Can you get to Home Depot in your sleep? This house is for you!
427 Larkspur Dr, East Palo Alto 94303 (East of U.S. 101)
$279,500
* Status: Active
* Bedroom: 3
* Bathroom: 1
* Year Built: 1954
* Lot Size: 5100
* Square Footage: 1020
* List Date: 3/19/2008
* Garage Spaces: 2
* MLS#: 785751Can you get to Home Depot in your sleep? This cute but tired 50’s era rancher will really pay off for the diligent investor or first time home owner willing to put in the work. Decent size lot with lots of off street parking and still plenty of room left over for a front lawn. Tankless water heater = energy efficiency positive! Offered “as is”. BE CREATIVE, MAKE OFFERS!!!
Wow… the steals in East Palo Alto keep rolling in! When they talk about EPA having a high crime rate, what they’re talking about is how houses are going for a steal!
This house comes with a tankless water heater. Amazing. And, since it’s conveniently located within walking distance to Home Depot, you can easily furnish the rest of this house with pipes, walls, and more.
Most notable is the challenge the Realtor is presenting you: “BE CREATIVE, MAKE OFFERS!!!”.
Clearly, just offering a high price won’t help - might I recommend offering to sign a contract promising to feed the squirrels, or choosing one of the many other helpful tips I offer here to help buyers stand out?
Come on - you live in Silicon Valley. You can think of something innovative to do here!
July 10th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Prices are rising and bid wars are back, jump in now or be priced out…
July 10th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Be creative means creative financing, it is difficult these days and therefore you need to be creative.
That add-on garage looks strange, probably just attached with a couple thousand bucks of shad from Costco.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:23 am
If looking at just the house alone and nothing else-like the fact that it is in the oh-so-special Bay Area, then this thing is absolutely hideous. I too am curious about the garage. Did they simply never finish the outside walls? It looks like they ran out of siding and just slapped on some leftover battleship paint over the whole thing. In fact, I used to mix paint back when I was in college, and if you mix all of the leftover paint from screw-ups and bad cans, then that’s about the color you get. City contractors buy the stuff by the drum and paint over freeway Graffiti with it. That’s what this house appears to be painted with.
Admittedly, I know nothing about EPA. How bad is the crime? Are we talking unsafe to walk around during the day, or safe during the day, but a bunch of bullet dodging at night. Either way, the house is ugly as hell and 200k overpriced.
By the way I HATE when realtors mention INVESTORS in the ad. It conjurs of pictures of Elmer Fudd nodding in agreement. ” huh-huh-h-h-h… I’ma good whittle investor, huh-h-h-h-h!”
July 10th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Soooo, if we had taken burbed’s advice and bought that 3/1 in Cupertino (in the linked article on being creative), do you really think it would have appreciated enough to pull out $300K of equity by now? It sold for $1.03m. And the google streetview of it shows the little nets and sticks where the McMansion will be going up.
That’s great, they bought at the peak and booked the contractor at the peak, too! Guaranteed underwater before they even tear the original place down!
Why that’s such a brilliant strategy, I’d suggest trying it with today’s featured property. It looks much better than the Cupertino house, imagine how much that McMansion will be worth!
PS - Gravatars rule!
July 10th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I suspect that anyone shelling out 1 mil for a POS only to tear it down probably doesn’t care about the money they’ve lost. Hate to say it.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:06 am
What is this, East Palo Alto week?
I don’t get how this is a good value when you can get something like this for the same price, that’s not in the crime capital of the Bay Area.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Bruno/673-6th-Ave-94066/home/1096453
July 10th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I don’t get how this is a good value when you can get something like this for the same price, that’s not in the crime capital of the Bay Area.
And then you link to the absolute worst neighborhood in the northern peninsula.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Brian, that San Bruno place had a 22% haircut, too! And so conveniently located near the freeway, not to mention the airport runway!
July 10th, 2008 at 10:44 am
this house was a great investment for somebody. Yeah its EPA, but near the golf course which has some potential to improve. The revenues EPA is getting from the Home Depot Ikea center there is helping them to clean things up at least a little. I think the law offices on the immediate west side of 101 (formerly “whiskey gulch”) are also EPA, all that tax revenue helps.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:49 am
“cute but tired rancher”: we are still talking about houses right?
Burbed, when I type < twice in a row (”less than” sign) in your message box, it crashes my browser. Voodoo? Or bad JavaScript?
July 10th, 2008 at 11:03 am
If it was such a fantastic investment, then why are they selling it for 279K? I think Elmer Fudd screwed up on this little beut’.
The only people who will touch this are ghetto residents. 279k is still too high for that sort of income. Not what I’d call “an investment opportunity”, and especially not in a down market.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I’m not claiming it to be a great property, for under $300,000 you’re lucky to get anything in the west bay.
However, I don’t see why you would ever live somewhere with 3X the violent crime rate, horrible schools when you have alternatives.
EPA has a 9.01 violent crime rate per 1000. It’s the ghetto. San Bruno isn’t. It’s far more like it’s neighbors than EPA.
San Bruno (3.22) is closer to its neighbors Millbrae (2.05), Burlingame (2.71) San Mateo (3.54) and South SF (3.75) before I’d put it in the EPA undesirable category.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:09 am
“Can you get to Home Depot in your sleep” could be sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands,” also same tune that mrbogue provided for that bizarre LA-land commercial.
Can you get to Home Depot in your sleep?
If you check this house’s bones, will they seep?
Can a quickie coat of paint
Really remove all the taint
A bad neighborhood puts on your castle keep.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Well… 300k sounds cheap only because the avg. home shopper has forgotten that 300k just a few years ago was considered ‘high’ in many parts of the BA. This thing is still overpriced.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Madhaus,
The Google picture is very old, at least 10 months old. Cupertino probably hasn’t fallen yet (prices are still rising in that neighborhood according to propertyshark), though some parts of it might have.
I think a googler purchased 21135 Hazelbrook for 2.1mil, I was checking that house out and they were negotiating with the owner. That house (still constructing in your picture), on the other hand, does give you a feel that it worths 2.1mil. The owner bought it for 950k, bulldoze it, and build a mini-mansion that covers almost half of the 10,000 sf lot, with top of line material and very good architecture design.
I don’t know how much his take was, but building min-mansion in affluent areas still works if you have the pocket, expertise, and can take the risk. Back in ‘97 mini-mansions in places like WG were already selling for 800k.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
rick there are so many mini-mansions going up in Cupertino, especially where the crappiest houses are now, that soon there will be a Preservation Society To Keep Crappy Crackerbox Houses From Being Bulldozed. Just you wait.
Also, thanks for the context on Hazelbrook.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
The virus is spreading from EPA to RBA — Yikes
19060 MEIGGS LN Cupertino, 95014 $768,000
521 DRISCOLL PL Palo Alto, 94306 $899,950
1561 LOCHINVAR AV Sunnyvale, 94087 $730,000
1592 MALLARD WY Sunnyvale, 94087 $829,000
July 10th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
bob- You don’t know anything about investment real estate and particularly not here. The only reason this house is being offered at 279K is because banks are selling at that level and there is a complete ROUT in lower priced properties going on. East san jose is pricing at 99/2000 levels. What does that mean to the good areas of the bay area, NOTHING. But if you can find a bad area property that you think has some smidgeon of a chance to turn into a better area its worth a try at these prices which are artificially depressed due to the banking situation. My personal preference for this type of property is the downtown san jose area- I think there is a little more potential there than EPA because of the charm of the houses and the determination the city of san jose has into turning downtown into a nice place.
Madhaus- I see somebody else has already replied but I concur with that cupertino shack probably being a decent investment for somebody. First of all there was a housing market dip in Nov/Dec 06 that a lot of people don’t remember so it was not a bad time to buy- of course it was an individual thing because some owners kept their prices high and that was that, but with others they acknowledged the market and dealt with it. You are basically paying for a 10K lot with some plumbing and thats it. I think that place would sell for around $1mm today also.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Meiggs Lane is so awful in the photos that burbed should feature it as another acid trip. Hideous. Hard to decide which is the worst photo, the front, the back “lawn” or the prominently featured roll of TP in the bathroom. The unmade bed is another winner. Also it’s in Rancho Rinkydinky, not “real” Cupertino.
Lochivar is not CUSD, so it doesn’t count as real 94087. Mallard is Stocklmeier/Cup, but the listing’s been pulled. Did someone pay cash for it? The 2006 property tax was (get ready)… $824. So it clearly hasn’t been touched for 35 years.
And Driscoll isn’t a house, it’s a townhouse or maybe even a condo. The property listing calls it an “attached single family.” What the heck is that? Comes on a whopping 2178 sf lot.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
btw this house is sold
http://www.redfin.com/CA/East-Palo-Alto/427-LARKSPUR-Dr-94303/home/1633922
they dropped the price on May 30 to 279K from 299K and it sold… my guess is it would have sold at 299 also, the market for these did a turn sometime in June.
Theres a lot in EPA on redfin though, I really don’t know EPA too well. I think you want to stay away from university and moving to the south is good (not completely sure though).
July 10th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
WG, the Cupertino shack I linked to was mentioned in the “acid trip” article suggesting you buy it and pull out $300K in equity when you refinance. What do you think, would that work in 2007 as well as it did in 2005? Also, the 3 other houses on that street had already been torn down and rebuilt with the usual instant palaces, so whatever they’re planning should fit in nicely.
Was the Nov/Dec 06 “dip” just a seasonal thing (prices usually go down that time of year) or something worse?
Seriously, there are still a number of incredibly awful houses in Cupertino, not only in Rancho Rinconada but also in the Monta Vista/Post Office area west of Bubb and south of Stevens Creek. I’m driving my older kid to camp at Monta Vista every day and pass through that neighborhood around Orange and Byrne, these places really do look like shacks and make my humble abode look like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
hmm I’ll bet that Meiggs lane house sells pretty quickly. But is that the right area of cupertino? Too close to Lawrence I think, the good part of Cup is closer to De Anza college towards the hills isn’t it? near Bollinger?
July 10th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Looks like somebody had a $515K loan when it got foreclosed on in January. Wonder if they had a 2nd mortgage too?
…checks county records…
I suspect so, there’s 2 different deeds of trust to Wells Fargo on the same day.
Oh cool, the property is in a greater than 1 foot of flooding zone.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Like I said above, Meiggs is in Stinkonada, the very wrong part of Cupertino. The further west and only then south, the better the address, although there are exceptions here and there. Meiggs is near Bollinger, that is not a “good” area. The good part is the Kennedy school attendance area, all in the hills.
“West of Highway 9″ was an expression the old-timers used, meaning west of De Anza. That’s good, west of Stelling is better.