We’ve been calling Bubble on the Real Bay Area for several months.  For the next few days we’ll continue to make the case that the housing bubble in the Bay Area is absolutely unmistakable.  Yesterday, we had a 35% overbid in Prime Palo Alto for a tear-down bungalow on a lot too small for subdivision.  Today, we have an even smaller lot with a return of what we called a “wishing price” when the Bubble was about to pop.  But before it did, we had another name for a WTF asking price.  Let’s see what one would look like in Millbrae.

140 MAGNOLIA Ave
Millbrae, CA 94030
$1,100,000

2 Beds
1 Baths
990 Sq. Ft.
$1,111 / Sq. Ft.
Built: 1927
Lot Size: 6,000 Sq. Ft.
On Redfin: 3 days
Property Type: Detached Single Family
Stories: 1
County: San Mateo
Style: Cottage/Bungalow
Community: Highlands
MLS#: 81306376

Charming Two Bedroom and One Bathroom Single Family Home situated on a Lot that is Zoned R-2 (Residential Duplex). This home is located conveniently around the corner from Downtown Millbrae’s Finest Restaurants and Shopping. Great Development Potential, come see this home!

A thousand a foot is a fair price for convenient access to SFO plus two freeways! Plus this is primo real estate photography. At least the agent isn’t snapping pictures in corners like yesterday.

Plus this home is located conveniently around the corner from Downtown Millbrae’s Finest Restaurants and Shopping.  According to Yelp, the Best Restaurant in Millbrae is the Millbrae Pancake House, so we’re talking haute cuisine.  Or at least hot cuisine. 

Now, this lovely home last changed hands in September 2010, for $675,000.  Aren’t you sorry you didn’t snag it then?  Look at all the instant equity you missed out on!  As you can see from the old listing photo (right), the only improvement done to the home since then was to Photoshop in a better sky.  Also back then the place was “Close to BART, Airport, Freeways and schools.”

Not any longer!  Now it’s just one big Great Development Potential opportunity for you! With a price like this, this is now a Real Bay Area house, therefore the train tracks, airport and freeways must have been relocated.

We hope you realize this is THE SECRET of how to make money in Bay Area real estate:

1. Buy house not in the Real Bay Area due to its location fail
2. Eliminate location fail so house moves to RBA
3. ???
4. PROFIT!

Remember, a WTF asking price isn’t a Wishing Price unless there’s no chance of getting it. This is a Bubble Price.  This seller is saying, “You want this house? You’re going to have to pay me enough to Make Me Move.”

Let’s finish the week on an up note, with this super structure from the seventies!  Thanks very much to Burbed reader hsjb for this luscious listing in Los Altos.

1450 REDWOOD Dr
Los Altos, CA 94024
$1,695,000

BEDS:  4
BATHS:  3
SQ. FT.:  2,502
$/SQ. FT.:  $677
LOT SIZE:  9,317 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Traditional
STORIES: 2
VIEW: Bay, Neighborhood, City Lights
YEAR BUILT:  1975
COMMUNITY:  Highlands
COUNTY:  Santa Clara
MLS#:  81223371
SOURCE:  MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN:  7 days
This is the home you have been waiting for. Beautiful 4bd/3ba with views. Beautiful light filled rooms with new hardwood floors and carpet. The home has high lofted ceilings with views from the upper floor. 3 bd 2 ba upstairs, 1 bed and full bath downstairs. Equisite English Gardens and sparkling pool with blue/black bottom. PRIVATE back yard. Two new decks off both floors. Don’t miss it.

Here’s why hsjb thought this home was Burbed-worthy:

While you’re on this home…check out the discrepancy of the pool size in two pictures. Image 20 makes it look HUGE! Image 22 makes it look puny!

Poltergeist in the bedroom?  Call 1–800–GHOSTBUSTERS!  Meanwhile, did you notice who is selling this property?  This place must be “corporate owned,” because the agent’s name is, I kid you not, Kimberly Clark.  That’s Kimberly Clark.  Makers of these fine paper products which have a lot in common with real estate agents.

They both need frequent changing, for the same reason.

Should you buy today’s house?  Depends. 

How much do you love freeways?

Today’s Guest Blog is a feature by Burbed reader Divasm!  Thanks very much for this passionate post complete with onsite photos in the location, location, location setting of Millbrae.  So close to the airport, so convenient to international travel, and just minutes from SFO!

Remember, we love guest columns at Burbed (less work for us!) so if you have a listing you want to do justice to, you too can be on the front page!  Our contact info is at the top of the right column.

Waaaaaaay over here ————————————————————————————————————————->

And now, stop your typing and mousing and put your hands together for Divasm!

 

987 VISTA GRANDE Ave, Millbrae, CA 94030
$849,950

BEDS: 4
BATHS: 3
SQ. FT.: 2,080
$/SQ. FT.: $409
LOT SIZE: 7,200 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Traditional
STORIES: 2
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1953
COMMUNITY: Highlands
COUNTY: San Mateo
MLS#: 81139349
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 26 days

Large 4 Br, 3 Bth home with spacious family room with full bar, on large lot. Kitchen has been updated, as have all 3 bathrooms. New carpets and painted interior. Green belt view from large picture windows in living room. Large attached 2 car garage with a large side room used as a work shop, and another side room for storage.

Dear Millbrae,

After last weekend’s round of open houses, we need to talk. Your proximity to San Francisco, your highly-scoring schools, all made you seem so attractive on the surface. You’re not as stuffy or pricey as Burlingame, not as ghetto as South San Francisco, not as housing tract-y as Daly City, and there’s no major gas pipeline activity (well, no more than normal). Perfect, right?

WRONG. I’ve tried and tried to make this work! I’ve been to open houses so close you can hear 280, and so near to El Camino you can smell the fast food. Houses priced comparably low because they’re right next to Capuchino High School (yet your kids go to Mills, because Capuchino is the low-scoring San Bruno school), and houses priced absurdly high for being on a major street…but oh wait, it’s Trousdale.

This last one on Vista Grande wasn’t a spectacular failure, it was just another stupidly priced for it’s bad layout house. But somehow I can’t take it anymore. WHY are you charging $849,950 (was $849,000 but they upped it that 950…why not 888, I ask?) for a house that looks like every house in Daly City on the outside? On a street that is super narrow with a view of the airport?

And what is with that Winchester mystery house stairway leading to a brick wall at the bottom with a metal plate that opens to a cubby in the wall? And then, the piece to resistance, off that stairway, that wood-paneled, linoleum-tiled, rock-lined disaster of a room…what IS that? From one side it looks like someone’s sick idea of a dojo, then we see the bar and sports on the TV and think somebody’s trying to open a club in their basement…WTF is THAT, Millbrae, huh???

Regardless, I didn’t stick around to check out the power lines over the steep backyard or compete with the many buyers on cell phones to foreign investors, I simply threw up my hands and left. For good this time, Millbrae, I mean it.

I’m delighted to invite Burbed reader Divasm back to the front page as today’s Guest Blogger.  Unlike all the many deluded sellers out there with wishing prices straight out of 2006, today’s home has had not one, but two price reductions since this piece was first sent in!

Please give Divasm a big, warm Real Bay Area welcome, with this rather, um, interesting-looking listing from SFO del Sur, or as it’s called on Google Maps, Millbrae!

One more thing: Yeah, I know it’s Labor Day today.  So what?  You should consider yourself fortunate if you still have a job.  Why the hell do you expect a day off, too?  Do you see THIS BLOG taking a day off?  Damned communists!  I’m sure there’s someone in an offshore telecenter someplace who’d be delighted to mangle most of your job responsibilities for eighty cents an hour.

Now get back to work!

200 PALM Ave, Millbrae, CA 94030
Was $1,488,888, then $1,148,888, now $1,098,888

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 2.5
SQ. FT.: 2,100
$/SQ. FT.: $523
LOT SIZE: 5,760 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Spanish
STORIES: 2
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1935
COMMUNITY: Highlands
COUNTY: San Mateo
MLS#: 81133416
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 35 days

Spanish style home with large master bedroom suite addition. Features family room , large yard , three car garage , large yard with deck. Dual paned windows, hardwood floors , close to downtown and schools.

I had the pleasure of visiting this million-plus-dollar mansion (well, 3/2.5, 2100 sq feet actually) recently at an open house. I had to see for myself if this abode in Millbrae, originally listed at 1,488,888 (recently lowered to $1,148,888) was really worth that much more than Zillow’s median of $933k.

Well, the bad news is there’s no bidet. But, the agent on site was quick to tell everyone that almost everything in the house is new or redone, and to prove it, there are blueprints and specs on the dining room table for your perusing pleasure, which prove that the teeny tiny kitchen you see in photo 5 of the listing (right) is actually new!

And that spacious backyard? State of the art basketball court, look for yourself! But even better, they don’t even mention that the utility room doubles as an office!

It’s clearly a mystery why this place hasn’t sold yet, especially with all those 8s in the price…unless…it’s the 4! Everyone knows 4s are very bad luck, if they just raise the price to $1,888,888, it should move immediately. That’s my prediction, you heard it here first.

Update: Hey, price just went down again on this house – it’s now 1,098,888. Two price reductions in a month! It would have been so much better if it had stayed at 1,488,888 though, that’s just obscene.