We’re almost done With the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and Wow is our Website Woozy.  What Will our readers Whine about When it’s gone? No Worries, some of you Wonder Why it Wore out its Welcome While others Winked at how Wonderful the Words Were.

Well… let’s move on to today’s featured home. It’s in one of Realest of the Real Bay Area areas, home to many famous Silicon Valley startup billionaires. Now it can be home to you as Well, and even at an Welcome asking price!

439 GLENWOOD Ave
Woodside, CA 94062
$888,000

1 Beds
1 Baths
480 Sq. Ft.
$1,850 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1933
Lot Size: 0.34 Acres
On Redfin: 6 days
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
County: San Mateo
Style: Cottage/Bungalow
Community: Woodside Glens
MLS#: 81312849

A Rare and Most Unique Opportunity2Bld Your Dream HM or Acquire a Cottage HM Retreat in Coveted Woodside Glens!Revive 2 Fxr Upr Cottages, or Pave the Way for Your NU LUX RES!This Desirable Prop offers 15,000 SQ FT of Wooded Serenity w/ an End of the Road Culdesac Lctn!Approx. 4 miles from Canada Road, EZ Ingress/Egress. Minutes 2 Town Village & Top Rated Woodside Elementary Schl!Super EZ Cmt2H-280!

Upcoming Open Houses

Sunday, Apr 28: 2:00-4:00 pm
Sunday, May 5: 2:00-4:00 pm

This may be the first property in Woodside to have its listing copy composed entirely in tweets.

Wow, What’s this? Woodside is known for huge spreads on acres of land. Today’s house is only oversized When compared With this cabin in the Woods.

Wait, there’s more (bunus!): Court confirmation may be required. Whee!

What do you think? Typo, toxics, or TERRIFIC OPPORTUNITY?  Buy now, at a LUCKY PRICE!  Thanks very much to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer for this superlative steal in San Francisco!

430 Eddy
San Francisco, CA 94102
$8

— Beds
— Baths
— Sq. Ft.
Built: —
Lot Size: 6,356 Sq. Ft.
On Redfin: 25 days
Property Type: Lots & Acreage
County: San Francisco
Community: Tenderloin
MLS#: 404942

2 lots; 430 Eddy St. & 519 Ellis St. There were previous approvals for 46 Senior Units. Approvals are expired. Offers will be reviewed on or after March 15th. There is no asking price. Seller reserves the right to reject any offer.

Whoa.  This is so different than all those other real estate deals where the seller has to take any offer, no matter how ridiculously insulting.  Like, say, $8 for two lots in San Francisco.  And not the part way the heck out by the fog, either.  No, this is in the Tenderloin, the sweetest neighborhood of all!  Now, let’s have a look at what they’re selling and forgot to photograph.

Yesssss! Score! Trash bins!

See that big red Pin with an A on it? That’s A for Approvals Are Expired, so their loss is your gain! Start your overbidding now!  You know why you should invest in this area?  It’s a growth opportunity!

It may be just the tip of the Krazy Kool-Aid effect, but this is not how a reasonable housing market should work.  Thanks very much to Burbed reader Wendie (as well as additional fans) for bringing this textbook definition of Irrational Exuberance to our attention.

559 TENNYSON Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301

Listed for $2,088,000 on 1/25/2013
Price changed to $2,088,888 on 1/27/2013
Sold for $2,820,000 on 2/25/2013

2 Beds
1 Baths
1,353 Sq. Ft.
$2,084 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1921
Lot Size: 7,500 Sq. Ft.
Sold On: Feb 25, 2013
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
County: Santa Clara
Style: Cottage/Bungalow
Community: Old Palo Alto
MLS#: 81302338

Located in the heart of wonderful old Palo Alto with top rated schools on a large 7500/SF lot. Charming 2 bedroom 1 bath plus den. One oversized bedroom. Hardwood floors , utility basement, and detached Garage. Sold as is in its present condition. Offers to be reviewed after 2/8/2013.

We’ll have plenty more evidence as we move into Spring Selling Season that the Real Bay Area is in a Real Bubbly Attitude.  Maybe this can be the First 35% Overbid of Spring.  Now let’s hear from Wendie.

This realtor did an amazing job with the photos of this house! How else could this 3/1 1300 square foot house have sold for 2.8 million dollars?? 800K over asking prices. 

I mean, did you ever think that taking photos of a 1920′s bathroom and a CORNER of a room could do such magic?

x

You’re simply not giving the agent enough credit, Wendie.  I see at least TWO corners.  What, do you think these houses just sell themselves?

If you take a look along our right-hand column, you can see a number of useful things to click.  There’s our email contacts, for when you want to send in the perfect example of Housing Win.  There’s some interesting websites we think you’d enjoy.  And there’s a link for every category we’ve ever filed anything under, along with how many articles are in each one.  Most of our categories are location, location, location.

Take a glance at today’s category, Foster City.  It’s a little on the scant side, and there’s a good reason for that.  Foster City is full of tract housing, and most of it’s in fairly good shape.  Places with good schools don’t tend to get run-down properties.  And besides, there’s so much housing win right next door in the flats of San Mateo.  All this is a fairly long-winded way to welcome today’s featured home, from Burbed reader Pizzawillcome.  Thanks very much for pulling up a rarity: Burbed-worthy in Foster City!

676 PILGRIM Dr
Foster City, CA 94404
$808,000

2 Beds
2.5 Baths
1,340 Sq. Ft.
$603 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1964
Lot Size: 5,225 Sq. Ft.
On Redfin: 7 days
Status: Active
Property Type: Detached Single Family
View: Neighborhood
County: San Mateo
Stories: 1
Community: Treasure Isle
MLS#: 81301481
Upcoming Open Houses:
Sunday, Jan 27: 2:00-4:00 pm

Great Foster City Eichler style home in excellent neighborhood. Laminate wood floors throughout. Heated pool and spa. Huge master bedroom. Kitchen with granite countertops. Remodeled baths. This house is perfect for entertaining. Home needs a little TLC but is in great shape. This will go quick. Great price!

Here’s the Pizza on this fab find:

I’ve been visiting Burbed on a daily basis for a few months. It is strangely therapeutic.

This house gave me an urge to send in my first burbed alert.  My favorites are the Cinderella-style bathroom mirror and the vanity.

Our favorite picture is the first one, because we don’t typically find such artistic photos in Foster City.  They’re all strangely identical, but this one is by an agent who says, “No, dammit, this house needs to be backlit! The right buyer wants a house that looms menacingly.

“Also that buyer will appreciate not one but two 8s in the price.”

Bunus: what’s that in the mirror?

And happy new year to all our Burbed readers!  Let’s get right back to housing win, shall we?  We shall.  Today’s fine featured facade was nominated by Burbed reader Michael Boltonestater.

917 North Rd
Belmont, CA 94002
$499,888

3 bed
2 bath
1,490 sqft
Single-Family Home
 
Listing Details
18 Days on Trulia
586 views
Provided by: Liberty Realty Via Mlslistings
Broker: Liberty Realty
Listing Agent: Patrick Sullivan

One original owners–built 1948—-more room than you could imagine–Third bedroom may non-conforming—-nice redwood tree in the back plus lot’s nice vegitation.Chandlier in bedroom is not included.

How hot is the Peninsula housing market?  It is so hot that this fine property, despite the unincluded Chandlier, went pending on New Year’s Day.  And that forced us to use Trulia instead of Redfin.

It is so hot that the agent responsible for this listing didn’t even bother taking an actual photo of the house and just slammed in a Streetview shot (trash bins included!).  Here’s proof at left if you don’t believe me, unless the one original owners have a very interesting outdoor light fixture.

And this market is so hot that a home could be described as “more room than you could imagine” and then force you to imagine it.  That’s right, no inside pix! 

It is so hot that not even the lovely view from the front yard could distract all the overbidders.

Yes, this market is so hot, this place went pending in 18 days.  2013 had better be the year you resolve to not get PRICED OUT FOREVER!!!!!!!!

We sure hope so.  You survived the end of the world yesterday, didn’t you? (Those not surviving the end of the world, please stop interrupting.)  Now we’ve found a piece on Trulia on the numerology of home sales. 

This means you can continue your lucky lifestyle, thanks to Trulia’s research.  It turns out that a lot of home sellers put their favorite “lucky numbers” in their asking prices.

So what’s wrong with this pie chart at right?  Too many nines and fives, yet not enough eights, that’s what.  Everyone knows that eights are lucky.  Well, everyone in the Real Bay Area knows that.  The lucky numbers in the rest of the country say otherwise.

This consolidated map suggests that there aren’t any particular lucky numbers in the Midwest, the Plains, the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Northwest, just a countrywide avoidance of the number 13 in prices.  And here’s some more on 8 as a lucky number.

We took a spot-check of the asking prices in Cupertino, right now, over a million dollars (which is pretty much all of them).

We came up with one 1, one 2, one 6, three 9s, seven 5s, and a whopping ten 8s.    We just had to make a pie chart out of that.  Until today, we had no idea that donuts were a subset of pie.

If we then take the sub-million houses, we get an additional one 1, four 5s and two 8s.

We then compare with similarly sized cities (at least as to number of sales over a million) with rather different demographics.  San Rafael is majority white, and Oakland, while one of the most racially diverse cities, has a higher percentage of blacks than many other areas.

Whoa. There’s 4s in Oakland, which is a very unlucky number in Cupertino.  All three cities have a strongly marked preference for 5 over 9, while nationally it’s the other way by almost 2 to 1.

We welcome your reasoning on why this would be, or anything else you wish to bring up in this Weekend-after-the-end-of-the-world Open Thread.

Let’s say you built a super expensive, fancy-schmancy custom one-of-a-kind house on a spectacular view lot and had a bunch of designers each decorate a different room in the place to make it Extra Super Mega Special. Then you ran a charity fundraiser by calling it a Designer Showcase and listed the place for $45 million.  And of course you list it with Sotheby’s.

And yet, let’s say this drop-dead-gorgeous spec palace did not find a buyer for $45 million (or, we assume, anywhere near that vicinity) when it was first listed this February.  What do you do?

You could cut the price ten million or so.  And it looks like that was tried as well, as the most recent price last week is $35.88M.  And yet, the house is still sitting there, all lonely on its double lot and intense blue skies obtained with the finest Photoshop filters.  What’s the next step to avoiding serious financial fail?

In this case, the solution (or at least the next attempt at avoiding a catastrophe) is to put the house up for auction.  The starting price will be $25 million.  At least one website actually states this is going to result in the home selling for last February’s price.

Alas, we missed the preview yesterday afternoon.  But the auction will be on December 30th, giving you plenty of time to contact the right people and get yourself in on the fun.

Redfin won’t disclose the address, but we sure will: 425 Belvedere Ave, Belvedere.  You’re welcome.

Click the image at right to see the home’s brochure and many more pictures in tones of sapphire and sunset.  You can also drool all over the home’s website if the brochure isn’t enough house porn for you.

So, is the market bubble over already, or did the home builders simply overreach with a $45 million ask?  What do you expect the place to fetch at auction?  Is the opening $25 million minimum sufficient to move this mess?

Just because it isn’t Black Friday anymore doesn’t mean the DEALS stop!  Let’s see what you can get if you want to live in San Mateo County but don’t want to break the bank.  Or rob the bank.  Or get a ginormous bail-out because you’re a bank.

719 3RD Ave
San Bruno, CA 94066
$388,880

2 Beds 
1 Baths 
820 Sq. Ft.
$474 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1940 
Lot Size: 3,700 Sq. Ft. 
On Redfin: 7 days
Status: Active
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
Community: Belle Air
MLS#: 81241202
Style: Ranch
View: Neighborhood
County: San Mateo

Lovingly kept & lived by current owner for a long time. Per county record it is 3BR/1BA; however, 3rd BR has no closet. Walking distance to BART/CalTrain/Elem School. Easy access to HWY 101 for commuting to SF, E. Bay and So. Bay. Regular Sale (Not a Short Sale or REO). Open House 11/18(Sun 1-4 pm) & 11/25(Sun 1-4 pm). Offers, if any, due by 11/25,3 pm. Information believe to be accurate but not verified.

We’re already doing better than yesterday’s cheapest property in Santa Clara County, because the first find is an actual, detached house.  It’s also eligible for the “cozy” tag, but you can’t have everything, can you? Come on, this is vintage pre-war, and it looks like it’s still in vintage condition! Plus that awesome “No, no, no, this isn’t a distressed sale, really!” plaint in the listing copy.

You want a house? You now have zero excuses. Plus, just like yesterday’s third house, easy access to both 101 and the airport!

This house is the deal of the century! (Information believe to be accurate but not verified.)

If you haven’t already sent in your absentee ballot, today is the day for you to vote.  There’s a clutch of candidates who made speeches and some of them are going to get elected.  Burbed has not endorsed any specific candidates, but we have a guide to the state propositions based on how much each would increase the value of your house.

Now, here’s the house we’d vote for if it were on the ballot.  Thanks very much to Burbed reader MJ for nominating it!

1430 South Wolfe Road
Sunnyvale CA 94087
$728,888

Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 2
175 days on Trulia
33 views
Property type: Single-Family Home
Size: 1,768 sqft
Lot: Ask agent
Price/sqft: $412/sqft
Year built: 1949
MLS/ID: 81218044

REGULAR SALE, NOT A SHORT SALE!!!NOT A SHORT SALE!!! NEWLY REMODELED PROPERTY!!! 1,768 SQ FT. GRANITE COUNTER TOPS, NEW BRAZILIAN CHERRY CABINETRY, NEW CARPETING IN ALL THE BEDROOMS, MARBLE IN BATHROOMS & HALLWAY, HOUSE IS IN A GREAT LOCATION. CONVENIENT ACCESS TO HWY 280, 85 AND LAWRENCE EXPY. IN OTHER WORDS A TURNKEY HOME FOR YOUR BUYER.

Here’s MJ’s nominating speech.

I’ve read the blog for a while but never felt compelled to send anything in. Until now. I believe I found a home with every Burbed cliche. It is a crapshack. It has a sweet price history, quadrupling in price in fourteen years, eights in the listing price, garage converted to “living unit with two bedrooms and a kitchen”, awful location on a busy road (though oddly the listing copy mentions its proximity to a different busy road), seven photos of the stove, and insane listing copy noting twice it isn’t a short sale. It even has DHO, see the reflection in the patio door.

I don’t feel like I can take credit for this. The realtor really deserves it all.

Oh it gets better. My wife found out it come with Sunnyvale utilities but Santa Clara schools, four Redfin agent comments, and the first shot is a Google street view. We really have hit every Burbed cliche except pink house.

But was it a former meth lab?  Got ya there, huh?

MJ sent us a link to Redfin, which was perfectly fine when we checked it out a couple of days ago, but this is what we see now.  Another Burbed cliche, the listing got pulled the day we wanted to write it up.  Fortunately it’s still on almost every other real estate site (for now), so we’re going to grab those pictures while the grabbing is good.

Whoa, how’s this for a cliche?  Search for the house by address, click on the Trulia listing, and get the wrong house in the wrong town.  We swear we’re not making this up, but the Google link to the house was sending us to 1395 Jefferson in Santa Clara.  Whew!

At least the Redfin comments are still there, even if the 24 photos were taken down.  See some of what you missed, after the break.

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We’ve mentioned a few times that this site’s founder, burbed, has a jones for pink houses. Today’s house is pink… but only on the inside.  Open wide, say Ahhh, and and have a look at this marvelous maison in Milpitas!  Thanks very much to Burbed reader Tracy Tea House for sending in this rancho rosa real.

2258 Devon Place
Milpitas CA 95035
$914,888

Play virtual tour (powered by Trulia Pro)

Est. payment: 
Bedrooms: 4 
Bathrooms: 3 
62 days on Trulia
862 views
Property type: Single-Family Home
Size: 2,700 sqft
Lot: 0.25 acres
Price/sqft: $339/sqft
Year built: 1985
MLS/ID: ML81231332
Zip: 95035

Detached, Traditional – Milpitas, CA
This custom Shapell Home is now on the market for the 1st time! Immaculate Condition!! This Beautiful home has been cared for & loved by the same owners for 26 years.*Formal Living, Family & Dining room, Breakfast nook, High ceiling through out *Master Suite w/walk-in closet, tub w/jets, *Private laundry room *New Tile, double pane windows, plantation shutters, video security system, Huge Lot with tons of possibilities & MUCH MORE!!

Here’s what Tracy thought about the decor.

Wow  so nice and in Milpitas too. Yeah, it’s a little close to 680, but all in all seems pleasant enough. I am sending this house to you because of the decorating. I didn’t even see the inside of the house, I was too distracted by the pastel color schemes…

This house is 26 years old? This dining room reminds me of some model condos we toured back in 1984.  So that means the current owners were only two years behind the latest decorating trends… assuming they never updated another thing once they furnished this home.

Providentially, there’s plenty more pink photos to peruse.  Please, enjoy them after the break.

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