Top of the world location, location, location!
Here’s a one-of-a-kind listing from Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer, who must fondly remember the days when the Real Bay Area could run as far north as Seattle, or at least San Anselmo.
40 Wolfback Ridge Rd, Sausalito, CA 94965
$995,000
BEDS: –
BATHS: –
SQ. FT.: –
LOT SIZE: 0.66 Acres
PROPERTY TYPE: Lots & Land, Single Family
VIEW: Bay, Bridges, City, Forest/Woods, Ocean, Panoramic, Park, Valley, Water
COMMUNITY: Sausalito
COUNTY: Marin
MLS#: 21107250
SOURCE: BAREIS
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 149 daysThis top of the world location sits at nearly 960 feet elevation w/ absolutely incredible views of San Francisco, the mouth of the SF bay & west to the Pacific Ocean, Farallon Islands & sunsets. The lot is a natural penthouse on a private road behind two gates in an exclusive community. It is a very RARE buildable view lot minutes from San Francisco. Don’t be confused-this opp. is better than it looks.
Here’s what PG had to say about this top of the world location:
The world has never been so low.
I think you meant the price of this OPPORTUNITY has never been so low! Don’t be confused-this opp. is better than it looks.
See? It even has this free bridge thrown in! That must be worth a couple thousand for the scrap metal alone!
It’s a natural penthouse on a private road behind two gates in an exclusive community! What more could you want?
Other than really, really hope the agents with this listing would deign to take your phone calls, assuming you could ever find their unlisted number?
August 17th, 2011 at 8:28 am
Wow, how many times has this place been foreclosed on, the previous owners have stolen all of the appliances, fixtures, and every scrap of copper in the place.
August 17th, 2011 at 9:49 am
They even recycled the concrete for cold, hard cash! All that’s left is a lovely meadow!
Also, I love how they start out listing at almost 90 million, then drop it to 895k, then when it doesn’t sell, RAISE the price to 995k.
Remember, if your junks aren’t selling, it’s because you’ve priced them too low and are scaring away the REAL bay area buyers!
August 17th, 2011 at 9:50 am
But you can’t steal the SUNSET, can you – as that pic proves!
“Don’t be confused?” What would confuse me? Perhaps that picture of a random plant you have in your listing, making me think you’re selling a tropical camping site?
August 17th, 2011 at 9:53 am
Is any part of Marin County in the Real RBA? Also what’s the maximum allowable elevation of the RBA? Like wrong sides of right streets, and the gallon of milk test, there must be some elevation above which we know the property is out of the RBA.
August 17th, 2011 at 10:09 am
I’m confused by the tiny little square on the Redfin map that’s supposed to show the location of this .66 acre parcel.
August 17th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Sure, almost a million bucks looks expensive, but… it’s chump change compared to the $5,000,000 they want for a half-again bigger lot a block away:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Sausalito/51-Wolfback-Ridge-Rd-94965/home/956666
This may be one of those rare instances of a property that’s almost impossible to put a sensible price tag on. It’s completely useless but it does have one heck of a view. Sadly… $995,000 may be “fair” considering the comparables. (Which is a tough call, since it appears there were all of four remotely comparable sales in the area over the last 12 years.) It’s priced a lot less per acre than anything else near it.
August 17th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Remote enough to be a PITA to get anywhere else, where you’ll have to forage for food (or work a job while those are still around) which you’ll have to do because it’s land but not enough to do anything on, and I doubt there’s water.
But! – close enough for the starving hordes from the City to come wipe you out.
It’s a lose-lose!
August 17th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
In other news, the conforming loan limit has effectively been reduced (ahead of the October 1 deadline):
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44178578
August 17th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Useless aggregate data. RBA buyers pay all cash anyway.
August 17th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Here’s the NBC slideshow of most expensive places in the US to live…the photo for California could have been taken from this very lot! http://www.cnbc.com/id/43484111?slide=9.
I love that they use the cost of Lipitor as a baseline expense. Not a gallon of milk, but Lipitor. I guess because if you live in SF you are so stressed with your mortgage payments you must have cholesterol issues?
August 17th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
I had to look at the tiny red square on the Redfin listing to see why this was Burbed material. A totally land-locked parcel surrounded by far larger ones…awesome! That just means that the equity from the adjacent properties can diffuse into this one from all sides.
There is no way that this counts as RBA though. If a location is more than 5 miles from a Whole Foods, it is instantly excluded from consideration.
#10 “I love that they use the cost of Lipitor as a baseline expense. Not a gallon of milk, but Lipitor. I guess because if you live in SF you are so stressed with your mortgage payments you must have cholesterol issues?”
Yeah, but it is organic cholesterol so it is OK. My Bikram Yoga instructor said so.
August 17th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
>>A check of Wells Fargo’s website shows it offering the 30-yr fixed conforming at 4.25 percent, and jumbos at 4.625 percent.
At these rates, jumbo loans are still dirt cheap. Change in limit will be a non-event in the Bay Area.
August 18th, 2011 at 11:35 am
… Oh.
Okay, now I get it. I had no idea what people were talking about with reference to the “little tiny square” until looking at it again.
I dunno. *if* that square were accurate I’d agree the listing is pure unadulterated crazy-crack, but I’m sort of skeptical. The listing says the parcel is “0.66 acres”. If you look at listings for adjacent parcels (like the “51 Wolfback Ridge Road”, .94 acres for $5,000,000) there’s no way that little square is 2/3rd of an acre. Heck, I don’t think a square that small would even be 6,600 square feet. Unless the listing has a severe typo in the “Lot Size” field it just has to be referring to one of the adjacent areas.
I guess it’s worth noting that, Trulia and Zillow can’t agree which of two other outlines on the Redfin map is the actual property, making this something of a mystery, but they both show it as being one of the plots on the downhill slope from the road, either directly across the street from or one plot over from that little square. Either one of those plots is far closer to being 2/3rds of an acre. And I suppose as a bonus, they both lie directly on the border to the Golden Gate Recreation Area so no one’s going to be building a house in front of your view.
Stupid realtor-ese description aside… I have a tough time calling this a solid “Burbed” candidate. It’s expensive and pointless for a normal person but if the owner of this place can stand to wait on the market for some arbitrary amount of time it is arguably the sort of place a genuine millionaire might want to live at least part-time.
August 18th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
“It’s expensive and pointless for a normal person but if the owner of this place can stand to wait on the market for some arbitrary amount of time it is arguably the sort of place a genuine millionaire might want to live at least part-time.”
It should be noted that time is a factor in terms of rate of return. Given a selling price, the longer it takes to sell, the lower the rate of return, and that’s not considering the cost of holding, being taxes, dues, and so on.
August 18th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Just curious, what is a normal person?
August 18th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Mortgage rate falling to record low. Rent keeps rising in the Bay Area. Talk about no-brainer…
August 19th, 2011 at 1:10 am
Of course buying million dollar RBA homes is cheaper than renting–the housing price appreciation takes care of everything.
August 19th, 2011 at 1:11 am
“Just curious, what is a normal person?”
That remains a mystery for some people.
August 19th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
“Just curious, what is a normal person?”
If you’re talking about California “normal” is a very*relative term.
Again, don’t mistake me, I don’t think this is the real-estate bargain of the century. But it is one of those rare plots where the idiotic phrase “They ain’t making any more land!” sort of applies. Unless they decide to shrink/eliminate that recreation area down the hill there’s a decidedly finite number of plots that will have a view like that, and you have to go back well into the 1990′s to find a property in this area that sold for much under a million bucks. (And anything that did was smaller, albeit already equipped with a cottage of some sort. The fact that this doesn’t have a shack on it already does make me vaguely wonder how “build-able” it is, either due to site details or an onerous permitting process.) The tax roll says the owner is paying $5k a year to hold it, so unless *that* information is incorrect the owner can probably afford to wait a *long* time for their strike-it-rich payday to come along.
Eh. *shrug*. I guess I’d just be more impressed with its “Burbed-iness” if it wasn’t priced so, uhm, reasonably. (“Reasonably” as defined by its location and neighbors, not by some objective real-world standard.)
August 19th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Now, if you *really* do want a cracktastic case of “TRUE VALUE IS IN THE LAND”, try this:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Jose/2450-Mclaughlin-Ave-95121/home/1743791
March 27th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
[...] thanks to Burbed reader AstroWallaby, for calling out today’s spectacular house in comments. Drop by anytime, Astro, if you have more of these! [...]