A Duel of Sparrows
Thanks very much to Burbed reader Michael Boltonestater for this double-your-pleasure set of listings. Michael says this is a great street name, as it reminds him of one of his favorite film characters.
6 Sparrow Ct, East Palo Alto, CA 94303
$300,000
BEDS: 4
BATHS: 3
SQ. FT.: 2,940
$/SQ. FT.: $102
LOT SIZE: 8,190 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Traditional
STORIES: 2
YEAR BUILT: 1994
COMMUNITY: East of U.S. 101
COUNTY: San Mateo
MLS#: 81126961
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Pending With Release
ON REDFIN: 23 days
Want a description? Too bad. However, the place next door is for sale, and they can arrange for one!
4 Sparrow Ct, East Palo Alto, CA 94303
$499,900
BEDS: 4
BATHS: 3
SQ. FT.: 2,940
$/SQ. FT.: $170
LOT SIZE: 5,600 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STORIES: 2
YEAR BUILT: 1995
COMMUNITY: East of U.S. 101
COUNTY: San Mateo
MLS#: 81123303
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 46 daysAmazing Curb Appeal. Beautiful Home Nestled at the end of a Cul-De-Sac. Enjoy all the features of a newly built home. Vaulted Ceilings, Bright Open Floor Plan and Spacious Design. Great CASH FLOW for Investment. Make offer subject to inspection. TENANT OCCUPIED-RENT CONTROL. DO NOT DISTURB OCCUPANTS.
Your decision to make: Do you want the exact same house on an 8,000 sf lot for $300K, or do you want to pay an extra $200K for the same house on 2,400 fewer square feet… BUT… you get a description! Also, 4 Sparrow has been foreclosed not once, not twice, but three separate times!
Take all the time you need to decide. I think you should go with 4 Sparrow: it sold for $790K in 2006, so it has much more instant equity, and therefore much better stories about the previous owners. That’s #4 in the red outline, and #6 with the big lot at the end of the block.
July 12th, 2011 at 6:04 am
what’s that behind the 6 Sparrow Ct house? An industrial lot full of vitamins and minerals leaching into the underground water table?
July 12th, 2011 at 9:12 am
$102/sq ft?
What is this, Kentucky?
July 12th, 2011 at 9:35 am
So…. tenant occupied and rent controlled, but no mention of the ONE F’ING THING AN INVESTOR WANTS TO KNOW! THE RENT! IT’S THE RENT, STUPID! WE DON’T CARE ABOUT THE CURB APPEAL, THE VAULTED CEILINGS, OR THE MAGIC PIXIE FARTS COMING OUT OF THE HEATING VENTS! TELL US WHAT IT RENTS FOR YOU STUPID, UGLY REALTARD! TELL! US! THE! RENT!
Somebody needs a kick in the sack.
July 12th, 2011 at 9:44 am
#3 Christ man. Somebody needs a roll in the sack to let out some aggression. You live in SF – can’t you get all gimp style in a bathhouse?
July 12th, 2011 at 9:49 am
#3- Please remember that rents are expensive, no matter how low. Also we are exploring housing 3.0, where rents don’t even matter.
“The housing price appreciation will take care of everything.”
July 12th, 2011 at 9:57 am
#5, “The housing price appreciation will take care of everything.”
only on the right side of the street in the Real Bay Area, where there’s plenty of Drano and light bulbs!
This house, on the other hand, is on the left side of the street, home to the invading Mongrels.
July 12th, 2011 at 10:03 am
That’s Mongols, not Mongrels.
July 12th, 2011 at 11:18 am
#6 is a short sale, but is now under contract, so I think they had a better feel for the ‘pulse of the market’ with their price.
Let’s see what it sells for.
#4 is just going to get slaughtered…again.
P.S. This listing was eerie – today my big, fat, lazy 13 year old cat caught and killed two small birds (I think they were robins, not sparrows) right outside the dining room windows. I saw him eating the head of the second one. Gross. Then he leaves the bodies in plain site in the middle of the newly mown lawn (I’m a renter, but I mow my own lawn). I picked them up dog-poop style with a plastic bag and put them in the trash. RIP
July 12th, 2011 at 11:30 am
6 is “Pending with Release,” which likely suggests that the offer is subject to a buyer selling for an inflated price.
July 12th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
I just took a little stroll over to the Realtard’s web page. He has a lot of multifamily units on his featured list, you’d think he’d know that INVESTORS WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE RENT IS.
For example, the Campbell crapbox on Dunster has 14 units and the detail you’d want to know (at least when I went over to Redfin). The GRM is just over 10, too.
The Vacancy Factor is 5. I hope that doesn’t mean five empty units out of 14.
July 12th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Bay Area Spirit update:
Here I pointed out that Netflix has Real Bay Area Spirit, since paying more is viewed as a positive.
We’ll see how customers outside of the Bay Area view that spirit. Today’s news release: “Netflix raises DVD, streaming plan price by 60 pct”
I’m sure their customer’s incomes are also going up by 60%. Alternatively, we can say, “Sixty percent ain’t a lot of money.”
Will Netflix customer base will agree, paying 60% more for the same thing is a positive?
July 12th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
#11 – Their point is that it’s no longer “the same thing” – the movie selection’s robust enough to now justify the increase.
July 12th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Ugh. If they had the full catalog streaming I’d switch to stream only to try and save a few bucks.
July 12th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
What I read suggests, “‘Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs,’ Becker wrote.”
I’m not sure how a “long life” asset translates into raising prices by 60%. Also, I’ve asked around, and the people I contacted (clearly not scientific, small sample, and so on) are not sure what they are missing–what’s going to be added for the extra 60%?
July 12th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Great point, SEA. Next time gas price goes up by 5%, I’ll tell the attendant that I now expect to drive 5% further with my full tank.
July 12th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Are you suggesting the service, after the increase, is the same, or has it changed to a new ‘service robust enough to now justify the increase?’
July 12th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
SEA, my reading of it was that the increase was considered overdue as the selection and unlimited usage kept increasing but the fee was staying the same. As to whether the entire & whopping 60% increase is justified, I won’t venture a guess
July 12th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Netflix owns you, so you should own property in East Palo Alto. The chain must not be broken!
July 12th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
The increase is because the studios realized they sold streaming rights for chump change last time around and netflix will have to cough up an order of magnitude larger sum of money to renew the licenses. Seriously, an order of magnitude. Their licensing will go from 190 million to 1.8 billion. (As estimated by some dude pulling numbers out of his hiney.)
July 12th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
#6 haha mongrels, *I’m* a mongrel and I’ve never invaded much of anyplace.
I’m pretty sure you mean Mongols, and in the sense of Huns, Mutant Zombie Bikers, Orcs, etc.
In the RBA during the RE boom, cars, big screen TVs etc were being thrown in with houses, what I want to know is, how many 9′s come with these houses?
July 13th, 2011 at 8:46 am
Netflix is like bob.
They got a good deal on a long lease but now the landlord is going all market price on them. That’s what happens when you rent. Content or dwelling.
$2 to get DVDs in addition to $7.99 streaming plan? Shipping alone must costs them more than that when you watch more than 3 DVDs a month. The customers canceling their DVD add-on are probably doing Netflix a big favor.
July 13th, 2011 at 9:32 am
I didn’t know that Netflix had the option to buy.
But even so, with that good deal on a long lease, which now has gone up to market price, would they have been better off to buy?
I definitely wonder what the purchase price was then and now.
July 13th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
“mongols” may be right, but “mongrels” made me laugh
July 13th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
These teens made the wrong turn and ended up on the left side of the street and out of the RBA.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/13/BATL1KAANV.DTL
July 13th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
#24 – tellingly, the entire comments board assumes that they were from east menlo (i.e. no turn needed, wrong or right)
July 14th, 2011 at 11:17 am
“We’ll see how customers outside of the Bay Area view that spirit. Today’s news release: “Netflix raises DVD, streaming plan price by 60 pct””
This will definately cause issues for Netflix. The main reason I was using it over onDemand Comcast was the price. Sure, it was a bit of a hassle to have to wait the 30 days over and above the release date and THEN wait for the DVD to be available. (Longer if its a popular release)
But now, I find that with the increase in cost, the savings are marginal when compared to simply ordering it onDemand. When you take into account the added convenience of being able to watch the movie instantly versus having to wait a month or longer, this makes their business model not quite as favorable.
October 15th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
6 sold on September 23, 2011 for $55k in over bidding. Thus the loss on sale was ‘only’ $270k, or 43%.
$270k/88 months = average loss on sale of $3,050 per month. Of course, all other expenses are notwithstanding.
The loss is about five times larger than the over bidding. What kind of school will the kids attend?