The best, most important, Redwood City house ever
41 BOTANY Ct, Redwood City, CA 94062 | MLS# 80941626
41 BOTANY Ct Redwood City, CA 94062
Price: $1,899,995
Beds: 4
Baths: 2.5
Sq. Ft.: 4,420
$/Sq. Ft.: $430
Lot Size: 0.28 Acres
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Style: Traditional
Stories: 2
View: Bay, Neighborhood, City Lights
Year Built: 1988
Community: Cordilleras Heights
County: San Mateo
MLS#: 80941626
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 3 days
Gorgeous recently remodeled home. Incredible partial Bay view. Immaculate condition, soaring high ceilings, gourmet chef’s kitchen w/ stainless steel appliances, large master suite w/ stunning bath, elegant extra bonus rm. for entertainment ctr. etc. , custom designed with exquisite finishes throughout, large three car garage w/ extra storage. Lush gardens and yard perfect for family entertaining.
Thanks to Burbed reader RinkRat for sending this in. This is what he had to say:
Check out the realtard’s description on this one. There must have been an adjective sale at the Dollar Tree, because he used all the good ones in one paragraph…How exquisite!
Well… sort of. Here are some other terms that I usually see in Bay Area listings that I think are noticably missing here:
- Rental income for garage.
- Instant equity waiting for you to be unlocked.
- Great for first time buyers (who like to buy million dollar homes)
- Great schools (compared to ones in Somalia)
- Environmentally friendly.
Can you think of other adjectives that this house is missing?
September 10th, 2009 at 8:57 am
So many of these rather unremarkable Mcmansions posted here on burbed are described so breathlessly and made to be like these amazing, sparkling gems. Yes- when the prices are so high you really have to do some serious turd polishing because otherwise buyers might start thinking about the lunacy of paying so much for what’s pretty much a typical, boring, suburban home that can be found anywhere across the country.
For example, here’s an almost virtual twin of today’s featured house:
http://atlanta.craigslist.org/eat/reo/1367322755.html
It too is a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom house with a 2 car garage. But its in Atlanta so naturally its bound to be cheaper. Just how much cheaper? About $1,816,995 cheaper.
Total price for the Atlanta house: $73,000. Yes- you could buy 25 of the Atlanta houses, or you could buy the single one above.
But alas the ad for the Atlanta house isn’t near as flowery and pretty sounding. Here’s what it sounds like:
“LIKE NEW ! COMPLETE RENOVATION DONE ! *4 Bedroom * 2.5 Bathroom * Great Room with Stone Fireplace and Bay Windows * Separate Dining Room * Eat – in Kitchen has New Appliances, Wood Stained Cabinetry, New Flooring Thru-out *Master Bath has Separate Shower and Tub * Bonus Room/Office/4th bedroom * New Paint Inside and Exterior * Large Lot *
Nope. They could’ve said: Resplendent, beautiful, home with roaring fireplace set with grand river stone. A living room in which to serve bountiful feasts, gleaming, shiny, top-of-the-line appliances, Gleaming, glowing wood cabinets with hand-rubbed oil finish by master craftsmen, Glorious, bright and sunny bathroom with glowing toilet and shower with brilliant chrome fixtures, fresh, lovely new paint.
Thus its clear that the home featured today deserves its price because you can’t really put a price on great writing.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:04 am
One other teensy, tiny detail you left out bob. Today’s house in RWC is almost 2.5x larger than your “twin” house. It’s 25 miles outside of Atlanta too – they’re known for heinous traffic in that area. The kitchen is about 20 years newer too – granted, that’s only about $30k fix for the place in Georgia. Still, you make a point, but I’d say a truly comparable house, remodeled and close to jobs would be in the $400k range.
.
Still can’t believe the realtard broke out the thesaurus but couldn’t be bothered to post one picture of the “incredible partial bay view.”
September 10th, 2009 at 9:09 am
What’s interesting about the traffic comment in Atlanta is that I was there recently. Locals would say things like: “Oh the traffic is awful.” But the thing is that from my perspective it wasn’t any worse than it is in the Bay Area. Its just that in the South traffic is almost unheard of thus Atlanta compared to pretty much anywhere else in the region is pretty awful. Yes- the house I posted is smaller. My bad. But still- its $73,000 dollars. That’s just outright craziness. I still can’t get over the fact that its 25 times cheaper than the redwood city house.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Also fun to see that “your” house is 50% off from its 2006 purchase price.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:37 am
There’s a lot of foreclosures in Atlanta.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:51 am
If you look at refin, there are two other nearly 2 million dollar houses just a few blocks away.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Redwood-City/842-Mohican-Way-94062/home/21622837
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Redwood-City/846-Mohican-Way-94062/home/829920
Surely THOSE are the bestest, most important, awesomest houses in Redwood City!
September 10th, 2009 at 10:39 am
#1: I think of “McMansion” as having a fairly specific meaning. New construction in cookie-cutter formats (because the base cost is the same to get a permit for 200 identical homes as for 1 spec home), typically with subpar fit and finish and a tacky appearance.
September 10th, 2009 at 11:48 am
This house looks like a Mcmansion to me. Physically they are identified by their huge space-wasting front floor to ceiling foyers, which this one has as evidenced by the enormous window that spans from the first to second floor.That wastes tons of space and it wastes energy because you can’t easily insulate one part of the house to the other. That and it has your typical Mcmansion kitchen full of granite and stainless appliances.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
My parents’ house has got that “feature..” it’s a split level. There are steps up to the front door. Walk in, you’re in a double-high foyer with the high ceiling stretching out through the living room ending in a ceiling-height mantle. Take an immediate right and it leads down to the garage, take the next right and there are stairs up to the dining room, wet bar, kitchen, family room and half bath. Take a left, and there’s the ground level laundry room, four bedrooms, and two full baths.
September 10th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
# Rental income for garage.
—–
Burbed missed the most important aspect of rental income from garage. As this is garage, rental income does not need to be reported to IRS.
September 10th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
large master suite w/ stunning bath
—–
What is exactly “stunning bath”? With beautiful naked girls?
September 10th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Bob says,
“What’s interesting about the traffic comment in Atlanta is that I was there recently. Locals would say things like: “Oh the traffic is awful.” But the thing is that from my perspective it wasn’t any worse than it is in the Bay Area.”
to be fair, Bob has a pretty long commute. So from his perspective it may be the same as bay area, from mine, probably not.
Nonetheless, $73k is freakishly cheap for something one could actually live in.
September 10th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
> Can you think of other adjectives that this house is missing?
Yes, I can.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
> Total price for the Atlanta house: $73,000
<Real Estater>I wouldn’t want to live in a house cheaper than my car.</Real Estater>
September 10th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
That house looks like an ugly condo complex. Ick.
September 11th, 2009 at 10:01 am
#12 – $73k is not freakishly cheap. That’s the annual salary, or near it, of a whole lot of people.
A year’s salary is not a pittance. You’re just so used to BA inflated home prices it seems freakishly cheap.
It’s just a little cheap, due to foreclosure activity.
September 11th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Yes it is, A. Current (7/09) national median home price is $210,100. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t rebuild that house for $73k, even if you got used/salvaged fixtures.
September 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
73K is pretty good in Atlanta. The median seems to hover around 150-200k. Homes near my parents in TN sell for 150k or so as well. I looked at this house again. Its a foreclosed property. If you look at this way, let’s say that you worked at Wal-Mart making $8 an hour. Your take home pay would probably be around $265 a week, or $1,100 a month. Assume that the husband or wife also works at some Joe job, pulling in the same. Thus an income of $2,200 a month.
The payments on this house assuming no down payment would be $475. Not sure what insurance would be in the area, but assume its like my parents and sits around $1,500 per year followed by around $1,200 annual property tax. So add another $225 a month. Total payments= $675 a month leaving $1,500 a month leftover. That’s enough to either buy a lot of food, have at least a halfway decent new car ( like a Camry or something) and maybe save a bit for retirement.
So there you go. A family working at crappy jobs at Wal-Mart or target making minimum wage could afford to buy a house in Atlanta and actually live pretty decent lives.
In the BA? Forget it. That’s the difference.
September 11th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Median in Atlanta: $200,000
http://www.housingtracker.net/asking-prices/atlanta-georgia
Look at today’s post, bob. A family could afford the $275k price of that place. It’s even newer than your Atlanta foreclosure.
September 11th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Atlanta’s pretty big now. I had last visited it 14 years ago when I was looking at colleges. I went back recently and it was like there was 50% more city. That and they have this huge aquarium with several whale sharks in tanks the size of a couple of football fields.