://www.burbed.com/2006/02/04/555k-great-potential-in-redwood-city/
http://www.burbed.com/2007/02/04/1-year-of-burbed-lets-follow-up-on-96-buckingham-ave-redwood-city-ca-94063/
I always find it interesting for how many foreclosures and short sales the buyer actually overbid past the asking price. I wonder if other people were priced out of the property.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
That house looks kinda like a taco bell. Redwood City has some nice places on the west side, but right now the entire zip code of 94063 is getting killed. 94063 is the section closest to the 101 and Costco and such. It’s not very nice.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
That house looks kinda like a taco bell.
Thank you! That is exactly what I’ve been trying to remember since this post went up.
It’s missing the little bell thing…
May 7th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I love taco bell!
May 7th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
My God. This house is older than my grandfather…and he’s dead.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
This house is the same age as my dad, and he’s ALIVE. And my dad even lived in a castle for a little while. In France. This castle doesn’t like very French. I bet the French castle had MAWBLE CAWLUMS.