Here’s a house that will give the entire la-di-da zip code of 94301 the “You’re not wearing THAT cheap thing?” glare it so rarely gets.  Yes, today’s featured listing is asking more than double the $1000 a square foot altitude we’ve come to love near University Avenue.

Thanks very much to Redfin Bay Area Forums reader tarazet for this find.

 

86 Stanton St, San Francisco, CA 94114
$1,150,000

BEDS: 1
BATHS: 1
SQ. FT.: 435
$/SQ. FT.: $2,644
LOT SIZE: –
PROPERTY TYPE: Single-Family Home
STYLE: Cottage
YEAR BUILT: 1918
COMMUNITY: Eureka Valley/Dolore
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 382947
SOURCE: San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 202 days

Two Buildable Lots and One Updated Cottage that sits in a little dell, down flagstone steps, with a terraced stone-paved front yard and grassy side yard. Two skylights, bleached hardwood floors, peaked beamed roof, bathroom with glassblock. Pedini Kitchen: Viking range, Carrera marble countertops. Great development plans available for viewing or develop your own.

Have we ever had a house listed for this much a foot?  This one cleared $2000 a foot, but isn’t anywhere as awesome because its high price is due to being on half an acre in Los Gatos.  Today’s house breaks the $2600 a foot barrier on a whopping 2347 square foot lot.  Now that takes some doing.

That’s right.  TWO buildable lots on the 2347 square feet.  I bet this house is perfect for two families as well.

Speaking of $2600, that’s exactly what this place rents for per month.  That means the price rent ratio is a delightfully buyer-friendly 36.86. Wowzers, you’d best jump on this place, because that hanging Ikea lamp probably adds at least an extra $75,000 to the kitchen.

Update: Price reduced to a million even last Friday.  It’s now a bargain at $2,299 a foot!

It’s just about time for another Real Bay Area weekend!  So let’s go to San Francisco for our last house of the workweek, courtesy of Burbed reader Bubbie Byer!

 

338 Noriega St, San Francisco, CA 94122
$829,000

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 2
SQ. FT.: 1,900
$/SQ. FT.: $436
LOT SIZE: –
PROPERTY TYPE: Single-Family Home
STYLE: Marina
VIEW: Partial, City Lights, Bay
YEAR BUILT: 1936
COMMUNITY: Inner Sunset
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 389847
SOURCE: San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Pending
ON REDFIN: 13 days

Delightful Marina 3bd/2ba home offers elegance + comfort. Main level-Spacious living rm has fireplace. Elegant Formal Dining rm, modern eat-in kitchen, 2 br + 1ba w/ skylite. Sliding door from 1br to deck/garden. The deck has partial City + Bay views w/ a level, grassy garden. Lower level has a small bdrm, bathrm + an inviting family room. W/ D in garage.

Here’s what BB had to say about the house:

First, the Marina is a 40 minute drive from that house.

The Spacious living rm stuffed with couches that look made from the skins of stuffed animals makes the room smaller. Watch your step on the way to the yellow kitchen and to check out the plastic faux-vinyl shower curtains. What a bargain for up to $10K in staging fees. They even put a crappy shower curtain in the bathrm "with small bdrm + inviting family room W/D in garage." You mean like a garage conversion?

Recovering that 2003 equity just got harder as a result of "presentation."

Sold for $731,000 in 2003, and went pending in 2 weeks.  Admittedly when Bubbie sent it in, it was still listed for sale.

It did sell quickly for more money than in 2003, but in eight years, it should have almost doubled.  Therefore, we have confirmation that the Inner Sunset isn’t in the Real Bay Area.  Should have bought something in the Marina!

Speaking of the Marina, since when is that a style of house as well as a (very expensive) neighborhood?  That’s a new one for me.

See, you can learn something reading Burbed!

Also have a look at the level, grassy garden, because Redfin says the lot doesn’t have a size.  Zillow says it’s 2500 sf.  Looking at the satellite picture, that would mean a 25 x 100 foot lot.

And every foot of those 25 are taken up by the house in front.  Does “single family home” mean something different in The City than it does in the burbs?

Those walls look like they’re touching to me.  Heck, those walls probably aren’t even holding the house up, because they’re leaning on the two neighbors’ houses.  The only homes on this block that have actual load-bearing walls are the ones on each corner.

Here’s another find from Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer, with many features you’re unlikely to find in the tract homes of the South Bay.

 

4033 18th St, San Francisco, CA 94114
Listed for $839,000, Sold for $824,000

BEDS: 2
BATHS:  1
SQ. FT.:  –
LOT SIZE:  –
PROPERTY TYPE:  Condominium
STYLE:  Victorian
YEAR BUILT:  1900
COMMUNITY: Eureka Valley/Dolore
COUNTY:  San Francisco
MLS#:  384248
SOURCE:  San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Sold

Welcome to 4033 18th Street. This pre-1900 Victorian condo delivers the best in urban living. The open floor plan combines the kitchen and living room into a generous open space accentuated by exceptionally tall ceilings. The bedrooms are large in size and each has a closet that can double as a sunroom or office. This home has hardwood floors, in unit washer/dryer, stainless appliances, granite countertops and an amazing designer shower. There is a shared rear patio with direct access to deeded side-by-side parking. Walk Score is 100!

You get so much less house for your money in San Francisco, but they make up for it by showing more pictures on the MLS.  This condo, which is so small they won’t even tell us how many square feet it is, still manages to come up with 22 pictures by showing 6 views of every room.

Plus each large in size bedroom has a closet, you know, a small windowless area to store things, except these small storage rooms in San Francisco can double as a sunroom or an office.

I guess closet means something very different in San Francisco than it does in the South Bay, and that might explain why Tom Cruise doesn’t want to come out of his.

Today’s featured listing is courtesy of Burbed reader Lars, so thanks very much!  Comments here can get a little raucous, so maybe it’s time for a my-political/economic-system-can-beat-up-your-political/economic-system rantfest.  Yes, this is a Below Market Rate listing.

 

1800 Washington St #314, San Francisco, CA 94109
$281,000

BEDS: 0
BATHS: 1
SQ. FT.: 476
$/SQ. FT.: $590
LOT SIZE: –
PROPERTY TYPE: Junior, Condominium, Studio
STYLE: Modern/High Tech
VIEW: City Lights
YEAR BUILT: 2001
COMMUNITY: Pacific Heights
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 382137
SOURCE: San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 179 days

Luxury below market rate unit. Must be 1st time homebuyer & income eligible. Maximum income level for 1 person:$104,400; Two People:$119,250;Three People:$134,200.Offers submitted with: Application, loan preapproval, homebuyer education certificate/proof of class registration, and SF Purchase Contract. Please contact Realtor for application & more info. Unit avail. thru the SF Mayor’s Office of Housing & subject to resale controls, monitoring & other restrictions. See sfgov. org/moh for info. Fair Housing Opportunity. Offers are on a first come/first serve basis.

Here’s what Lars has to say about this property:

Not sure if this is good material for your blog, but I found this a bit absurd:

You can qualify to buy this 476sqft "below market rate" shoe box for only $281,000 if you are a first-time home buyer making less than $104,400 per year. Good thing that SF is taking care of the poor. Socialists! I wonder if the deal includes food stamps for the Whole Foods nearby?

I want to know why San Francisco property for poor people gets 23 photos.  Most of the crapboxes we dig up in Redwood City and East Palo Alto only have one exterior shot taken from the agent’s about-to-be-repossessed-Mercedes.  If you look at the listings we feature in East San Jose you get a second blurrycam of the kitchen where light from the window overwhelms the tired cabinetry and 1963 appliances.  (Maybe that’s not a bug, but a feature.)

This listing isn’t like that place on Russian Hill with 82 photos, but it’s 28% of the way there!  So what if half the shots are building exteriors and common space, while another third are neighborhood eateries?  The typical Mountain View close-to-Google-and-nothing-else-to-recommend-it 3/2 has 9 pictures if you’re lucky!

This is so much better!  Example: Midnight snacking is easy, as the kitchen is just three steps away from your sleeping area!

However, the Whole Foods is three whole blocks away (but not too far to merit its own photo)!  That shouldn’t matter too much, as almost everything else will be passing right under your window.  Never mind a place on a busy street; this is a place on the corner of a fracking Federal Highway, and this unit is only on the third floor.

Hope you like the horn section, and I don’t mean from the SF Symphony 12 blocks south, nor do I mean marching bands parading down Van Ness. This is more of a spontaneous jam, as in vehicle horns from traffic on a six-lane thoroughfare.

And watch out for those resale controls, as this ten year old unit has already changed ownership three times.  But you get to go to the Mayor’s Office to apply!  Now that’s class!

And don’t fret about those strict income limits.  Grab yourself a couple of jobless roommates (they’re everywhere!) and you might just slip in under the $134,200 max.  That’s at least 148 square feet a person, lots of elbow room for SF housing!

So why deal with arbitrary rent hikes in a tight market?  Buy this place and deal with arbitrary HOA fee hikes instead! That extra $545 a month isn’t going to kill your budget, as long as one of your roommates can find a cash job off the books.

Today we have another terrific find from Burbed reader sonarrat!  Unfortunately, it’s been sitting in my inbox so long it’s growing mold, and what’s worse, those fickle sellers have yanked it from Redfin!  So, if you could convince them to sell again, how would you like your own castle?

881 Innes Ave, San Francisco, CA 94124

DAMN, missed it!  And look at the location it’s in, too!  Sounds classy! Foxhounds and riders and horns, oh my!  Here’s what sonarrat had to say about the place:

Albion Castle.. produces 10,000 gallons a day of spring water.. sounds great! …it’s WHERE??!

It’s in San Francisco! Let’s see where exactly… after the break, because I’ve got more to show you.

(more…)

Many thanks to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer for this record-breaking listing.

2451 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94109
$3,249,000

BEDS: 5
BATHS: 4.5
SQ. FT.: 4,590
$/SQ. FT.: $708
LOT SIZE: -
PROPERTY TYPE: Single-Family Home
STYLE: Contemporary, Modern/High Tech
VIEW: Panoramic, City Lights, Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, Garden/Greenbelt, Forest
YEAR BUILT: 1906
COMMUNITY: Russian Hill
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 384261
SOURCE: San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 58 days

Boasting approx. 4,590 square feet, this amazing remodeled home offers breathtaking full span Golden Gate Bridge views & stunning views of the Bay, Palace of Fine Arts, Marin Headlands, & the City. 5BR, 4.5BA, foyer, gorgeous staircase, living room with fireplace, dining room, eat-in gourmet kitchen, family rm, upper view living rm, wet bar, work rm, 2 laundry rms, huge walk-out view terrace, w-out patio, excellent storage, garden, security system, Siedle intercom system, large 2 car garage with interior access, wired for CAT 5, wired for sound in many rms w/ 5 zones of B & W speakers, hi ceilings, hardwood floors, skylights, double paned windows, secondary staircase, + a legal unit. On a prime flat tree-lined blk in prestigious Russian Hill.

One of the recurring complaints we’ve had with listings here are those with no or very few photos.  If you want us to plunk down not a lot of money for a house, we’d like to know it’s worth our while to spend the time to visit it.

No problem here! This 100+ year-old house not only will cost you a lot of money, even by RBA standards, but nobody is going to complain there aren’t enough pictures, either.  Even if two of the first three aren’t of the house at all but some stupid bridge that isn’t included.

Yes, you read that right.  82 pictures.  Which one is your personal favorite?  It’s hard to choose, but here are a few that helped today’s listing earn its wtf tag. Yet many of them are so perfectly suited to this Dwell parody site that the captions practically write themselves.

That poorly-socialized chair once again blocked the harmonic flow between the golden glazed pottery and the wood stove.

Japanese elements such as rice paper and red pine could not disguise the fact that this was still a jail cell.

Okay, now you try it!  Or you can pick any picture number from the listing and provide your caption!

This last one is thrown in to note that you can spend over three million dollars for this place and not get a single square foot of actual land included.

SFMTA Ponders Most Expensive Cab Fares in the Country

At tomorrow’s Board of Directors meeting, the San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Agency will review a proposal that would raise taxi meter rates to 55 cents per fifth of a mile or minute of waiting in traffic. If passed, those 10-cent increases to the current rates (plus another ten cents per fifth of a mile in potential fuel surcharges) would make our taxis the most expensive in the country according to a 12-city study conducted by the SFMTA. Adding insult to injury are the proposed two- and three-dollar fees for booking your ride through a dispatcher, meaning a phoned-in evening pickup could cost you over six bucks just for getting in the cab. The agency will be taking one last round of community input at tonight’s final taxi town hall meeting before voting tomorrow to authorize all or some of the new rates and surcharges. [Chron] [SFEx]

Long time Burbed readers know that one of the fundamental beliefs of this site is that the more expensive and unaffordable the Bay Area is, the better it is because that keeps people hard at work and delivering innovation.

So, I for one applaud this move. We should make transportation as incredibly expensive and painful as possible, so that people will feel the need to stay in more, and work on the next big IPO that will result in higher house prices.

Because… as we all know… higher house prices are the goal of any desirable area.

Please welcome Burbed reader SEA back to the front page with a piece that got held up in comment moderation.  SEA agreed to let us move this to the the featured listing of the day instead, so you could all enjoy every bit of this, um, amazing, um, uh, well read on for today’s Guest Blogger’s view.

Please give SEA a big, warm Real Bay Area welcome and check out this amazing price cut incredible value in Baghdad by the Bay!

Here’s a prime example of a not of money lost, but I’m happy it’s not my money:

627 La Salle Ave #73, San Francisco, CA 94124
$75,000

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 3
SQ. FT.: 1,360
$/SQ. FT.: $55
LOT SIZE: –
PROPERTY TYPE: Condominium
STYLE: Traditional
VIEW: Panoramic, Bay
YEAR BUILT: 1981
COMMUNITY: Bayview
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 377644
SOURCE: San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Pending
ON REDFIN: 203 days

Sold: July 2005 $400k
Listed: October 2010 $100k (75% lower than last sale–Christmas in October, maybe?)
Listing price reduced: January 2011 to $75k

It did go pending in October 2010, so who knows what’s up with the January price reduction, but who was it that paid $400k for this place, and when will it be worth $400k again, even if the local/national economy suddenly looked very good? I sure don’t see a neighborhood suddenly going from $100k sales to $400k sales (to get back to 2005 pricing), and then, for those who purchased in 2005, it would need to go significantly higher to realize a reasonable return on investment. Here it is some six years later, and let’s use the “double every 10 years” standard, that suggests that this place would need to sell for $800k in just four years. Yes, that’s right, from under $100k to ~$800k in four years. The freakin’ RBA cannot compete with that.

Alternatively, Let’s say the price does not go from $100k to $800k in four years, but rather the selling price doubles in four years. This means that similar homes in the area would be worth ~$200k, so those who purchased at $400k would be down 50% after 10 years. And I think I’m being a bit generous to suggest the prices will double in that area in just four years–first prices need to stop going down, and then double.

All this while people kvetch about an extra buck for a gallon of gas. You know the routine: So many complain that gas is ‘unaffordable,’ yet they dream about buying million dollar homes. Million dollar homes cannot be the problem–let’s go to war over a few bucks each week in gas expense.

And before you tell me how special this place is on the lower end, there is at least one other in that area: 132 Dolphin Ct.

Purchased June 2005 for $410k.
Sold February 2011 for $108k.

Is that close enough to say 75% off? When will the selling price get back over $400k?

I know:

Every home is sacred.
Every home is great.
If a home is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Every home is wanted.
Every home is good.
Every home is needed
in your neighborhood.

God loves those who treat
their homes with more care.

Owning your own private island is one way to show you have arrived.  8 bedroom mansion?  How vulgar!  900 acre winery?  That means you’re in trade.  But a private island?  Now that is landownership.

Thanks to Burbed reader CLS for passing this along.

Last island we featured was a bit wanting in the location, location, location chops.  Not this one.  It’s in San Francisco Bay, with views, views, views!  And it even made the national news!  Yahoo picked up the story (that’s their photo above), and it’s been around some other sites, too, but this local blog may have kicked it back into collective consciousness.

0 Red Rock Is, San Francisco, CA 94109
$22,000,000

BEDS: –
BATHS: –
SQ. FT.: –
LOT SIZE: 5.78 Acres
PROPERTY TYPE: Lots & Land, Other
VIEW: Bay, Bridges, City, Hills, Lights, Panoramic
COMMUNITY: San Francisco County
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 21022212
SOURCE: BAREIS
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 186 days

Red Rock Island is the only privately held island in San Francisco Bay and is offered at $22M for the mineral rights and bragging rights. It forms the confluence of San Francisco, Contra Costa and Marin Counties. The largest portion of the island is the 4.114 acres in Contra Costa County. It rises to an elevation of 172 feet above the water with fantastic views in all directions and is North of the fog belt. The price includes the mineral rights.

And it’s a good thing the price includes the mineral rights, because it doesn’t include building rights, water rights, or permit rights.  All you get on are some old stories of possible pirate gold buried here, and, of course, bragging rights. 

Of course, the island has its own website!  It needs to, in order to explain that you aren’t merely buying an island.  You’re taking on a whole new paradigm of land use, such as being divided among three different counties (SF, Marin and Contra Costa), including the City of Richmond, and who knows how many state agencies, plus there’s a 1932 Executive Order signed by Herbert Hoover that prohibits destruction or disfigurement of the island.

Not every real property has to deal with so many government entities, but this one is Real Special!

The Associated Press stated that the current owner bought the island in 1964 for $49,500, and attempted to build a 20 story hotel and casino complex.  The project was blocked by the City of Richmond.  He’s also considered turning the place into a quarry and practicing a little mountaintop removal.

Property Shark has never heard of the place (they say the address simply doesn’t exist), and the San Francisco Assessor’s Office software went all Three Mile Island trying to find it even when I spotted it the parcel number. 

So maybe you ought to consider buying it just to avoid bill collectors and process servers.  Plus if any county deputies come after you, all you have to do is step over the line into your choice of two others!

Really, if Zillow can’t find this place, you’re golden:

And puh-leeze on the listing being only half a year old.  The owner’s been trying to ditch this sandbar since at least 2007, and look!  It’ was for sale in 2005 for a quarter the price!  According to Yahoo, the asking price was $10 million in 2008.  Somebody better tell the listing agent that the price is supposed to double every ten years, not every two.

Here’s owner David Glickman on why the price keeps going up:

At the time, I thought I’d sell it. The island has a good spot for a marina, and it’s in the bay, so the marina would be useful," he said. "But each time I thought I was going to sell it, something happened to make it worth more money.

Trulia has yet another view of the perpetual Rent versus Buy debate, and they’ve got lots of colored bubbles to help.  Bubbles are great.  They lead to high housing prices and if you own the house, you get to paint it any color you want (as long as you don’t live in a fascist HOA community).

The map at right is from Trulia’s Rent vs Buy tool.  The rent ratio is calculated by comparing the median list price of a 2 bedroom condo or townhouse listed on Trulia to the average monthly rent, for the 50 largest cities in the United States.

You see the problem right away, don’t you?  2 bedroom condo or townhouse.  Excuse me, but who the heck wants to buy a 2 bedroom condo or townhouse?  Maybe some of us have to (if we want to own anything), but for those who can buy a single-family detached house, the ratio we want is the cost versus the rent of a three bedroom, two bath house with a yard.  Those are difficult to find in San Francisco, and almost nonexistent in New York City, but for everywhere else, such a thing is not only possible but highly desired.

So who cares if Trulia says San Jose has a price to rent ratio of 15 (which puts it right over the line for the BUY column)?  That means BUY don’t rent the condo.  The question is whether to buy the house, and they aren’t helping with that decision.

Here are Trulia’s Rent vs Buy numbers for some cities of interest.  Remember, under 15 means buy, over 20 means rent, and in between, it depends.  Maybe that means live somewhere else.

City	Avg List Price	Avg Rent	Price to Rent Ratio
Fresno	$90,446	$936	8
Sacramento	$152,696	$934	14
Oakland	$278,245	$1,625	14
San Jose	$298,621	$1,691	15
Los Angeles	$491,055	$2,460	17
San Diego	$396,409	$1,670	20
San Francisco	$774,728	$2,996	22
Portland	$307,858	$1,145	22
Seattle	$461,330	$1,546	25
New York City	$1,383,612	$3,538	33

The biggest surprises on the full list?  Omaha, at 26 and Fort Worth at 30, although Trulia notes the Fort Worth sample size was insufficient. These numbers don’t show whether attached housing is seen as a city norm or not, and if not, at what discount does attached housing go for compared to detached.  I suspect the odd results for Omaha and Fort Worth are for that very reason.  There may be so few attached units that the results are meaningless.

So where does San Jose fit on the scale of urban to suburban?  Given the name of this website, perhaps San Jose house price rent ratios are in the thirties.