Who lives here in Campbell? (When stagers attack!)
630 W Sunnyoaks Ave, Campbell 95008(Campbell)
$695,000
Status: Active
Bedroom: 3
Bathroom: 2&1/2
Year Built: 2005
Lot Size: 3484
Square Footage: 1630
List Date: 1/20/2008
Garage Spaces: 2Description of 630 W Sunnyoaks Ave, CampbellNEW PRICE,3 YEARS OLD AND TOP CONDITION, hardwood floor main level, large covered side yard, granite counters,gas range, stainless frig & appliances.Designer carpet, easy rise staircase to stunning upstairs with 3 large bedrooms + laundry room. Skylight, upgraded plumbing,2 car attached garage. Best location for Los Gatos/Campbell shops and restaurants. Convenient to Hwy 85/17
Top condition indeed. Let’s take a look at some photos, and see why long time Burbed reader Brendan
sent this in:
OMG. Who lives in this house? Is it the Pope? (No, he lives in Willow Glen remember?)
Why, of course, Sherlock Holmes lives here! Just think, you come home from a long day of work at eBay as one of their fraud detectives, you take off your hat, put on your robe and puff away at your pipe. You admire the Greek and Roman antiquities you acquired - appreciating how they were all made in places like Shenzen. You sip on your glass of aged port and wonder… what is Moriarty294’s next move? Will he pose as a Nigerian buyer? A high ranking Nigerian military official? Will he collude with others to rig a sale? So many questions - and luckily you have strong deductive reasoning skills. After all, you deduced that this house would be a great buy!
You’ll then think about stagers, and what happens when you give them a bucket of money and say “Make my place look fantastic.”
Frankly, if these photos don’t sell you on buying this house? I don’t know what will.
UPDATE: Fixed a typo. Also, a Burbed reader reports that this actually isn’t staging - that this is how the place actually looks as per the seller. WHOA.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:32 am
You mean Shenzhen…
May 15th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Frankly, if these photos don’t sell you on buying this house? I don’t know what will.
———-
Actually it looks like a pretty good staging. The quality of photography is pretty good. Indoor pictures are taken with good camera and flash (not a cheap point-and-shoot kind of camera). I think our eyes got used to with this kind of poor quality pictures so much that it look overwhelming when we see listing with better pictures.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Wow…. talk about OVER staged! It’s almost as if the stager got kicked out of his/her storage locker, and needed a place to store all of their overflow stock. I haven’t seen a house staged this badly since 5 years ago when we were househunting ourselves. We passed on a lovely small ranch-style home because the entire place was set in a faux African/safari motif.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:33 am
This house is actually NOT staged, at least by a professional stager. We went through an open house in Sept ‘07, and it looked just like this. We commented to the realtor that the house won’t sell as long as it looks like a cluttered museum. The realtor’s response was that everything belonged to the seller, and the seller did not want to move anything out or make any changes to the decor.
The house actually looks more cluttered in person than it does in the photos - there is not an inch of extra space on the walls or floors.
Also, I think this was originally listed in the $800k range. At this price it is a bargain! Someone should snap this up quickly. Hahahaha!
May 15th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Thanks readers. I’ve updated the post to fix the typo and to note that this might not be staging.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:10 am
This is actually staging for a garage sale because the sellers are going to lose their shorts–remember, they overpaid!
May 15th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I am speechless, how can they sell their house so cheap? I will totally bid 1.1m for it, now they make me wonder if there is something wrong with the house.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Maybe they didn’t bring a Professional Staging Service in to dress the place up, but that doesn’t mean it’s not staged…
I was selling my place back in Pennsylvania. I dressed it up really nice and got no action. I moved everything out, and THAT DAY I got an offer.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I am speechless, how can they sell their house so cheap?
———
Well, this one is sitting on market since January. I am sure it started with over million and eventually dropped down to latest “NEW PRICE”.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Listing Price History
Date Price Jan 20, 2008 $709,000
Mar 11, 2008 $695,000
May 01, 2008 $689,000
May 15th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
You have to love the meaningless price drops. If no one offered 689 when you listed it at 695k, it is unlikely someone is going to pay 689k now. Now when it sits on the market another month they can drop it some more and they will never sell the place til the market bottoms out
May 15th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
sg, those pricing drops make me wonder if the place is bank-owned. Check out the last sale price:
Jan 27, 2006 $715,000
Even Zillow’s estimate is only $589K, and they’re notoriously over market. Is the extra stock from the Bombay Company really worth an extra hundred K?
How many of you figured out from the listing description that this place was a townhouse, not a single-family detached? The last couple of listings from East SV (definitely non-RBA) were on lots just as small.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
You mean…this house…isn’t…staged??? Unbelievable.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
LOL. Funny stuff.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
This guy probably owns a furniture store that went out of business.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
madhaus,
It is probably a short-sale. The AD does not say “Real Estate/Bank-owned”, yet!
May 15th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I can’t figure out if this is a short sale. Property shark has no loan paperwork on the place. The recorders office has two: a 1/27/06 mortgage security deed between the owner and World Savings Bank, and a 5/15/06 deed between the owner and Western Federal Credit Union. Unfortunately, the recorders office will tell you there’s paperwork but not what’s in it so I don’t know if the second loan is a second/HELOC or a refi. Also doesn’t say how much the owner borrowed either time.
I find it interesting that the previous owner sold the unit back to Sunnyoaks Development on 1/19/06, which in turn sold it to the current owner the following week. The second sale is contingent with the mortgage paperwork so I don’t get why PropertyShark missed it.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
hey burbed, I set up my Gravatar image and it shows on preview but not upon posting!
May 15th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Gravatar’s? Hm… I hadn’t heard about those.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Eh. Call me a sentimentalist but it looks like a grandma’s house. I’m sorry for whoever it is if they need to sell. They obviously took a lot of trouble over it…
May 15th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Gravatars
May 15th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Eh. Call me a sentimentalist but it looks like a grandma’s house.
The owner’s first name is Larry.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Don’t confuse me with piffling details, madhaus. Probably short for Laura. And now she’ll be flying out of windows, poory thing.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I wonder how she waters her own lawn with that walker getting in the way. *smacks head* Oh, silly me! It’s a townhouse! She doesn’t even have her own lawn! She’s living cold in winter and paying a mortage at the same time!
May 16th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
It looks a little too “old world parlor” to be staged. The staging I’ve seen usually either looks pseudo-modern with smaller than normal furniture (to give the impression of size) or looks kind of Pottery Barn.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
It’s new in this month’s Architectural Digest: Grandma Chic!
May 16th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
why are microwaves listed as part of a house?
why can a microwave be purchased for 30 dollars and is listed as part of a home’s ammenities?
how about a housecleaner for an hour to clean the dirt off the floor from the listing agent walking thru the house would cost more than the “microwave”
anyone want a used microwave?
if you take that microwave out of the house… how much does that reduce the sale price? antiquated idea?
May 17th, 2008 at 12:20 am
why are microwaves listed as part of a house?
why can a microwave be purchased for 30 dollars and is listed as part of a home’s ammenities?
It’s probably built-in and thus comes with the house, like the dishwasher. Those built-ins are not $30 units. Usually they install over the stove and connect up to the exhaust outtake. The better units run $700 and up, you can get decent ones for less if you buy midrange brands or discontinued models. Installation is pricey too.