Major fixer upper in San Carlos. You’ll need the uppers.
Today’s featured home is a San Carlos scraper brought to you by Burbed reader nomadic. This low-hanging lemon has been overripening on the Redfin vine, and was spotted on a fruitful locale for Burbed bounty: the Redfin forums. Thanks very much for the harvest!
437 HILLCREST Rd
San Carlos, CA 94070
$850,000; was$875,000; was$899,000; was$910,000
2 Beds
1.5 Baths
1,120 Sq. Ft.
$759 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1941
Lot Size: 7,644 Sq. Ft.
On Redfin: 130 days
Status: Active
Active
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
County: San Mateo
Style: Contemporary
Community: Cordes
MLS#: 81213411Great westside location, this home is a major fixer upper bring your contractor with you large level lot perfect for building your dream home building plans and engineering reports have been submitted to the city for approval
Here’s what nomadic had to say about this perplexing property:
Check this out, from the Redfin forums:
I lived in this home, as the flippers who bought it in 2011, rented it to me so they could get the permits in place. Long story short, is that they thought they had the permits in place in February of 2012 so they asked me to move. Turns out just more paper shuffling by the city, and things are still moving slow. The house is in bad disrepair. The son of the original owners (since 1941) died and the family sold it. All the plumbing was shot, and a poorly constructed addition was slapped on the porch in the back. The chiminey was falling off the side of the house, and there was quite a fair amount of landscaping growing out of the roof.
Shortly after I moved out, a bunch of vagrants ransacked the place, stole all the copper, and broke most of the windows. Permits are still pending for the tear down and rebuild. As I was browsing the listings, I found it funny that it was relisted at $910k basically a year after they bought it for $622, and its now no longer livable.
The asking price is now $850k. When did San Carlos wedge itself into the RBA?
Hmmm, this comment doesn’t seem to be on the thread anymore, but this reply references part of the above. So nomadic was not hallucinating the post. Perhaps Redfin is getting a little gun-shy about actual discussion of houses rather than oh-so-postive realtardese. Talk that way for too long and you won’t even need to take any uppers.
Bunus: Trash bag and abandoned monitor in Streetview shots, plus extra bin at neighbor’s.
August 21st, 2012 at 6:55 am
Yeap,
That was me. As you can see it was my first post (I think I referenced that fact in the post). I threw this in ‘comment’ in as a nugget for everyone to enjoy, then I felt bad for the listing agent, and really rethought the whole thing. I actually really like the listing agent, and I know if it was up to him, he would just offer it for the same price they got it. He was always real nice to me, and perhaps I would prefer to do business with him in the future, rather than spread nasties around the internet and have it come back to him. Well, as always with the internet, it never goes away, and it seems nomadic is a redfin forum administrator who can dig the archives and recover edited posts. If you are out there Greg, I apologize, but common, trying to make $288k on this house? Yikes. I almost killed myself in it by plugging in my plamsa TV and starting an electrical fire!
August 21st, 2012 at 7:34 am
“As I was browsing the listings, I found it funny that it was relisted at $910k basically a year after they bought it for $622, and its now no longer livable.”
Someone who doesn’t understand that ‘they aren’t making more land,’ ‘the value is in the land,’ etc.
In that Redfin forum thread is a person who explains close versus too close when it comes to light bulbs and Drano:
“Be careful the difference between a “fixer upper”/”contractor’s special” and “original condition”/ “needs TLC”. One you can live in with a family and the other you really shouldn’t….. I have found that the former do come with a lower price tag because they aren’t livable (mold, missing plaster on walls, plumbing broken, carpetting on floorboards removed, leaking ceilings, serious foundation work) . Original conditions are cheaper than remodeled houses, but since they’re livable and there’s a shortage of stuff on the market, there will be no shortage of interested buyers.”
August 21st, 2012 at 10:44 am
San Carlos isn’t RBA? If it isn’t, it’s pretty darn close. That town is very sought-after by the crowd who can’t quite afford Burlingame but doesn’t want to live as far down as Cupertino. The “White Oaks” section of the city is always listed as “highly desired location” by Realtards in the MLS copy. I’m surprised there are vagrants within city limits!
August 21st, 2012 at 11:02 am
so, they’re asking $850k for land, plus you’ll have to spend another big chunk to tear down the existing crapshack, or stand back whilst someone kicks it really hard into a domino display?
then you get the pleasure of spending another few hundred thousand (several hundred thousand?) to build a livable house?
i’d say “sign me up!”, but i think i have to wash the car this weekend so i’ll be too busy to fight off the competition for this gem. let me know how it turns out…
August 21st, 2012 at 11:42 am
The lot is level, but the house isn’t. I keep tilting my head looking at that first photo.
August 21st, 2012 at 2:29 pm
I think that’s the camera lens, herpderp. Wide angle lenses have huge foreshortening issues.
August 21st, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Zillow doesn’t have the listing, but this is what they say:
Zestimate®: $914,966
Rent Zestimate®: $3,659/mo
August 21st, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Crissa, every photo shows the house has a definite gangsta lean going on.
August 21st, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Zillow doesn’t know about the copper shortage in the walls.
August 21st, 2012 at 7:20 pm
I just rescued comment #1 from the moderation queue, which means everyone else’s comments get incremented. And this one is definitely worth checking out, as it’s from the OP in the Redfin Forums thread. Welcome, DonnieJ!
August 21st, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Palo Alto people no loger need to go East Palo Alto to buy meth. Meth production already started in Palo Alto.
August 21st, 2012 at 9:00 pm
“it seems nomadic is a redfin forum administrator who can dig the archives and recover edited posts.”
Now we know the REAL truth about nomadic.
August 21st, 2012 at 9:37 pm
Woohoo! I have superpowers now!
Sorry DonnieJ – your post (which I read and shared with madhaus when you wrote it) was far too entertaining not to share. This sure beats your employer finding those embarrassing drunken party pics from your youth.
August 21st, 2012 at 9:37 pm
On second thought, that’s a sh*tty superpower.
August 21st, 2012 at 11:44 pm
On second thought, that’s a sh*tty superpower.
Oh, you think “Delete URL from spam posts and attach snarky italicized rejoinder below” is an awesome one?
August 22nd, 2012 at 12:37 am
I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply back as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know wheere u got this from. thanks
Michael Nelson, assuming that’s your real name, the number one rule about running a blog is to give every visitor that personal touch by interacting with your commenters. By doing so you can discern who is a legitimate human being and who is a spambot. Since this might be a case of forcible commenting, I decided to compromise by letting you stay but not your URL. –ed.
August 22nd, 2012 at 11:53 am
How much was the rent for this sh*thole?
You’d have to fcking pay me to live in it. I guess there are always plenty of people desperate to live in the wannabe-RBA.
August 24th, 2012 at 1:57 am
D, Burlingame?
San Carlos has never been Burlingame. It is better than San Mateo fronting 101 from Burlingame, but not $850,000 better.
August 24th, 2012 at 11:46 am
Pralay / Sunnyvale Kim / Michael Bolton / Socket Puppet Master – Do you even know where Maplewood is?
August 24th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Palo Alto.
October 31st, 2012 at 10:52 am
SEA – the owner thinks its about land value hence the inflated price. Its going to cost you at least 400k to put a 2000sqft house on this land at which point you’ll be well past the median price for the area. Its a loss at 850. The owner should dump it for what they paid.
Found in the spam queue. Who knows what this is going to do to comment numbering. –ed.