Thursday, January 15, 2009
Price on Pierce Street Mansion Slashed by $4.5M
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the 26 percent price cut on 2860 Pierce Street -- a Spanish Mission-style mansion in Cow Hollow -- sure looks desperate.
The new price on this mansion is $12.5 million, down from $16.95 million.
The house has been on the market for more than three months (111 days), and the asking price has already been cut from $16.95 million to $12.5 million.
It's not a property for everybody -- the Hacienda-style interior doesn't really lend itself to the Restoration Hardware school of design, which seems to be in such vogue these days.
But one thing it's got going for it: a big-name architect. Albert Schroepfer, the guy who designed the Rhine house at the Beringer winery, also designed the house at 2860 Pierce Street.
If anyone knows anything about the seller, we're all ears -- give us the dirt, we'd love to hear more.
| Jan 15 at 09:30 AM
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Shrinking prices at tiny condos
"It's about the size of seven ping-pong tables - and all yours starting at $279,000."
Err, make that $215,000. The opening line to our story about the ultra-tiny condominiums at the Cubix Yerba Buena building in SoMa, written in August shortly after marketing began, has to be adjusted for housing deflation.
Developer Hauser Architects of San Francisco will hold an "Economic Stimulus Sale" from Inauguration Day to President's Day, during which they're lopping nearly 30 percent off the price of some units.
If you thought D.C. was going to be overrun on Jan. 20, just wait till you see the masses descending on the Cubix ... OK, maybe not.
Nevertheless, from then to Feb. 16, buyers can snag bargains throughout the building. Among the steepest cuts: $215,000 down from $305,000 (29.5 percent), $244,000 lowered from $319,000 (23.5 percent), and $279,000 adjusted from $344,000 (18.9 percent).
The eight-story building is located at Harrison and Fourth streets, a few steps from Whole Foods. The units are stylish, but at 250 to 350 square feet, also indisputably cramped. There isn't room for a bed and a sofa, so naturally, each studio is staged with a sofa-bed.
The developer has only sold (or as their publicist put it "already sold") 20 percent of the 98 units in the last five months or so. (No word on how ever-so-pleased these 20 percent will be to hear about the deep discounts their future neighbors will enjoy.)
The slow going could be chalked up to the housing downturn and economy. It also might be that, urban revival and eco-friendly trends notwithstanding, not a lot of people want to buy homes smaller than their childhood bedrooms.
Or maybe it's that, while the total price is among the lowest around for a new San Francisco condominium, the original per-square-foot price was eye-popping - around $1,000 in some cases.
The median per square foot price in tony Noe Valley is only $954 - and out in San Pablo it's less than $200.
Hauser, of course, is hardly the only local developer dropping prices these days. Indeed, most builders unlucky enough to bring property onto the market in the last year are racing each other to the bottom in a mad dash to snatch scarce buyers - or putting up for-rent signs.
| Jan 14 at 03:00 PM
The Europeans Are Coming -- and They're Buying Houses
Few Americans feel comfortable springing for multimillion-dollar mansions right now, but some Europeans do, thanks to a mighty strong euro and a fairly sickly dollar.
Small wonder then that foreign equity investors expect to increase real estate investments in the U.S. by 73 percent this year; and foreign lenders plan to increase lending by 58 percent in the U.S., according to a fourth-quarter survey conducted by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.
What does that mean for San Francisco home sellers? They may want to adjust their marketing plans accordingly. The Sotheby's Realty web site, for example, lists prices of some of its most expensive properties in euros. (Although you can select other currencies, if you prefer.) And a few industrious brokers are targeting European investors or renters on Craigslist in London or Paris. And as the Chronicle reported last year, some brokers have tweaked their business to cater to foreign buyers. Still, chances are good that New York is getting more of that action than San Francisco -- it's a looooong trek out here from Paris or London.
| Jan 14 at 12:00 PM
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Berkeley Housing Market Bearing Up
There is perhaps no more persuasive indicator of the state of the housing market in a given area than the price at which homes are actually being sold. If they are consistently selling for under their asking prices it's a fair bet the market is not doing well -- and vice versa.
Tracey Taylor
1159 Arch St, Berkeley: sold for 7% over asking.
A look at home sales in Berkeley last month shows a surprisingly resilient state of play. Of the 33 homes sold in December, 36% of them sold at or above the asking price, according to monthly data compiled by Bob Blumberg at Red Oak Realty.
And a few had no trouble snagging significantly more than the ticket price. Take 1159 Arch St, a 3/2 Mediterranean which had been given a very tasteful makeover, and sold for $965,000, 7% above its $899,000 asking price.
Then there's the 2/1 remodeled bungalow at 1255 Ashby Ave which sold for $335,000 on an asking price of $299,500 -- a 12% hike. This was still quite a deal for somebody as it looks like a cute house -- even if Ashby is a busy street -- and it suggests a case of smart pricing.
elmwoodrealty.com
1255 Ashby Ave, Berkeley: sold 12% over asking.
Only a quarter of all the houses sold in Berkeley last month went for under 90% of their original prices. And only one sold for under 80% of its price-tag.
Of course, it wasn't long ago that the majority of homes would have been snapped up at or above original price, and we are only considering one month's worth of data which is hardly conclusive, but it would seem Berkeley is not doing terribly given the state of the economy at large.
| Jan 14 at 09:13 AM
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Banks take back 1/4 million California homes in '08
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
This foreclosed home in Sacramento was among almost a quarter million California residences repossessed by lenders in 2008.
ForeclosureRadar, a paid service that tracks foreclosure listings in every California county, has issued its December and year-end report, and the numbers are grim.
The company said that 249,940 properties were sold at foreclosure auctions in 2008, with a combined loan value of $107.8 billion.
Let's just say those jaw-dropping numbers again. Almost a quarter of million homes were lost to foreclosure. And the loans on them amounted to over $100 billion.
Still more foreclosures are waiting in the wings. A total of 437,955 notices of default were filed in the year, almost double teh 279,821 from the previous year. Those notices, the first step in the foreclosure process, indicate that a homeowner has fallen seriously behind on mortgage payments.
| Jan 13 at 03:51 PM
How Home Staging Can Let You Down
I'm beginning to wonder if there's such a thing as "post-staging stress disorder". If there is, I'm pretty sure I would be susceptible to it.
I'm referring to what happens after you have fallen in love with a home in all its staged splendor, only to find, once the sale is closed, that in fact you have just splurged your life savings on a boring white box.
seedinteriors.com
A living room before staging.
Staging was something I had barely heard of before I moved to California, for the practice is still in its infancy in Europe. A broker tells me that it took off in the certain parts of the East Bay after the Oakland firestorm when it became customary to stage all the new homes being built to replace those that were destroyed.
I see some very good staging on my travels. I would happily have had them throw in all the furniture and artworks in this mid-century Oakland listing in Montclair -- had I been in a position to buy the house too.
seedinteriors.com
After: the same room staged.
That home was staged by Oakland company Seed. Another Oakland stager, Scout, has a recognizable style which involves quirky flea-market finds and lots of antique maps. You'll see their work in homes in Rockridge and its surroundings. Nest is another stager whose work I spot (those snappy one-word names are obviously de rigueur in staging circles).
Beautiful creamy white sofas, moody black-and-white photography and swathes of plumped-up designer bed linens tend to draw the eye away from the less appealing aspects of a home.
It can be a bit of a letdown, then, when the house becomes yours and you turn the key to find that all that's left are dusty floors and bare walls sporting the odd desultory picture hook.
That's when the PSSD kicks in.
| Jan 13 at 12:10 PM
Biggest Stinkers in Los Altos Hills
Houses are selling along the Peninsula, but mostly in the million-dollar to two-million-dollar range. Anything over $5 million? Not so much. (Well, as far as we can tell, anyway. If you know of any big-ticket sales, fill us in.)
This five-bedroom Country English house has been on and off the market since September 2008.
Among the properties that have stagnated on the market the longest, there is a handful of Los Altos Hills mansions, ranging in price from $8.999 million (right) to $38 million.
Stonebrook Court, the $38-million Kelly Porter-owned historical mansion, may be the most expensive of the bunch, but it hasn't been on the market for a full year. There are a couple other mansions, however, that have.
27161 W. Fremont Rd. is one of several mansions languishing on the market.
Case in point: 27161 West Fremont Road (right) has been on the market for 579 days, according to Redfin. The five-bedroom Mediterranean estate is listed for $13.6 million, or $1,283 per-square-foot.
And the second stalest mansion listing may be 14790 Manuella Road -- a spanking-new modern house with an elevator, wet bar, spa and a "high-relief wall sculpture." (We're not really sure what that means.) The house was listed for $15 million in July 2007, before the price was slashed to $12.95 million in February 2008; and it was reduced again in October to $9.95 million.
| Jan 13 at 11:45 AM
Monday, January 12, 2009
Hillsborough Gets Flooded With Pricey Listings
It's been a busy week for Hillsborough real estate brokers. A handful of homeowners in the fancy-pants town listed their multimillion-dollar houses over the last seven days -- and three of them just listed their houses in the last 48-hours.
Conventional wisdom is that the winter is a rotten time to sell a house. (Spring is ideal.) But in a market like this, does it really matter? Hard to imagine that it would, given that it takes much longer to sell a house now than it did last year, and there are so few eligible, cash-flush buyers.
Hillsborough homeowners are putting on a brave face, though. There were eight houses that hit the market over the last week, that range in price from $2.38 million to $4.995 million -- and the median is $2.495 million. The houses have at least 4 bedrooms, but the most expensive of the bunch (501 Roehampton Road) has six bedrooms, and the least expensive of the group (858 Longview Road) has four bedrooms. Aside from that, though, they've mostly all got the requisite high-end amenities: Bay views, pools (in all but two), lawns and that sort of thing.
While we wouldn't be surprised if the houses just gather dust for the next six months, recent sales records suggest there is indeed still a market for sprawling estates. There were 15 sales over the three months in Hillsborough (and the bordering areas), and the median price on those sales was $1.925 million -- not bad for a down market.
| Jan 12 at 01:00 PM
Buying a Slice of Architectural Distinction
Tracey Taylor
Recently sold: a Julia Morgan designed home in Berkeley.
What do Dave Brubeck, Jane Fonda, Alice Waters and Dr Seuss [aka, Theodor Geisel] have in common?
It turns out that they were all inducted into the California Hall of Fame last month, a body set up in 2005 by California's First Lady Maria Shriver to honor individuals who embody the state's innovative spirit.
Included in the 2008 list of 12 inductees is architect Julia Morgan, who crashed through the gender barrier at the turn of the 19th century and went on to design more than 700 buildings over a 47-year career, most of them in the Bay Area.
santamonicalandmarks
Julia Morgan.
Morgan's most famous building is William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon home, Hearst Castle. But the more modest homes she designed come onto the market fairly regularly and they are always worth checking out -- whether you want to live in a home of architectural distinction, or if only to indulge in a little snooping on a Sunday open-house tour.
Some are more desirable than others. A 3/1.5 on Parker Street in Berkeley lingered on the market for almost a year before selling last June for $938,000. However another Morgan was snapped up in a flash in October: 2616 Etna St, a 3/1 brown-shingle, also in Berkeley, sold for $1,257,000, comfortably over its $1,115,000 asking price.
I can't say I was surprised. Built in 1905, the home had the swathes of paneling and built-ins one associates with the Craftsman style, as well as a sleeping porch, working pocket doors, window seats, casement windows and precisely 271 linear feet of custom-built bookshelves. A slice of history and an architectural gem for Morgan fans.
The Landmark Heritage Foundation is celebrating Morgan's induction into the Hall of Fame on January 18 at the Berkeley City Club, designed -- of course -- by Julia Morgan. For information, visit their website.
| Jan 12 at 09:20 AM
Friday, January 09, 2009
Price Slashed on Seacliff Pad by $1.5M; Still Too Much
There isn't much of an appetite for $18 million-dollar houses right now, so the seller of this two-bedroom Seacliff property dropped the price to $16.5 million.
The listing price on this San Francisco house fell to $16.5 million, but it may not have fallen to earth.
Listed for $18 million last spring, the price on 830 El Camino Del Mar was cut to $16.75 million on Jan. 3, and cut again to $16.5 million on Jan. 5, according to Redfin.com.
Will the new price sell the house? We're not so sure. The house has reportedly been on and off the market for more than a decade, and it still hasn't sold. When the Chronicle reported on it back in 2002, the house was listed for $9 million, which was apparently too rich for the market then. And as one source told SocketSite last June, the house has been "on the market 11 times," each time with a high-profile Realtor at an "improbable price."
Got more dirt on the property? Do drop us a line.
Update: A helpful reader points out that the seller, Gordon Uhlmann, who runs halfwitwines.com, was supposed to have sold the place back in 2004, when he pulled the house out of an auction because he got an offer. Apparently that didn't work out.
| Jan 09 at 09:45 AM
