Today’s listing is brought to you by Burbed reader sonarrat.  Here’s what sonarrat has to say about today’s featured house!  “Yep, I had a view of this house from my classes at SJSU.”

237 E San Fernando St, San Jose, CA 95112
$1,199,000

Beds: –
Baths: –
Sq. Ft.: 2,250
$/Sq. Ft.: $533
Lot Size: 6,165 Sq. Ft.
Stories: 2
View: Neighborhood
Year Built: 1920
Community: Central San Jose
County: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81023941
Source: MLSListings
Status: Active
On Redfin: 186 days

Amazing opportunity in prime location – right next to SJSU and behind San Jose City Hall. This fantastic property has 11 rooms (possible to add 3 more), 3 bathrooms, common area, coin operated laundry machine in the spacious basement. Plenty of parking spaces available in the large backyard. Options for Fraternity house, business, restaurant or duplex. Buyers to confirm use permits.

Wow, sonarrat, I’m speechless.  Has there ever been a property on Burbed before where the agent suggests it would make a great Frat house?  Fraternity brothers take such good care of the premises, too!  It would be such a shame to turn this into a business or restaurant instead. Then it could burn down when a waiter trips holding a tray full of flaming shots for the frat brothers who bought down the street.

Look, we know in life there are winners and there are losers.  Not everyone who can send their kids to college gets to send them to Stanford.  So if your son or daughter is as upset about their options as you’ll be, why not pick up this conveniently located little dwelling as a consolation prize, and skip the whole dorm thing?  Let the college kid learn about the real world by writing leases, collecting rents and evicting deadbeats!  Plus, you can sell it at a profit in seven or eight years when your child finally graduates. Yes, seven or eight years, because with those budget cuts, there’s no way the school’s letting anyone graduate in just four.

Real Bay Area property doubles every ten years, so this is an investment that more than pays for itself.  Remember, it’s got a coin-operated laundry machine.

In a previous post, I asked whether location was all there was to pricing real estate.  Looking at several homes on the same street, their position, and their list prices would help answer this question.  The first home was a small 2/1 in a “fantastic location” for just under a million.  Let’s see what’s on the same street but on the Other Side of that cruel boundary between sort of good and Real Good: Middlefield Road.

365 Lincoln Ave Palo Alto, CA 94301
$7,995,000

Beds: 8
Baths: 4.5
Sq. Ft.: 5,505
$/Sq. Ft.:$1,452
Lot Size: 0.72 Acres
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 3
View: Neighborhood
Year Built: 1907
Community: Professorville
County: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81024865
Source: MLSListings
Status: Pending Without Release This listing is in escrow, past inspections and waiting for loan funding. "Without Release" indicates that the current buyer doesn’t need to sell a home to buy the new home.
On Redfin: 62 days

Special Opportunity to own one of Professorville’s largest lots & historic homes. Built in 1903 by Stanford Professor Leander Hoskins, this graceful craftsman style home is 5,511 sq ft & has 8 bedroooms & 4 bathroooms on a 31,500 sq ft lot. Fine example original craftsman woodwork. A broad inviting veranda welcomes visitors. Walk to Downtown & Stanford University. Please do not disturb occupants

That photo looks a bit… threatening.  Lights are on but it’s still daytime… but not for long!  The house seems like it’s crouching down low, preparing to spring onto your chest, knock you down, rip out your throat and force you to sign an eight million dollar real estate offer without contingencies.  And no eights in the price, yet!  But it’s a “Special Opportunity.”  It’s so special, the “bedroooms” and “bathroooms” are pre-stocked with extra haunting ooos.

It’s sooo special, that you’d better be able to handle the cognitive dissonance of a “broad inviting veranda” that “welcomes visitors,” except you’re not supposed to “disturb the occupants.”  Guess that broad inviting veranda is off-limits, eh?  But ask yourself, what kind of occupants would there be in an 8/4.5 near a major university?

Two words.  Frat house.  With extra ooos.  Take a look at the photo above, again.  Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Vampire frat house.

While you put on your carbon-fiber neck protector, savor this lot.  Look how it takes up the space of more than four tall or two grande properties, and just lolls onto both Lincoln and Waverly like a well-played Tetris piece… without actually being on the corner!

Heh.  I said loll.  And lolling is what you get to do when you live on the Better Side of Middlefield.  Too bad you can’t buy the Vampire Frat House, though.  It’s pending, and loooks like it was delisted a month ago, probably when someone walked in and said “Ooo!  8 bedroooms and 4 bathroooms!  Sooold!”  Loooks like you’re priced out forever, but the ooout-of-tooown sellers are making the city very happy.  The old tax valuation was (ooo!) $175,246.

To be fair, I went up and down the street loooking for unsightly vehicles, but this was the worst to be found.  The next worst was the Post Office truck.  But I do like how this photo shows the hired help gazing longingly at a house he wishes he could live in.

You see, this is the Better Side (even if you have to leave garlic on each windowsill)!  The neighbors keep their cars tucked behind hedges and trees, so only the transient workers’ jalopies remain.  Next time, we’ll Return to the Dark Side. Be there or be a Tetris piece!