“Original owner of this home has watched all of the trees in this neighborhood grow tall”
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage presents
335 HEDGE RD
Menlo Park, CA, 94025 offered at $749,000Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 1 Full
Apprx. Sq. Feet: 1020 Year Built: 1950
Original owner of this home has watched all of the trees in this neighborhood grow tall!! Very special home with separate dining room, beautiful hardwood floors, new paint inside & out. Formal entry. Woodburning fireplace in living room with looks out toward lovely backyard with prolific lemon tree. Two car attached garage. Excellent neighborhood with a great sense of community. Superb Menlo Park Schools and very convenient location.
Thanks to Burbed reader Mia for this find. Here’s what Mia had to say:
I had to LOL at the first line: “Original owner of this home watched all of the trees in this neighborhood grow tall!!” Yeah, well the backstory to this is that the original owner — probably there over 50 years — passed away in her home a couple of months ago. So yes, it is true: she DID watch all the trees grow tall…until she died.
How touching!
This backstory instantly adds another $250,000 to the price of this house! My heart! It just says “open wallet. get super jumbo. spend spend spend.”
September 30th, 2008 at 6:32 am
If Elvis’s third grade teacher’s next door neighbor’s ex-husband’s stepmother’s second cousin once removed once puked on the original front porch, could you put it on the national register of historic places? If they did, how much more money could you get?
September 30th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Yes… how touching that the original owner is demanding probably $720,000 more dollars than what they paid.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:45 am
“Think of the children!”
September 30th, 2008 at 8:48 am
What did the executor(s) of the estate contribute toward upkeep of the house? I gotta wonder.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:51 am
“And she will watch you come in, when you are sleeping she will quietly sit in the kitchen, checking her own stove.”
September 30th, 2008 at 9:46 am
It probably has the original 1950 decor too. It’s like a time capsule! I’d bet it needs a renovation down to the studs.
Bonus points if she was a smoker.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Right next to the Flood Park baseball diamond.. and about 500 feet from scenic Hwy 101. There are certainly better ways to spend this kind of money.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Sorry, folks….this place already has a SOLD sign on it, so y’all missed out.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:34 am
burbed needs a secretary to keep up with the frantic pace of real estate and post on time.:)
September 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am
>>There are certainly better ways to spend this kind of money.
That’s probably what you would’ve said when U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Yes, when you think that Palin could have been vice-president of Russia… the idea is frightening!
September 30th, 2008 at 11:01 am
The one bright bit of news about today’s home is that we won’t be getting any whiny e-mails from the owner’s child asserting her/his rights to Prop 13 exemptions because s/he watched the neighborhood trees grow tall. And I bet s/he always helped out with family obligations.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:12 am
DreamT - better them than us!
(#11)
September 30th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
CASE-SCHILLER data is out today. San Francisco metro (does not include Santa Clara county) is down again, to 156.88. This compares to 208.64 last July (down 33%) and to 159.83 in June.
The Case-Schiller SF index has declined every month since April 2007, and was bouncing around in a narrow range between 208 to 216 between June 2005 and August 2007. There is nothing narrow about the range now. Today’s newly released July figure is the same level as January/February 2004.
For those of you who can’t get enough of this data, the highest tier of homes has a July ‘08 index of 168.93. Compare to last July’s 190.05, a reduction of 12.5%. The middle tier declined 33.3%, and the bottom? Are you ready? 70.5%
OMG. Down 70% in a year? OMFG!
September 30th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I think my math was wrong for my Case-Schiller numbers.
I redid those calculations, and this time took this July minus last July divided by LAST July (before I divided by this July). My tiers now are
Low, down 41% (still bad), middle, down 25%, top, down 11%.
You math experts let me know whether to divide by last year or this year.
The numbers for overall CS-SF would be thus down 24.8% instead of 33%.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Does anyone else find it really funny that the ad copy for this house mentions “Original owner of this home has watched all of the trees in this neighborhood grow tall!!” For a house on HEDGE ROAD Ahahahahahaha!
Also, note use of term “very special home.” Is it handicapped somehow? Does this house have some kind of housing disability? Should it be listed on the Special Listing Service instead of the MLS?
September 30th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
madhaus. Miss “I-have-a-tip-check-digit-to-check-the-honesty-of-restaurant-credit-card-bills.” Asking US for math help? LOL.
You divide by last year to get the YOY drop. As you said, still bad news.
Okay, Real Estater, come and give us some positive spin so we can feel better!
September 30th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Thanks, nomadic, when I redid the math I figured that was the right approach, but I thought I’d better ask. The 71% figure just looked wrong when I saw the two numbers I was comparing.
The check digit business isn’t that hard once you’ve worked out your system and have done it for several years, it gets so I don’t even think about it that much.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
lovely backyard with prolific lemon tree.
———
Fortunately the agent did not forget to mention about lemon tree, which is very rare in California backyards. $100K instant equity is right there.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
MH “Low, down 41% (still bad), middle, down 25%, top, down 11%.”
Thanks for the numbers. Kind of brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? I kept guessing the lower was down 35%. 40 is still good news.
“12.5%. The middle tier declined 33.3%, and the bottom? Are you ready? 70.5%”
Someday it will be like this…
September 30th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
This is the bad part of Menlo Park. Nasty place.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:53 am
WillowGlenner, you’re wrong. This house is in Suburban Park, which although is in East Menlo, is a really nice (and sought out) area — very kid friendly, strong neighborhood association, etc. That’s why this house sold so fast, because despite this market, houses here rarely go for under 750K.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:28 am
I’ve always heard it referred to as Flood Park. At any rate, it is surprisingly desirable, much more so than the zone north of Marsh Road or the chaos east of 101.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:32 am
Nomadic, Madhaus-
Take the marketing view -
the proper denominator in the equation depends on the point you want to make. NAR would use last year’s value, housing gloom and doomers would use this year’s.
I’m starting to see foreclosures and price declines in Los Gatos. But not yet in Cupertino/Saratoga. I guess Hummers (vehicle of choice in LG) are more of a financial drag than Camrys (car of choice in Cupertino).
October 1st, 2008 at 9:26 am
SiO2 you are correct, but then you have to state your frame of reference differently. madhaus was stating the % decline from last year. To use the second set of numbers, you’d say last year was x% higher.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:27 am
(oops, I meant the gloomier numbers when I said “second set.” I guess technically they are the first set of numbers…)
October 1st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
SiO2, years and years and YEARS ago I did some custom applications programming for Bergdorf Goodman. They wanted me to report the “Markup” on their inventory as (RETAIL - WHOLESALE) / RETAIL. So let’s say they bought a sweater for $50 and sold it for $100. You or I would say they have a markup of 100%, because they sold the sweater for twice as much as they paid for it. But no, they called it 50%! (100-50=50)/100 = 50%! Technically this was not a Mark-up but a Wholesale Savings, as it all depends on what you divide by.
So I think you are onto something by calling it marketing, but back then I called it bull$#!+. And then wrote it the way they wanted, because they’re the customer.
October 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Madhaus, it’s sometimes a fine line between marketing and bull$#!+.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:26 am
[...] this house? “Original owner of this home has watched all of the trees in this neighborhood grow tall” [Burbe... 335 HEDGE RD Menlo Park, CA, 94025 offered at $749,000 Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 1 Full Apprx. Sq. [...]