This Palo Alto house is calling you a punk ass bitch
2995 Waverley St, Palo Alto 94306 (Midtown)
$1,500,000
* Status: Active
* Bedroom: 1
* Bathroom: 1
* Year Built: 1949
* Lot Size: 11610
* Square Footage: 861
* List Date: 4/9/2008
* Garage Spaces: 1
* MLS#: 800730
ADDRESS ON HOUSE IS 2993. Rare opportunity in “Midtown” area of PA Located on one of Palo Alto’s most desirable streets, this home built in 1949 offers great potential. Lot size 11,610 per county records. Buyer to confirm with the City of Palo Alto regarding any remodeling and/or building possibilies. OPEN SUNDAY Probate sales & subject to overbid.
I thought I’d wrap up the week with a reminder of what it means to live in the Real Bay Area. At $1742 per square foot, this house actually gives many apartments in Manhattan a run for the money (SWEET!).
But the real reason I chose this house is because frankly I appreciate the open candor of the listing. You see, I’m a fairly straightforwards kind of guy - I believe in cutting the b.s. and getting straight down to business. And that’s why I love this listing: “subject to overbid.”
This house only wants real (tech) men (and women) to play The Game. It doesn’t want any of you poseurs or wannabe’s. It’s saying “I’m a Palo Alto house, and you my bitch.” $1.5 mil is going to cut it for this sweet piece of Midtown lovin’. Get read to man up, and spend $2 mil ‘cuz this is going into OVERBID baby! OVERBID!
June 6th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Wow. This is impressive. 1.5 million clams for a 1/1. I do beleive that the RBA might be a winner here in the special sweepstakes….
June 6th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Anybody buying this will be tearing that shack down and building an edifice unto himself
June 6th, 2008 at 9:26 am
This has old people written all over it. The crazy random shrubbery is evidence of this. No doubt some old farts bought this back in the day for 30k and now wanna’ be millionaires. There’s now way in hell that this thing is worth even half what the asking price is.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:48 am
As opposed to those houses which are not subject to overbid…..
June 6th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I thought it was more that only a “real man” would be secure enough in his masculinity to live in a tiny pink house. And pay $1.5 million for it.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Today, Redfin says:
ADDRESS ON HOUSE IS 2993. COURT DATE IS JUNE 27, 2008. FIRST OVERBID IS $1,428,500. Rare opportunity in “Midtown” area of PA this home built in 1949 offers great potential. Lot size 11,610 per county records. Buyer to confirm with the City of Palo Alto regarding any remodeling and/or building possibilies.
I think we have a math-challenged realtor here. How is $1.4M an “overbid?”
BTW, it’s assessed at $70k so yeah, it’s an old person’s house. Or was, considering it’s a probate sale.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
My wife and I checked this place out about a month ago. It looks like an over-priced POS in the photo and even more so in real life. Pretty much a tear-down and the yard is odd-shaped so building on it is a little constrained. There is also a flood control thingy close by. The two listings agents sat on their folding chairs the entire time we and others walked through and they put in no effort whatsoever like this thing was going to sell in minutes.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Probate? Obviously an old person who didn’t think about putting the shack in a living trust and skipping that exercise in frustration. I bet it was a crazy cat lady, because the photographer wouldn’t set foot in the house due to the piles of newspapers and the smell.
Zillow says this house is only worth 1.06 mil. And that’s a long, lean lot. You could set up your own shuttle railroad line on it.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Note to all Googlaires: Tear Down available in Palo Alto. And to think my grandparents owned over an acre on El Camino Real in Palo Alto in the late 1950’s. Damn.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Actually we’ve been to the open house and my wife wants me to get it for her because of the lot and the neighborhood- the lot is absolutely gigantic the size of two lots almost- Waverly is a real nice street, although it’s not on the “good” side of Oregon Expressway the midtown side is definitely “up and coming”- The house is a complete tear down, and yes its a probate sale, owner deceased, proceeds go to the heirs. I took some pics- I’ll see if I can dig them up and I’ll send them to out host
Cheers,
RemodelNerd
June 7th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
RemodelNerd, man, are people like you for real? What are you thinking? For that kind of money, I could buy a kingdom in another state. Oh, sorry, I forgot. I’m not special enough for Shallow Alto because I’m not rich enough to throw away a cool $1.4 million to raze this architecturally boring dump and build my own sterile Taj Mahal, as so many have done (check out the freeway overpass going up at Cowper/Seale). But then again, who says wealth=taste?
June 7th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Remodelnerd - thanks for the props to my street and hood. There is a really awful shack on Waverley that has an open house this Sunday - the lot is only about 6700 sq ft, but its only listed for $925 (which will clearly be bid up).
Remember - Steve Jobs lives on Waverley and you can to.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:19 am
PA Homeowner,
6700 is definitely a buildable lot. That $925K price is just the opening bid. There will be lots of people interested for sure.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:25 am
And that’s a long, lean lot. You could set up your own shuttle railroad line on it.
———-
Good for your kids. You can install Thomas and Friends Railroad there. Good school district and Thomas Train. That’s good enough reason to ‘overbid’.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:27 am
buckborden,
This seems crazy to you because you don’t see the potential. This particular lot is so long it runs across 2 streets. If you break it down the middle, you can build 2 houses on there, one facing each street. Each of those houses will have market value of over $2M. Of course, alternatively you can build one large mansion. Buying this property is the same as picking up $1 million dollars.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Realestater - I doubt that this lot can be subdivided - its really narrow and I think its already the front part of or next to a flag lot. if there was potential to subdivide it, I am sure the ad would have bragged about that.
I think that PA allows “in-law” cottages to be build on lots over 8000 sq ft, so that could be built, but the land can’t be subdivided.
I am sure the 6700 sq ft lot will be overbid - probably to 1.25 or so.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
PA Homeowner,
I just checked the lot on Zillow. It looks like there is no street running behind the lot, so you’re right. It won’t be possible to divide the lot and build homes back to back (facing each street).
However, there are still lots of possibilities, e.g. putting a second unit in the back as a flag lot (would require city approval), or just recreational use (swimming pool, tennis court, etc.).
Any idea why they created these long lots in the first place?
June 8th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Not sure why these goofy narrow lots were made - in most of midtown, Kipling runs between Waverley and Cowper, so the lot would have been split by the street, but Kipling doesn’t run thru this block - it might be because of the church on the corner, don’t know.
There is a house on Waverley a few houses down from this one and next to the creek where the city allowed the owner to build a house behind his house, but that lot looks wider than this one and the total size of that lot is bigger.
I just don’t see much of a premium being paid for the 11,000 sq ft lot here - if they get the $1.5 million they are asking, its $136 per sq ft of lot. The standard 6250 size lots have been selling for around 1.2 to 1.3 million, or about $200 per sq ft.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
>>just don’t see much of a premium being paid for the 11,000 sq ft lot here - if they get the $1.5 million they are asking, its $136 per sq ft of lot. The standard 6250 size lots have been selling for around 1.2 to 1.3 million, or about $200 per sq ft.
I’m pretty sure the width of the lot is 50 feet. One can build a path along the side of the house to the rear, and put another structure back there. I’ve seen it done, and it can work well. If this property were located in North Palo Alto, then the premium will be there, because that’s where the well heeled want to build their grand estates. Mid-town is more of a moderate area (relatively speaking).
June 8th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
A relative used to live on this street, had a very nice house that sold for 2.5m in 04. They spent 400k upgrading the house over 20 years.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
And they lived in the better part of Weaverly, where the execs live. I guess with the home prices in RBA keep rising, it must worth 3+m by now.