Here’s a one-of-a-kind listing from Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer, who must fondly remember the days when the Real Bay Area could run as far north as Seattle, or at least San Anselmo.

40 Wolfback Ridge Rd, Sausalito, CA  94965
$995,000

BEDS: –
BATHS: –
SQ. FT.: –
LOT SIZE: 0.66 Acres
PROPERTY TYPE: Lots & Land, Single Family
VIEW: Bay, Bridges, City, Forest/Woods, Ocean, Panoramic, Park, Valley, Water
COMMUNITY: Sausalito
COUNTY: Marin
MLS#: 21107250
SOURCE: BAREIS
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 149 days

This top of the world location sits at nearly 960 feet elevation w/ absolutely incredible views of San Francisco, the mouth of the SF bay & west to the Pacific Ocean, Farallon Islands & sunsets. The lot is a natural penthouse on a private road behind two gates in an exclusive community. It is a very RARE buildable view lot minutes from San Francisco. Don’t be confused-this opp. is better than it looks.

Here’s what PG had to say about this top of the world location:

The world has never been so low.

I think you meant the price of this OPPORTUNITY has never been so low!  Don’t be confused-this opp. is better than it looks.

See?  It even has this free bridge thrown in!  That must be worth a couple thousand for the scrap metal alone!

It’s a natural penthouse on a private road behind two gates in an exclusive community!  What more could you want?

Other than really, really hope the agents with this listing would deign to take your phone calls, assuming you could ever find their unlisted number?

Did you know that Burbed is just about five and a half years old?  There are a lot of amazing listings in the archives, at some even more amazing pricing!  In fact, Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer was just taking a stroll through them and noticed that this incredible old listing.

I know that pricing had gotten out of control in 2007, but… $1.25 million for EAST PALO ALTO? Burbed wasn’t using tags for posts then, but that entry would have needed something stronger than WTF, that’s for sure!  Anyway, PG wants you to know this property is back on the market, after selling in May, 2008 for $950,000. 

Care to take a few guesses what it’s listed for now?  Why don’t you mull that over, and join us after the break.  Then you can find out!  (No peeking on Redfin!)

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Anyone check out Fusion Sunnyvale?  Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer found some of the marketing copy a little over the top:

Your life is a frenzy of color, flashing lights and movement. Facebook. Twitter. Email. Blogging. Texting. Meetings. Deadlines. Commuting.

Every day you take on the world. So, you deserve to come home to a beautiful place where you can recharge and relax, entertain and regroup. You want a neighborhood that is alive and vibrant with a fitness room to workout, places to mingle and space to hang out with your friends. You deserve soothing gardens to wander, a putting green to play and walking paths for your dog. It’s your time to do what you want, when you want, in your own community.

Introducing Fusion at Sunnyvale, a townhome community filled with everyday things that fuse your life. The homes have style and all the features you desire at a price you can afford. At the hub of the neighborhood, there is a fitness center, theater, Wi-Fi bar and fire pit. Everything that you need at the end of a long day.
So take on the world, then come home. To Fusion.

As Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer correctly notes, you can’t spell FUSION without F-U.

So let’s take a good look at this complex that’s such a wonderful place to call home, they show a chair instead of the “Spanish-Eclectic and contemporary architecture by KTGY architects.”

You have to click all the way down to BLOG to find out what the place looks like!  And the name of the blog?  “Short Fuse.”  How clever!  They already worked out that the properties would be selling shortly through their preferred lenders!  (More coming shortly after the break!)

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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.

Here’s another find from Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer, from the prestigious “almost Palo Alto and next to the same train tracks” neighborhood.

2380 ADELE Ave, Mountain View, CA 94043

BEDS: 3
BATHS: 2
SQ. FT.: 1,334
$/SQ. FT.: $621
LOT SIZE: 6,000 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Contemporary
STORIES: 1
YEAR BUILT: 1956
COMMUNITY: Thompson
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81109726
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Pending With Release
ON REDFIN: 91 days

Bright & Spacious with open floor plan. Newer paint interior & exterior. Newer Garage door. Newer double door. Remodeled kitchen with Granite Countertop. Stainless Steel Appliances & Refrigerator. Newer sliding door to backyard. Refinish Hardwood floors throughout the house. Cozy Fireplace in Living room. Beautiful private Backyard. TOO MANY UPGRADES TO LIST. OPEN-HOUSE 5/22/2011 from 1-4pm

I hope you caught that they expect the seller buyer to refinish the hardwood floors throughout the house.  (That was an order, right?)  For $829K you can’t have everything.

Here’s something else they didn’t list: sold for $950K with overbidding, just 3 years ago!  Now the asking price is closer to the 2004 sale price.

How high did the overbidding go this round?  And why won’t anyone stay in this house more than 4 years?  Is it a Presidential Campaign stop?  Buy this house, and sell it with overbidding in 2016!

Okay, please hold the pedantic corrections, we know it’s called Santana Row.  “Santa Row” is a Burbed inside joke because of this listing.  (Someday I am going to create a Burbed page of all the inside jokes with links to the original first misuse.  Please send in your contributions for this project and you can get your handle on a permanent Burbed page.  Wow!)

Anyway, here’s a look at all the terrific appreciation an investment in a Santa Santana Row Home would add to your balance sheet!  Get ready to shout… INSTANT EQUITY!  Thanks very much to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer for some of these fascinating stats, which I find almost as scrumptious as zip code lists.  Of course I had to throw in some BUNUS listings.  (That’s another one.)

333 Santana row #340

688k (05/25/2007)
$390k today (short sale)  “Enjoy of the night life of Santana Row.”

333 santana row (sorry, no unit number given, might be this one, pending 5/4/11)

$690k (03/01/2006)
$599k today

333 santana row #336

$590k (12/23/2005)
$440k today (pending) “full length silk curtains w/ remote”

There’s much, much more after the break.  Much, much, much more!

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A couple of weeks ago we featured this, um, charming house in Palo Alto.  Within 7 days, the price went up $150k, because if house was featured here, it was obviously worth far more than that lazy realtard had suggested!  Obviously he/she just wanted a quick commission and didn’t care how little money the bank netted after eating the first mortgage, the second mortgage, the HELOC, the hazardous cleaning team, and the poo guy.

But after making the front page of Burbed,  the Beautiful Eichler with Pool got a more upscale description: “Live down the street from $7,495,000 home.”

So without any further ado, here is the $7.5M house!  Thanks very much to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer for mentioning this house in comments.

1535 EDGEWOOD Dr, Palo Alto, CA 94303
$7,495,000

 

BEDS: 5
BATHS: 5.5
SQ. FT.: 7,743
$/SQ. FT.: $968
LOT SIZE: 0.43 Acres
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STORIES: 3
YEAR BUILT: 2002
COMMUNITY: Green Gables
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81117522
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 4 days

Incredible Hampton Style home with all the bells and whistles. Great North Palo Alto location, large lot and terrific Palo Alto schools. A rare opportunity to get a move-in home of first class quality and design. Designed and built for family living, you won’t find anything like this available for sale within 20 miles, let alone in Palo Alto.

We’ve already discussed that a homedebtor can list a house for whatever s/he wants, but it’s what a buyer will pay for it that determines the “value.”  Back in the heady days of Pay Option ARMs and OPM and PPM (whoops, that refers to how much poo per million in the swimming area), a buyer would look at the asking price and offer 15% above that. Then they’d hope the homemade cookies, the family photo, and the offer to hand-wax the seller’s Porsche for the next five years would lead to an offer being accepted.  Now, with the housing market in freefall, anything goes, which unfortunately includes agents too lazy to include the full nine pictures on Redfin when six will do.  Just six pictures, for a house with an asking price of $7.5 million.

So, is this house actually worth $7.5M?  Don’t forget that it’s “down the street” from the Beautiful Eichler, let alone in Palo Alto.  0.7 miles “down the street.”

The good news is that for an extra $6.5 million, you aren’t next to a freeway exit ramp, so you have a better chance of pretending you’re in the Hamptons.  The bad news is you’re next to East Palo Alto instead. 

I mean next to EPA, not “down the street” from it.  Right behind the back yard on the other side of the creek is Collective Roots, a nonprofit that teaches sustainable gardening and food system change (I think that’s PC for eating stuff that was actually alive).  It’s educational, which means lots of East Palo Alto kids visit their site, which is behind this house.

Let’s take a good look at what kind of neighborhood you get for $7.5 million.

Yeah, you won’t find another $7.5 million place next to this much high-density housing within 20 miles!

Thanks to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer for calling this listing out in comments!  This is quite a find, quite a find indeed.

1959 BELLE Ave, San Carlos, CA 94070
$1,950,000

BEDS: 5
BATHS: 4
SQ. FT.: 3,050
$/SQ. FT.: $639
LOT SIZE: 5,750 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Mediterranean
STORIES: 2
VIEW: Bay, Mountains, Neighborhood, Valley, City Lights
COMMUNITY: Howard Park
COUNTY: San Mateo
MLS#: 81105544
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 57 days

One of the most desirable areas in San Carlos! Plans for a 5 bedroom, 4 bath Tuscan Home with authentic architectural details. Walk to downtown, highly rated public and private schools, parks and youth center. Large parcel to accomodate outdoor kitchen, swimming pool and fire pit. Quiet two block long street.

That agent had me going there!  Full sentences, proper use of capital and non-capital letters, failure to indulge in string of exclamation points, correct spelling, he definitely will accommodate… oops!  Didn’t run that copy through spell check, I guess.  Computer class is hard.

But I think the agent really needed a class in How to Present Your Listings by Emphasizing Positives and Minimizing Problems.  He got off to a great start by putting up a site elevation instead of various photos of a construction site, but… um…

Well, let’s admire some of the photos that this real estate professional thought were the most effective way to persuade someone to buy a two million dollar house.

Here’s what PG had to say about this house:

Perfect for someone looking to get rid of a body

This is another one of those properties where you have to dream the dream, visualize the possibilities, and assume the general contractor is as skilled and organized as this agent.  So let’s get another sense of what it means to be a real estate professional, such as having a keen understanding of the market:

Wow.  Marketing class is hard, too.

Let’s have a look at where this dream home is going to be, on a “large parcel” (of less than 6,000 sf). For two million smackeroos, it better be on a larger parcel than any of the neighbors, at least!

Whoa!  What’s this?  Zillow thinks this is now a double lot!

And that is very, very odd, because the Redfin listing says it’s a 5750 sf lot.  So the Zillow listing should be over 10,000 sf, right?

Wow!  Anyone want to calculate the FAR for this?  I suspect it might violate a few city zoning ordinances.  Anyway, time to wake up from the dream and check out Google Streetview, always a fun virtual outing.  So let’s see what that double lot looks like.

Uh, let’s enjoy the single lot the way it was when it was sold in 2007.  Wow!  Is all of THAT included, too?  Dibs on the blue bin!

And the neighbor across the street on the (shhh, don’t look!) much bigger parcel?

The good news is the neighbor’s house won’t make you feel like a serf, but the bad news is it does sit nice and high lording it over you.  Until you go to your second floor balcony and look them right in the eye.  After all, you have a two million dollar house, and they don’t.

Here’s a perfect house for a Googler!  Take some of that extra stock they’re offering you to not ditch them for Facebook or Twitter, and become a homeowner today!  Look at all the advantages!

Thanks to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer for this terrific find.

768 EMILY Dr, Mountain View, CA 94043
$469,900

BEDS: 4
BATHS: 1.5
SQ. FT.: 1,047
$/SQ. FT.: $449
LOT SIZE: 5,000 Sq. Ft.
PROPERTY TYPE: Detached Single Family
STYLE: Traditional
STORIES: 1
VIEW: Neighborhood
YEAR BUILT: 1954
COMMUNITY: Whisman
COUNTY: Santa Clara
MLS#: 81114755
SOURCE: MLSListings
STATUS: Active
ON REDFIN: 4 days

Clean, vacant and ready for new owners! New carpet and interior paint. large backyard with fruit trees. Garage was converted to bedroom and laundry room. Newer roof and tongue and groove ceiling. Close to 101, 85 and Whisman Park.

Lots of pictures of this house, including the garage which was converted to bedroom and laundry room.  What a great idea, why don’t more innovative people like your Google colleagues think of that! 

How many times has it happened to you that you want to do your laundry, but you don’t want to carry it all the way to the garage?  Well, sleep in this bedroom and do your laundry without having to tote baskets anywhere!  So convenient!

And speaking of convenient, it’s close to EVERYTHING!

And buying it will be a snap, because the bank already owns it.  No need to negotiate with sellers and their silly wishing prices.  Just make your best offer, sit back, relax, and watch the free market in action!

Here’s some copy that ought to have originated on Burbed.  But this is from from the San Jose Mercury News, or as the journos now call it, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Newsletter!  Thanks very much to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer for calling this out in the Open Thread yesterday.

Bay Area homes you can buy for the national median price of $157,000

By Patrick May, San Jose Mercury News   Posted:  04/09/2011 4:52 PM

The median price of a previously owned single-family home in America today is $157,000. What can you get for that in the Bay Area?

Headaches, mostly.

Here, where the median is nearly three times higher than the national, $157,000 will get you a 460-square-foot house in East Palo Alto that would fit inside a Saratoga walk-in closet. Or a two-bedroom in Antioch with mold, a squatter’s mattress in the kitchen, the oily remnants of an amateur grease-monkey operation out back, and what looks like a bullet hole dead-center in the front window.

“Bring your tools & imagination to shine this piece of property,” the Realtor wrote on the online real estate site Redfin.

Want to spend that $157,000 on a San Jose bungalow on North 13th Street?

No problem.

OK. So there’s one small problem.

“Burned house,” says the real estate agent’s MLS note. “Don’t go in!”

Photos: Top right, 460 sf East Palo Alto house, Josie Lepe, SJMN.  Above left, SJ burnt house on 13th Street has received several offers.  Karen T Borchers, SJMN.

Wow, CAR (California Association of Realtors) must be pulling a Fry’s on the Merc for running this story.  Bet they’re going to pull all their advertising for weeks!  Nope, the Merc pulled this story within hours of posting it. In fact, the link above is to the mobile site, because it’s gone from the regular one (and if the mobile link doesn’t work, try this link to a cached copy from the Pasadena Star News.

But no problem, we’re going to find all the sites in this story and maybe even write them up in the coming days.  Meanwhile, what do you think is going to happen to Patrick May?

Update: This article mysteriously appeared yesterday afternoon for a few hours and then was thrown down the memory hole.  It’s back so I’ve changed the link, and also added the Merc’s pictures.  Too bad they didn’t take some inside the SF house.

This cozy charmer is at 2169 Addison Ave, East Palo Alto, weighing in at 460 square feet. Owner selling it only to establish a market value with bank so they’ll modify his loan.  Sold in 2003 for $278,000!

$157,000 will get you two homes in Antioch! 1117 Klengel Street, listed for $78,000, and conveniently bank-owned.  Bonus: Sold for $95,000 in… (drumroll) 1993!

Then take a look at 36 Texas Street:

Yes, it comes with roosters next door and a guy down the street dismantling his motorcycle on the front lawn. And yes, you’ll have to clear out that squatter’s mattress from the kitchen. And maybe, with all that motor oil soaked into the back yard, you’ll need the Environmental Protection Agency to sign off on the deal. But for $69,000, what do you expect?

A pre-heated house at 642 North 13th St. San Jose, plus agent had to threaten to Taser a squatter.  Price: $166,900.  The catch: Foreclosed in December for $350,000, and sold for $217K.  In 1998.  DAYUM, IT’S PENDING!

Vertigo house in Bayview-Hunters Point.  1482 Underwood Ave, SF.  “The easiest way to repair it is to tear it down.”   Price: $145,900  “The house is all crooked,” said realtor Alyce Cardinale.  Sold for $250K in 2000, foreclosed in 1997 and again in 2008!

Hayward Contractor’s Delight, whoops the agent calls it “Carpenters Delights!”; train goes by every ten minutes.  22026 Western Blvd, Hayward.  Price: $155,000, originally listed for $189,000.
“It’s a fairly quiet neighborhood. Except for the train every ten minutes.”

Which one of these bargains will you be writing a check for?

Left, front of the house on Western Boulevard.  Right, agent David Ormonde shows door to garage from the kitchen in the Western Boulevard property. Photos, Karen T Borchers, SJMN.