Best. House. Ever.
Here’s a find from Burbed reader, now promoted to Burbed Guest Editor, sonarrat. However, sonarrat asked me to handle this one because of a particular feature set, and no, it is not the little gold star this house somehow has earned from Redfin.
107 S 19TH St, San Jose, CA 95116
$1,149,800
BEDS: 8
BATHS: 6
SQ. FT.: 4,400
$/SQ. FT.: $261
LOT SIZE: 10,500 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Contemporary
STORIES: 2
VIEW: Mountains, Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1999
COMMUNITY: Central San Jose
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81111392
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 30 daysGrand home, perfect for large family nearby Naglee Park Area of San Jose * 8bed/6bath with a office * 2 gourmet kitchens * 2master suites * guest quarter with 2bed/1bath/livingroom/walking closet * Marble floors * 3car garage * Huge parking lot for many cars, RV and boat * 12years young * remodeled through out the house 2years ago, just like new * Easy access to majors freeways, parks, and SJSU.
What makes a home grand? Is it a 4400 square foot house in the middle of a bunch of hundred year old scrapers? Is it having twice as many bedrooms or baths as a typical family needs, or even wants? How about twice the kitchen or twice the master suites?
No, while these things may make the house ostentatiously oversized, only one feature allows a house to call itself grand, and I’m sure you remember what it is.
Dat’s right! Mawbul kawlums! But this house goes one better than that. Not only is it a stucco box that found room for six a dem dings, it has marble floors, too!
This has got to be the first time I’ve seen a house with marble columns manage to look like a 1960s cracker box. 
But hey, it’s got a huge parking lot for many cars, because the 3 car garage is obviously not enough. (Wow, did the builder run out of money and not bother matching the garage doors? Or is this some political commentary saying the Right has its eyes closed?)
I’m glad they included this shot of the parking lot, or I would have suspected they just paved the entire quarter acre lot to save money on pesky greenscaping.
Yeah.
Definitely what happened. Can’t say there isn’t anything green out here.
Picnic table: definitely green.
So. Let’s move on. You can check out the two full kitchens yourself, I assure you they have the obligatory stainless and granite. Instead, how about this listing history?
Yes! Marble columns, flip, AND foreclosure! Isn’t that grand? Let’s check with Zillow on those missing listing prices.
“Any time I roll anything out, my plan is the best one in the room and people are starting to realize that.Their plan is s**t and my plan is gold. Walk into my plan and you’re going to win, win, win.”
April 18th, 2011 at 5:16 am
Party like it’s 2008!
April 18th, 2011 at 9:11 am
…it is not the little gold star this house somehow has earned from Redfin.
The gold star means a Redfin realtor has left comments about the property on the listing.
April 18th, 2011 at 9:15 am
Un-permitted duplex? Boarding house? Frat house? The possibilities are endless!
April 18th, 2011 at 10:33 am
yeah it would work as student housing rental. That’s pretty much the only use for it. What’s the mortgage on 1.15M with a small down? Like $8K/ month? Assuming you could deal with the hassle of having student tenants, you may even cash flow.
April 18th, 2011 at 11:14 am
AHAHAHHA madhouse’s feeble attempt at humor finally made me LOL nice dig at the mawbul kawlums
April 18th, 2011 at 11:46 am
If you can find 8 rich people who want to live communally with no decent yard to rent to en masse, at $1,000/mo each, this has cash flow potential. Otherwise it’s total crap and should never have been built.
April 18th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Holy Carp! *I* could have bought it in ’02! Of course I’d just have hung onto it, rented out a few rooms maybe, or just used it for having lots of storage for my business. It would have been pretty cool but it’d not have lived up to its full potential, still unrealized, which is:
Best. Whorehouse. Evar.
April 18th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
“What’s the mortgage on 1.15M with a small down? Like $8K/ month? Assuming you could deal with the hassle of having student tenants, you may even cash flow. ”
Students typically can’t afford and don’t want to pay more than $1,000 a month per rent. You would have to have 10 students in this 4400 sqft house. That is 400sqft per person which is awfully tight quarters. Sounds like a horrible idea.
“May even cash flow” Excellent use of wiggle words. Try this: There’s no fucking way this house would cash flow once you consider property taxes, maintenance, insurance, vacancy rates and the amount of time it would take to keep it fully occupied. 8-10 students would absolutely rape a place like this so you should expect that your maintenance costs are going to be absolutely through the roof.
Seriously, though – buying a house like this is a great deal if you’re interested in subsidizing other people’s lifestyles.
April 18th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
buying a house like this is a great deal if you’re interested in subsidizing other people’s lifestyles.
—–
Or someone wants to gain confidence and get chicks.
April 18th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
With mawble kawlums? Gaining confidence and scoring chicks goes without saying. What is dis place, da Playboy Mansion? It’s ridiculous!
April 18th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Do ‘chicks’ ask for copies of deeds?
April 18th, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Your choice of word is very poor. Chicks dig for the copies of deed.
April 19th, 2011 at 8:49 am
Ok, fine horrible idea. Jeez. Just some quick math in my head.
April 19th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Lucky #13-
Remember the days when cash flow didn’t matter? Housing price appreciation was so high that even if you ran out of cash, you’d simply sell at that point. A flip took too long? You’d sell at an even bigger profit.
Today even if the place is cash flow positive, the housing price depreciation could be so large that you’d take it in the shorts.
Let’s assume you’re right: It’s cash flow neutral, or slightly positive, with 100% IO financing. The 100% IO financing only makes the computations easy. So you rent it out for some time, and then when you go to sell you have a problem. Since it’s IO, your principal balance has not gone down, but the market value has. You don’t have any significant amount of cash from the rent, so you must find a significant amount of other cash to sell, or sell short, or some other unfavorable option.
However if you believe
in Santa Clausethat home prices cannot go down, it might be a deal for you, but just remember to put the tooth under the pillow.