Story writing contest for a Cupertino house
728 Stendhal Ln, Cupertino
$1,100,000
* Status: Active
* Bedroom: 4
* Bathroom: 2
* Year Built: 1961
* Lot Size: 6000
* Square Footage: 1516
* List Date: 4/1/2008
* Garage Spaces: 1
* MLS#: 788429
*
Description of 728 Stendhal La, Cupertino
Charming Cupertino Eichler-styled home, Features include 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, Wood Ceiling with Foam Roof, modern kitchen, spacious counters and lots of cupboard space, large living/dining room for entertaining. This home is perfect for a large family with school age kids - schools are within walking distance. Large front atrium with glass throughout for viewing common areas. Internet Access.
Sweet! It’s a see through home. And it’s got a foam roof. (Does that mean asteroids will bounce off of it? What the heck?)
But wait… there’s more!
Alright Burbed readers! It’s Friday! That means it’s: “Write a story day”
My challenge to you: write a short story that explains what’s going on in these photos, why this person is selling, and what the guy in the photo saying to the potential customers.
Ready? Get set! Go!
May 9th, 2008 at 6:58 am
Are these really the photos being used to sell a 1.1 million dollar home?
May 9th, 2008 at 7:21 am
The roof in an Eichler home is usually a foam core topped with tar and gravel. This makes it lightweight, water-tight, and easy to mass produce. It was quite an advancement back in the 1950’s.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:54 am
The kitchen picture looks like a crime-scene photography. Drawers and dishwasher are open - as if the thief was desperately looking for something.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Is the guy in the kitchen in front of his cheap window air conditioner making a sales pitch?
What’s up with that?
May 9th, 2008 at 9:02 am
This just goes to show how delusional these home owners-and their agents-are, even in this environment. And all potential buyers should take these photos as an insult to their intelligence. What moron would spend 1,000,000 to buy this dump?
And that picture with the guy in it, is probably trying to convince everybody, yes it is still liveable in here!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:59 am
If you like Eichlers this seems relatively reasonable. The foam roof is a big plus compared to ones that don’t have any insulation. Of course the disclosure packet will probably tell us that it has a 50 year old furnance, radiant heater water leaks every where, and that bathrooms are the originals.
I am always amazed though that people don’t clean thier house before taking pictures
May 9th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I am always amazed though that people don’t clean thier house before taking pictures
————
Or at least a clean and wrinkle-free quilt/bed-sheet on bed.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am
You know, that is a nice unpretentious little house, perfect for a small family, & I’d totally spend $300k to live in it. $350k if the roof doesn’t leak.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Okay, I’m going to make an attempt at writing a story from the point of view of the seller:
Welcome to my great Eichler style mansion! Here in the entranceway we have some nice toys. This is a great place for your kids to play!
Here is my kitchen! Look at how many dishes it can store! There is a great vintage dish washer too! Aren’t the drawers and pantries great? Not every kitchen has these storage spaces!
Now onto the bedrooms. Here is the master with the nice sliding doors that gives you a great view of the grass in the back. Isn’t it quaint?
Now the other bedroom belongs to my kid. It fits the baby pen very neatly!
Now this is my office. I look for aliens and government conspiracies here. See all the papers tacked on the walls? Those are clues and locations of abductions! This is why my roof is foam, it’s satellite-proof.
Sorry about the pictures being a little tilted. My hand was hurt in an accident where I burned it on my bong.
Now don’t you just want to hand me 1.1 million dollars for this lovely place?
——–
disclaimer: This story is fictional for the purpose of the burbed contest. I have no idea who the guy in the picture is and I’m 88% sure he’s not a pothead.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Wait… they’ve fitted 4 BR into 1500 sqft?
May 9th, 2008 at 11:59 am
This is the bay area. You can get 4 br in to 1200 sqft.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Mountain-View/330-MOFFETT-Blvd-94043/home/1392174
or in the not so real bay area you can do sub 1100.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Daly-City/59-MONTEBELLO-Dr-94015/home/2013303
Can anyone get a 4 bd under 1k sq ft?
May 9th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
For sale: $1.1 million garbage dumpster, FREE garbage included. Has window AC.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
it’s not that hard to fit 4 bedrooms in 1500 square feet. A lot of smaller bedrooms I have seen are like 10 by 10 or 10 by 12. So that means the room is only 120 square feet. The baby’s room in the pics look even smaller.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I’m pretty sure we’ve found the house of the “You Suck At Photoshop” guy, alert the media!
May 9th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
>>I’m pretty sure we’ve found the house of the “You Suck At Photoshop” guy, alert the media!
Does it matter? You’re looking at a millionaire!
May 9th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I was working in my home office, diligently day trading and using my home equity to fund these trades when my little girl released a mass of gremlins into the home. They rampaged through the kitchen, and were riding the kiddie bikes everywhere. I had to take the marlin off the wall to chase them out of the home.
Bad gremlins Bad!!! They even jumped on my bed!
After that horrid fight, I had to cool off in the front of the AC unit over the kitchen sink. It’s quite a nice placement.
Buy my house please, my palms are sweaty…
May 9th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I actually know 2 different families who live on the same block as this house, and one of those houses will be up for sale in a month. Since this one’s been sitting for 38 days without moving, I would say this Rancho Rinky-Nada beauty is a tad overpriced. And once again, dare I say it? These are not Real Cupertino Schools (Sedgewick Elem, Hyde Middle, Cupertino HS).
Here’s My Story:
It was another night with no stars. The marine layer covered the sky and left everything chilly, including the corpse in the driveway. The beat cop turned his notes over to me and went off to canvass the neighbors. But I knew it would be a waste of time. Nobody’s ever home around here, everyone working all day at their 60 hours a week engineering jobs and the kids parked in after school programs. Maybe there’d be a Chinese or Indian family with a grandma at home, but she wouldn’t be able to tell us a thing in English.
I looked in vain for a front door. The house was an Eichler, which meant cheap construction playing at Frank Lloyd Wright, but it also meant the entry was hidden behind a seven foot wooden gate. Eichlers had huge sheets of single-pane glass, and that let the neighbors see too much. If anyone was home to talk, they could have missed a murder in front of their own garage.
I found the gate itself, painted the same ugly blue-gray as the rest of the exterior. Fortunately, it was not locked. The front door stood open. The entryway was strewn with toys, but I didn’t get a sense of how many kids lived there yet. Not so many that they were running a preschool but at least two of the rugrats.
I called out but nobody answered. I couldn’t figure out why the front door was open if no one was home, and the uniform said he’d already interviewed a man here. I passed through the front entryway, imagining some ditzy real estate foof shouting “Light and Bright” at the high-ceilinged entry. No front hall closet, instead coats hung from hooks right on the wall. I saw a brochure at a small table. The house was for sale. For a goddamned $1.1 million.
Would someone kill over this ugly shack, with its single-pane energy-leaking windows and its horrible heating system?
I found the guy in the kitchen, looking as proud as a fourth grader who came in second in the spelling bee when he expected to be knocked out early. He knew about the stiff in his driveway from his earlier interview, but other than that claimed he’d been working and hadn’t heard a thing. He didn’t know who the dead guy was, had never seen him in the neighborhood. Yes, there had been realtor activity, but they had been told to call first and no one had come today. No one had come all week. The house had been on the market for more than a month and he was going to change agencies. He showed me the whole house, describing why some lucky family should be more than willing to drop seven digits on what was essentially a big garden shed. A light and bright garden shed.
It was in the baby’s room that I found my first clue. A cat box. Who the hell puts a cat box in a baby’s room? But there it was, same blue as the exterior paint, in the corner right of the crib. I didn’t think this dude had a baby and furthermore, some of the other items didn’t add up.
Why were the kitchen drawers open when I came in? He said he was working in his office, but the computer was turned off. Why did I feel vertigo looking at the back porch? And why did the kitchen suddenly look updated when I turned around and went through it again?
After inquiring as to the whereabouts of his wife and kids, and getting no definitive answers, I decided to pull out my Miranda card. Sometimes you just get a sense about these things, and this case just stunk. There was no way his shack was worth a million in this market. I doubted that anyone else lived there but him, and that the baby fittings were what the real estate trade calls “staging.” And I strongly suspected that the stiffy in his driveway was probably the agent who wanted to cut the price to $925,000.
Okay, what do I win?
May 9th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Just “delurked” to say that was a great story
Thanks for the laugh!
May 9th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Brian Says:
“What moron would spend 1,000,000 to buy this dump?”
All morons would spend that $1mil and more — that’s how we got into this mess in the first place.
Us normal people know better and more morons are being educated (the hard way) every day thank the Realtard Gods.
Rob
May 9th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
“when in rome… put an 85 dollar air-conditioner in the window above the kitchen sink… and praise the gods to get 1.1 mil…”
May 9th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Great story Madhaus.
Is there way to add that soccer-mom minivan into the story?
May 9th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Dear potential buyer:
I am smart enough to know that if I leave this dump on the market long enough that eventually some fool will actually pay me 10 or 20 times what I paid for it in 1950 or so (well, OK, so my parents gave it to me because it was such an eyesore and their friends were making fun of them). All the more reason for me to want to sucker you because suckers are alive and well in the RBA right now. I know what you’re thinking: this guy will NEVER get what he’s asking (do people REALLY THINK THAT?). What the heck–it will be CLOSE to a mil, I guarantee it. I’m going to make a KILLING anyway, because SOMEBODY out there is going to be stupid, AND I KNOW IT, AND SO DOES MY AGENT. HA, HA, HA, HA! You’re all a bunch of suckers!
May 9th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Rob,
The reason housing prices is the way it is, is because there are enough “morons” out there willing to pay the price. If not $1.1M, at least $900K. It’s really not the realtor’s fault. The realtor is not paying for the house, and certainly the realtor cannot force the client to buy the house. Somewhere, there’s someone out there who’ll take a look at this house and say: This is what I can afford. I’ll buy this house. This kind of story repeats every single day. This is how a market is made.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
OK, RealEstater, then this market consists of MORONS. What else could explain out of sight prices, especially for garbage such as this? If this is a desirable home, then anyone who would conceive of spending a million bucks this way must be the dumbest kind of person, regardless of income or education. If that is the kind of market we are in, I’m SOOOOOO glad to be a renter, and will be for a looooong time.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
>>If this is a desirable home, then anyone who would conceive of spending a million bucks this way must be the dumbest kind of person
A million bucks isn’t what it used to be. These days if you live in a 1 million dollar house in the Bay Area, you are not necessarily a dumb person, just a middle class person.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
The former middle class didn’t die, it just faded into its million-dollar homes…
May 10th, 2008 at 6:58 am
Madhouse, great story.
Yup, I don’t know why anyone would want to buy this piece of crap for 1 millllllllioon daaaahlors.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:53 am
How about 1 million pesos for this tool shed?
May 10th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Looked this house up on Zillow
Last time sold: 11/08/1999: $500,000
Scary thought: Apparently also listed in the zip code and Cupertino at the “median” price
• 95014 ZIP code $1,175,500
• Cupertino $1,175,500
So question: did they overpay in 1999 or is it reasonable to get 8%+ per year (over 9 years compounded interest) in increase in their “investment”?
What is a reasonable rate of return on a house?
May 10th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
What is a reasonable rate of return on a house?
Bay Area? Probably at least 10%.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
On the original photos, there’s a dude in the kitchen telling us why we should buy the house.
On the redfin site, the dude is not in the kitchen but he left his beer on the counter.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Just unlurking again to ask WHY Eichlers are such a big deal with some folks to begin with. I grew up in Foster City (we moved there in ‘64, parents finally moved north in ‘96) and while we did not live in one, we had many, many friends/neighbors/schoolmates who lived in Eichlers. I mostly remember them being FREEZING inside and usually smelly - kitchen odors seemed to make their way throughout the structure and permeate into the drywall or something. That said, I shudder at the thought if this one was actually being used as a daycare - probably reeks of old diapers!
May 10th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
***madhaus Says:
May 10th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
On the redfin site, the dude is not in the kitchen but he left his beer on the counter.***
A brewskie…or possibly a urine sample left for his parole officer??? the mind boggles.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
@ Madhous,
Your story rules! You win my vote.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Eichlers are like Edsels, they have been around long enough to inspire a cult of hardcore fans. The open floorplan can be attractive if you like a lot of space and light, but they cost a fortune to heat or cool, for obvious reasons.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
@ Eichler:
How about a 6 bedroom in 1000 sq ft?
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Oakland/1714-13th-St-94607/home/1457121
May 10th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
6 BR in 100 sqt, and…
Used currently as two units with combined rental income of $2350/month.
& a ton of exterior shots. I can’t even imagine what the inside looks like. You too can be a slumlord!
Madhaus, that was an excellent story.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
>>Last time sold: 11/08/1999: $500,000
>>So question: did they overpay in 1999 or is it reasonable to get 8%+ per year (over 9 years compounded interest) in increase in their “investment”?
Easy rule of thumb: Bay Area doubles every 10 years. This house is somewhat ahead of schedule. Somewhere between $900K and $1M would be more in line with the market.
Another way to look at it: You can only overbid for BA house. You can never overpay for it.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:29 am
[...] is the reasonable rate of return on a house? Story writing contest for a Cupertino house [Burbed.com] Elsie Says: May 10th, 2008 at 12:21 [...]
May 11th, 2008 at 7:54 am
The disclosure sheet may tell you about the 35-45 year old owner’s son who never moved out, lives on the couch, and shoots heroin all day. Or not. You’ll get to find out on your own!
May 11th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Has Cupertino doubled every ten years, or is that not part of the bay area? I’m thinking of a house that was purchased new in 1988 for $450K that is now worth about $1.2M. Yes, it has almost tripled, but that is not “doubled every ten years” because then it would be worth $1.8M today. ($405K to $900K to $1.8M)
May 13th, 2008 at 4:42 am
[...] of Friday’s Cupertino Story Writing Contest Story writing contest for a Cupertino house [Burbed.com] It was another night with no stars. The marine layer covered the sky and left everything chilly, [...]