We haven’t visited Belmont for a while, so this find from Burbed reader Overheard in San Carlos was very much appreciated.  And this property going pending despite the inept presentation goes to show that anyone can succeed as a Realtard.  At least anyone can when the Peninsula is this hot, hot, hot!

3034 SAN JUAN Blvd
Belmont, CA 94002
$1,249,000

BEDS: 4
BATHS: 3.5
SQ. FT.: 3,120
$/SQ. FT.: $400
LOT SIZE: 0.3 Acres
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Mediterranean
STORIES: 3
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 2004
COMMUNITY: Haskins Estates
COUNTY: San Mateo
MLS#: 81205312
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Pending Without Release
ON REDFIN: 73 days

GORGOUS 8 YR NEW MDETEREAN BEAUTY IN A UNBELVABLE PRVT BRTHTKNG CONTRY SETNG. ELEVATOR FOR YOUR MAJESTY’S CONVENIENCE TO A BRGHT AND CHEERFUL 4 BR 3.5 BTH FLR PLN. BALCONIES TO ENJY UR BBQ, WRK FRM HM OR READ A BOOK IN A PEACEFUL AND RICH SETNG. NU PNT, CRPT AND REFRBSHED HDWD FLRS, HI CEILNGS, REC LGHTS, OVRSIZE GRNT KITCHEN/PNTRY, LAVISH MSTR RM & BTH, LOFT IN GRG, EZ FWY ACSS TO SF, SJ, FSTR CTY.

While the agent correctly addressed Us as YOUR MAJESTY, We do not consider issuing decrees or declaring war on the East Bay to be WRK FRM HM.  The elevator is appreciated but the lack of a throne room makes this a poor Seat of State for Our Royal Self, Our Royal Family, Our Trusted Advisors, and Our 500 liveried retainers, guards, and servants.

Despite the LOFT IN GRG, We are not amused by the plastic stair protection.

Happy Monday!  We’ve got another exciting story for you, about some riveting residents who really respect realtards.  Read on!

Squatters issue restraining order against real estate agent

KTVU Channel 2,
Posted: 9:49 p.m. Friday, April 20, 2012

ANTIOCH, Calif. —  A Bay Area real estate agent said she’s being taken to court by squatters in Antioch who have taken over a house she’s trying to sell.

As many as three people have been living in the Concord home since December. Even though the owner never gave them permission to move in, they’re apparently not moving out without a fight.

Real estate agent Melissa Case said she can’t get too close to the four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom home she’s listed for sale in Antioch because the unauthorized residents took her to court.

"I have a temporary restraining order against me right now," Case said. "I cannot come within 50 yards of the home, which was filed by the squatters."

Case is definitely a Real Estate Professional.  You can tell from the way she talks, because it reads just like listing copy we see every day here.  The home was filed by the squatters,  Got it.  So you’re going to love this next quote from Ms. Case:

“Actually the police came out and verified that their… rental agreement? [air quotes]… was false and full of misspellings.”

Because nothing says Real Estate Professional like an example of their work product written up full of misspellings.

Here’s the house, and it was not easy to find.  Case described it as a “four bedroom two and a half bath” but Redfin listed it as a 4/3.  Also just to really mess with our minds, the article also said it was in Concord (see the second paragraph above).  Do you have any idea how many freaking short sales there are in Antioch? Or Concord?  Let’s just say I have a feeling we’re not in Los Altos anymore.

5116 THISTLEWOOD Ct
Antioch, CA 94531
$149,000

BEDS: 4
BATHS: 3
SQ. FT.: 1,873
$/SQ. FT.: $80
LOT SIZE: 5,900 Sq. Ft.
TYPE: Detached
STYLE: Traditional
STORIES: 2
YEAR BUILT: 1991
COMMUNITY: Antioch
COUNTY: Contra Costa
MLS#: 40568008
SOURCE: EBRD
STATUS: Pending
ON REDFIN: 23 days

End of Court Location and Across the street from the neighborhood park!! This home needs TLC.

End of Court!  Get it?  Get it?  Because the agent got taken to court!  Ahahahahahaha!

And speaking of short sales, the “homeowner in Berkeley” picked up this winner of a house for $460,000.  In 2004.  The current asking price is 23% less than what the house sold for, new, in 1992.  Perhaps “needs TLC” means “Teardown, Level and Condemn.”

Today is the 43rd Earth Day, so thank you Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI)!  How should Burbed celebrate Earth Day?  Let’s talk green houses. 

Hold your stones, I don’t mean glass houses.  I mean green, as in sustainable.  Green as in energy efficiency.  Green as in non-polluting, or at least less polluting.  And green as in whatever you left in the fridge is no longer before its time.

Berkeley architect attains enegy [sic] self-sufficiency in 1,800-square-foot home

Michael Freeze, BlockShopper.com, on SFGate.com
Sunday, April 15, 2012

When Chris Parlette, an architect by trade, went green with his Berkeley home, holding back wasn’t an option.

Parlette took his 800-square-foot home, built in 1920, and turned it into a solar-powered building that spanned more than 1,800 square feet. He described his idea of green residential living as a way of pushing the envelope to energy efficiency.

"Being an architect, I spent of lot time thinking of what I wanted to do with other clients’ houses," Parlette said of his home, located at 1147 Camelia St. "Gelling these architectural ideals I had, I wanted to put it into practice with this home with mainly solar and green ideas."

A 3.2-kilowatt photovoltaic solar electric system in the form of panels brings power to the home, and it actually provides more electricity than Parlette needs. Aside from the abundance of power, the home, he rightfully noted, also is aesthetically pleasing.

There’s glass aplenty in this Berkeley home, and you’ll definitely hit the solar panels if you toss rocks at the roof.

You can see more about the home over on the agent’s website, and there are even more pictures if you head over to Redfin and admire the listing.  But rather than splat out the nitty gritty details ($799K), let’s just use this house to start a discussion on how energy efficient your own home is, or is not.

Newer homes are not necessarily greener, either.  Not only is a lot of new construction done with shoddy materials and plenty of corner-cutting, but isn’t it greener to move into an existing home rather than have a new one built for you?  There are over 1.1 million empty dwelling units in California per the 2010 Census.  That’s 8.1 percent of all California homes.

Are you considering any energy improvements such as better insulation or putting in solar panels?  Is your house a lean, clean, green machine or is it a giant carbon sink?

Discuss your home, or particularly good or bad examples of sustainable energy in homes, or how you’re celebrating Earth Day, or anything else you’d like in this Open Thread.

Thanks very much to Burbed reader Kir for passing along this nugget from her blog Inside Los Gatos.  While this is a commercial property, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be returned to its original purpose as an ostentatious trophy home.

Pride of Ownership Retail Investment | Los Gatos

115 N. Santa Cruz Avenue
Los Gatos, CA 95030
$4,900,000

Building Size: 7,300 SF
Price/SF: $671.23
Property Type: Retail
Property Sub-type: Free Standing Bldg
Property Use Type: Net Lease Investment with 10+ years left on lease
Cap Rate: 5.14%
Occupancy: 100%
Tenancy: Single
Lot Size: 17,987 SF

Highlights

• Iconic Historic Building – One of Los Gatos’ Most Well Known Landmarks
• Irreplaceable Downtown Los Gatos Location
• 100% Leased to Experienced Restaurant Operators
• New 10 year Lease w/Scheduled Increases
• Minimal Landlord Obligations
• Recent Extensive Renovations

Here’s what Kir had to say about this place over on Inside LG:

Coggeshall Mansion is For Sale

One of our readers sent me a real estate flyer about the Coggeshall Mansion. I was going to post it in my "Where to Build a School" column, but decided it would be just too ridiculous of an idea; however, I want to share the fact that you can own a piece of historic downtown Los Gatos.

The history of the Coggeshall Mansion is interesting, to say the least. The house was originally built for Mary G. Coggeshall, a wealthy widow with two children. According to Alastair Dallas, "Once a grand home, one of many along N. Santa Cruz Ave., the Coggeshall Mansion was built in 1891 and converted into the Place Mortuary in 1917. When it re-opened as the Chart House restaurant in 1976, the bar in the back was called the Embalming Room. After the Chart House closed, the restaurant was known as Trevese from March 2007 to Fall 2009…" Now, Palacio inhabits the mansion.

Hooked on Los Gatos has a 1949 flyer depicting the Place Funeral Home. You can check it out HERE. In fact, many of the locals swear the mansion is haunted.

So not only is the former home being sold at a premium as commercial in-town property, it comes with “bunus” ghosts.  Here’s some more on the hauntings mentioned above.

Unfortunately the link above is to yet another Google product called “knol” that’s being abandoned for insufficient awesomeness. That means the link above may not work after May 1st.  Sorry about that. 

Here are the links given in that article about the ghosts, like the one who runs up huge bar tabs or the little girl who turns wine bottles hiding the label, or the little boy running outside the building.

This house/restaurant/funeral parlor is definitely for someone who had a huge pile of stock option cash dumped in their lap who wants to one-up all those Facebook poseurs househunting in Palo Alto and Hillsborough.

Thanks very much to Kir for allowing us to reprint articles that mention real estate.

88 S Broadway #2203, Millbrae, CA 94030
$698,800

The bar has been raised. Now, not only is it necessary and sufficient for the price of a property to defy gravity and be astronomically high – it has to violate space/time.

For example, let’s look at this condo that has a $625 HOA. What, you say? A $625 HOA? Surely this must be in SF and include some fine amenities? Uh… well… it’s in Millbrae and it comes with 2 parking spots. That’s kind of close.

But wait… this 1,241 square foot condo comes with a 2 Acre lot.

Wow! Does this condo have doors into the 5th and 6th dimension? I’m not quite sure how this works – but since the Bay Area is only occupied by smart people, there surely must be some who can explain this.

BTW, see how it says 80 days? It really means 8 microseconds. Time… space… it’s all altered.

The paradigm has shifted!

We hope you enjoyed Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer week last week.  Here’s another fine PG-produced property in San Francisco.  Last week, we had a Tenderloin tenement masquerading as a Civic Center squat, so let’s move on to the Mission!  And in acknowledgement of Spring Bounce, this property is also pending.  San Francisco is hot I tell you, hot, hot, HOT!

3223 20th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
$650,000

BEDS: 5
BATHS: 2
SQ. FT.: 2,244
$/SQ. FT.: $290
LOT SIZE: –
PROPERTY TYPE: Single-Family Home
YEAR BUILT: 1900
COMMUNITY: Inner Mission
COUNTY: San Francisco
MLS#: 394741
SOURCE: San Francisco MLS
STATUS: Contingent – Show
ON REDFIN: 21 days

Situated in the heart of the Inner Mission (cross-street is Harrison), this spacious and vacant 5BD/2BA home is on the market for the first time in over 50 years! Large one car garage. Rear yard. Just down the street from Flour + Water and close to an amazing variety of other great restaurants, cafes, and shops. Walk-Score = 97. Zoned RH-3, per the city’s 3R report. A great potential development opportunity in one of the city’s warmest and liveliest neighborhoods!

Look, it doesn’t matter how big a turd this building is.  Location, location, location; even if every single piece of hardwood in the entire house ended up in this one room.

How low could those low ceilings be?

If that doorway is standard width, that’s pretty low.

Thanks very much to Burbed reader sonarrat for this essential elegance in East San Jose! 

1613 ORLEANS Dr
San Jose, CA 95122
$300,000

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 2
SQ. FT.: 1,283
$/SQ. FT.: $234
LOT SIZE: 5,562 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Contemporary
STORIES: 1
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1968
COMMUNITY: Alum Rock
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81200318
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 98 days

nothing

There simply are no other words for how awesome this listing is.  Or exactly how much this agent is willing to do to sell it.

Recently, we took a look at a house in Midtown Palo Alto that a number of commenters thought was overbuilt for the neighborhood.  That reminded me of a similarly situated structure in Sunnyvale, so I pulled it up for nostalgia’s sake.  What a delightful surprise to discover that it’s once again for sale!  It was relisted just in time for April Fool’s Day, and at the same attractive price as it was three years ago.

1474 VALCARTIER St
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
$1,999,000

BEDS: 6
BATHS: 4.5
SQ. FT.: 4,790
$/SQ. FT.: $417
LOT SIZE: 8,000 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: French
STORIES: Tri-Level
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1991
COMMUNITY: Sunnyvale
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81211851
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 7 days

Extraordinary six-bedroom, four and one half-bath custom estate perfect for executive lifestyle of luxury and unmatched class. Within this showcase home you will find a remodeled ONE-OF-KIND gourmet kitchen featuring best-in-class appliances with close access to the formal dining room, casual family room and truly alluring outdoor venue that is perfect for entertainment.

This time around, they’re not letting us see the inside.  And it would need a lot of pictures, because this property has a FAR of 0.60.  That can’t even be LEGAL in Sunnyvale. 

But, this is a Custom Bahl Home!  And if you haven’t heard of Bahl Homes, they built a few tracts around Silicon Valley, including some zero lot line curiosities and the snout-house “patio homes” just around the corner from this place. Now that they’re done with building tracts, they remain as a real estate company. Fortunately for us, today’s house has its own webpage on Bahl’s site, with pictures even!  We don’t know when these were taken, though, as it’s been listed and sold many times since its construction.  Have a look at those pictures and more, after the break.

(more…)

This site does not get out to the East Bay enough.  Thanks very much to Burbed reader Jeremy from Hayward for doing the legwork for us, with this vintage villa in Castro Valley.  Remember, if you want us to cover more hella-fine houses from your hometown, be sure to send some in!

Today’s house is one you may be able to pick up with your income tax refund.  Now who says there isn’t affordable housing in the Bay Area?

5939 E Castro Valley Blvd
Castro Valley, CA 94552
$199,900

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 1
SQ. FT.: 1,390
$/SQ. FT.: $144
LOT SIZE: 1.74 Acres
TYPE: Detached
STYLE: Contemporary
STORIES: 2
YEAR BUILT: 1900
COMMUNITY: Castro Valley
COUNTY: Alameda
MLS#: 40567572
SOURCE: EBRD
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 16 days

Bank Owned !!! CONTRACTOR Special !!! Home needs Extensive repairs or may need to be torn down. LOT’s of POTENTIAL for this 1.75 acre lot.

Here’s why Jeremy sent us this classic structure:

All I can say is Best. Addition. Ever!!!

No Kitchen? Need extra space? No problem! In the East Bay we just knock out a wall and drive our RV up next to the house, some duct tape, and viola! Mama’s new kitchen!

Oi….at least it’s not $1million!

This has got to be a whole new level of WTFness, even if it didn’t have that lovely support post right next to the RV entrance.

Here’s another view of the RV.

Hoe.  Leigh.  Crap.

Jeremy followed up with:

Do you get a break on a combined auto/home policy for this?

Do you pay property tax or car registration?

It is pretty spectacular. Loving the retro dwell-ready colors on the RV as well….

Be sure to head over to the listing, because there are plenty more photos, although most are of the house without an RV parked in the middle of it.

Lot’s of POTENTIAL, indeed.  Too bad the listing doesn’t specify if the RV stays.

Bunus: Location, location, location!

Last year was an exciting March Madness playoff leading to a nail-biter of a final playoff.  Which was the Worst Company in America?  Was it BP, which destroyed an entire ecosystem, or was it Bank of America, which merely melted down an economy?

Those who voted for second-place B of A may have been hoping for another chance this year, but there’s a new Winner (and by that I mean Loser) in town.  According to the 2012 March playoffs hosted by The Consumerist, the worst company in America is… drumroll please… EA!

And EA was not content to merely ignore this ignominious achievement.  Nooooo!  EA, showing that the voters knew damned well what they were doing, actually made this stupefyingly ill-suited statement:

We’re sure that British Petroleum, AIG, Philip Morris, and Halliburton are all relieved they weren’t nominated this year. We’re going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide.

BP wasn’t even in the running this year because they won last year in a very closely contested contretemps. But Bank of America was back, of course.  And once more B of A (it stands for Bunch of A’**holes) failed to “survive” the final death match.

Also, AIG won in 2009 and Halliburton won the very first WCIA contest in 2006.

Other Bay Area companies nominated for this dubious honor include:

Netflix, who lost its first match against GameStop.  This one was a blowout final sale.

Wells Fargo also failed to advance when it was locked in the vault by CitiCorp.

Google similarly lost its maiden match to Apple by 404.

But Apple shouldn’t get a swelled AirBook over the experience, as it was easily short-circuited 2 to 1 by AT&T.

PayPal was knocked out in the quarter finals by WalMart in a Photoshop finish. But PayPal got that far by defaulting on CapitalOne in a walkover, and similarly slammed the receiver down hard on Charter.

Facebook had a much stronger string of worsts.  It cut the power to Sprint by 4 to 1, and gave the US Postal Service a definitive Return to Sender, before falling to AT&T, who wrote the book on bad service.  Facebook simply didn’t have enough Dislikes. 

AT&T was in turn Ctrl-Alt-Deleted by EA, with 3 out of 4 voters gunning for the gaming goon.  EA shut down Sony, closed out Best Buy, and blacked out Comcast to qualify for the semifinal with AT&T.

Which company do you think should have won the WCIA this year?  And which Bay Area companies that weren’t nominated do you think should have been?