The City of San Carlos for is for sale at $879,950 - includes Caltrain!
578 CEDAR St San Carlos, CA 94070
Price: $879,950
Beds: 2
Baths: 2
Sq. Ft.: 1,590
$/Sq. Ft.: $553
Lot Size: 6,500 Sq. Ft.
Age (Years): 84
Year Built: 1924
Type: Detached Single Family
Style: Contemporary
Stories: 1 Story
Neighborhood: Cordes Etc.
County: San Mateo
MLS#: 805063
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 3 days
This is an oppertunity for owner or an investor, this property appears to be on a Multifamily Residential lot in a great downtown location. R1 lot in a R3 zone, explor the possibilities with this in town home w/ large 3+car garage. R3 use District: Multiple-family dwellings or apartment houses in a single structure, family care home, two family dwellings in a single family structure;
Sweet. You can now buy the City of San Carlos. And if you look carefully, they even thrown in the Caltrain station! Who knew that San Carlos was only 6,500 sqft though.
But seriously, this is a great opportunity. Just think, you can buy this house now, live in it, and then in a few years, when the house prices has doubled, you can refi, tear down, and build a townhouse! Think of all the passive income baby!
Step 1: Buy house
Step 2: ??????
Step 3: Profit!
If this isn’t the best investment opportunity ever, I don’t know what is. But then again, I’m not an expert on building apartments. Could someone help me do the math to demonstrate how this would be immensely profitable?
(Thanks to Burbed anonymous reader)
May 21st, 2008 at 7:40 am
Good Gawd.
This ad easily proves just how dumb some RE agents can be. It’s actually surprising to see the number of blatant grammatical errors and misspellings.I’m no saint myself for this, but seriously- browsers have automatic spell-check built in these days. Would you trust someone selling a million dollar property with the following text?:
“This is an oppertunity
( notice the word… “oppertunity”)
for owner or an investor, this property appears to be
( hmmm… it APPEARS to be, as in perhaps the RE agent doesn’t actually know the property they’re selling? I’d hope if you were selling such an expensive property that you’d know precisely what it is)
on a Multifamily Residential
( Capitalized letters here. Usually, capital letters go at the front of a sentence. Not interspersed at random.)
lot in a great downtown location. R1 lot in a R3 zone, explor
( OMFG!! ” explor” Where’s this person from? 1930’s rural Arkansas?)
the possibilities with this in town home w/ large 3+car garage.
( suggests that more than three cars can be fit in the garage. How many? Are we talking clown cars?)
May 21st, 2008 at 8:20 am
Look at the first picture in the bottom row - it’s got a bidet! That’s classy!
May 21st, 2008 at 9:55 am
Bob,
It’s not necessarily the case that the agent is dumb; he/she could just be a foreign born person.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:06 am
I agree with Bob. This agent (as many others featured on burbed) is an idiot. If I were the seller, I would ask the agent to rewrite the description, use better pictures, or just find somebody else.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:13 am
Many “foreign born” people are perfectly capable of using proper grammar, especially when they are being paid $10,000 to write one paragraph. Hell, I give you a perfect paragraph in ANY language if you pay me $10,000.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:27 am
I also agree with Bob, and would extend his conclusion to include the seller, who ought to be equally motivated to present the property as attractively as possible. The blurb does not read like a non-native speaker’s writing: there are no dropped articles, and subject-verb agreement is consistent. I suspect the author typed it out in a moment of laziness, while trying to converse on a cell phone.
Bob: Don’t forget the run-on sentence at the first, and the inconsistent use of hyphens (the RE got “Multiple-family dwellings” right, but then blew it on “two-family dwellings” and “single-family structure”). Also, a semicolon is a bad thing to end a sentence with;
May 21st, 2008 at 11:41 am
The RE agent might not in fact be dumb, but merely lazy when it comes to writing ads. I also wonder if a RE agent had anything to do with writing the ad. I can easily see something like this being the work of a temp agency worker getting paid $12 an hour to enter hundreds of RE ads. If that’s the case, then I might be a bit more understanding.
But then again, this is close to a million dollar home. You’d think more care would be taken in regards to quality control.Especially something as simple as entering text. Hopefully the owner is aware of the ad and has said something about it.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am
>>But then again, this is close to a million dollar home.
At just $553/sq ft, this is a low end property.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
“The RE agent might not in fact be dumb, but merely lazy when it comes to writing ads.”
Don’t forget uneducated, Bob. I was reviewing financial files earlier in the year and was stunned at how often I saw a high salary (250K to over a million/year) correspond to only a high school education. Every time I checked the occupation, it was RE related: realtors, brokers, builders. There is a giant swath of people who have been living high on the hog who will NEVER come close to reaping those same rewards.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Well,
Considering that RE agents are basically salespeople, of which you’d find in similar occupations such as car, tool, supplies, and insurance sales, naturally that doesn’t require much of an education.
This is what floors me: People who make six figure incomes, who have advanced degrees, who think they’re so smart because they live and want to buy in an expensive area trust an RE agent who likely doesn’t have a degree and naturally wants to make a commission even if that means that every attribute of the market, neighborhood, and house is tilted and construed in a positive manner beneficial to the sale.
I know we blame RE agents for some of the exuberance, but I also blame home buyers who failed to partake in perhaps an hour’s worth of readily available information prior to making the most expensive decision of their lives. Then again, 99% of home buyers buy with mere emotion rather than common and practical common sense.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
>>Considering that RE agents are basically salespeople, of which you’d find in similar occupations such as car, tool, supplies, and insurance sales, naturally that doesn’t require much of an education.
Being in tech, I can tell you that the sales function is critical to any coporation, and the top sales people are among the most valued resources at the company. A good sales person has high “EQ” and understands human psychology. Perhaps some of you are too quick to comment on something you don’t understand.
Coming back to real estate, as in any industry there are different calibers of real estate agents. If you deal with a top tier firm such as Alain Pinel, you’ll likely find seasoned professionals who know how to interact with executive clientel.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:46 pm
There is no excuse for such sloppy work. I wouldn’t purchase from this RE “professional” based upon the inability to use a spell check function. I’m sure the contracts and purchase agreements that they draw up are just as bad. Lack of attention to detail is a sure sign of incompetence.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I love the photos of the kitchen with those harvest gold appliances. Why that kitchen must have had a makeover in 1973!
I cannot believe anyone other than a real estate agent would defend another who can’t be bothered to proofread and spellcheck an ad for an $879K property. Certainly no “tech guy” would do so. Real tech guys are incredibly detail-oriented. If the code won’t run, the product won’t work.
Also real tech guys despise their own salespeople, never mind anyone else’s. Real tech guys bemoan all the promises the salesdroids made to customers about features that don’t (and won’t) exist, products that are six months late, and compatibility that isn’t possible. It’s easy for sales to make promises, they aren’t the ones who have to implement any of them.
Marketing is just as bad — people too slow to write Excel macros, with little brainpower but the ability to look good good in a suit and give a presentation without passing out.
I tell you, when I want to spend $2 million on a house, I sure am impressed by “top-tier seasoned professionals” who can “interact with executive clientel [sic].”
May 21st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Looks like the agent polished the description little bit. Now it says:
May 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Madhaus,
>>Real tech guys are incredibly detail-oriented. If the code won’t run, the product won’t work.
Real tech guys don’t do much documentation, and don’t care for writing in general.
>>Also real tech guys despise their own salespeople, never mind anyone else’s.
The figures you see at the end of each quarter are the direct result of the sales guys’ work. When the numbers are bad, tech guys get laid off.
>>I tell you, when I want to spend $2 million on a house, I sure am impressed by top-tier seasoned professionals who can interact with executive clientel [sic].”
Let’s just say you don’t need to worry about that. You’re lucky to be in 94087.
May 21st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Quote of the day:
“Looks like the agent polished the description little bit”
– by Pralay
Looks like someone didn’t spell-check before “polishing”.
May 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
RE, unfortunately I don’t have Realtor version of dictionary. Can I borrow one from you and get the realtor version of “polishing”?
May 21st, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Pralay,
You don’t say “polished little bit”. You say “polished a little bit”.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Ha ha! Looks like your Realtor version of spell-checker is pretty smart! My browser checks only spellings. Poor me.
BTW, RE, I always enjoy your twisted answers.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Real Estater,
When you polish a turd you just end up with crap on your hands. That is what you’re doing by defending this RE agent. This analogy will also work for the next couple of years as the market completley tanks and you’re still preaching that prices never go down in the Real Bay Area.
Jesus
May 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I guess real estate agents don’t know the difference between spelling and grammar. Carry on your BS RealEstater or what ever you call yourself.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
fremontrenter,
Don’t worry. Pralay can handle “little trick”.
Isn’t it ironic? The person who hates realtors so much would make the perfect realtor: he already writes like one!
May 21st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Can we please move off the spelling/grammar topic?
Thanks.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Sales people lie constantly, and can put a good spin on any piece of crap. With that kind of skill you don’t need documentation or grammar.
As we’ve all witness here, obviously.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Yup, again- WHY perfectly fine, educated people feel that they have to be ’sold’ a house by a salesperson who desperately wants them to buy it is fascinating to me. I totally plan on giving the owners of the house I want cash and forget using an Agent. You DO NOT need them.
By the way- I’ve been at 5-6 different tech companies, and the sales department at all of them had the highest turnover rates. Those sales guys were lucky to be there for more than 5-6 months max. Less if they missed quotas.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Real Estater,
Are you in tech sales, out of curiosity?
May 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
The figures you see at the end of each quarter are the direct result of the sales guys’ work. When the numbers are bad, tech guys get laid off.
Oh, man. I don’t even know what to say. I hope those dumb tech guys are making you a good product, my little friend.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Does Vista fly through Windows?
Hee hee.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Step 1: Buy house
Step 2: ??????
Step 3: Profit!
Then grammar nazis.
Then tech guy (Real Estater) replying.
This is looking more and more like slashdot here…
Could we have the same moderation system by the way?
May 21st, 2008 at 9:25 pm
This is looking more and more like slashdot here…
Could we have the same moderation system by the way?
I’d love their system, but I also want a killfile. Also I want to put tags on comments.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Guys,
Madhaus is here. Do not feed this troll!
May 21st, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Historian,
>>Are you in tech sales, out of curiosity?
No.