Price drop summary

• The ugly custom Scarface house at 514 Westline Drive dropped its price multiple times. It's now a new (hah) listing with MLS(r) #40421430, priced at $1,098,000, and a short sale. Its last sale date when it was brand new just three years ago was $1,488,000. I guess that wasn't one of those lucky 8s. Assuming it sells for the current list price, that's a 26% loss, in case your calculator is broken.
  

• A newish listing at 1221 Sherman St, huge and overrun by expensive clutter inside and out, was initially listed for a hilarious $2,488,905 (note the extra five bucks tacked on at the end there) with MLS(r) 40418269 and dropped its price by almost a million all at once in mid July, to a still-too-high $1,569,000. The description is amusing as well:

[...] Lots of living space; great for entertaining: wedding, tea party, wine tasting... [...]

Given how often people tend to have weddings, it makes you wonder if the agent is suggesting a side business for the would-be owners to help pay the oversized mortgage. Dan and Irene have a writeup on their blog that seems to agree with my horror at the clutter oozing from the MLS(r) photos. Packing and moving all that stuff out is going to cost a fortune. And as for the initial $2.5M price tag, perhaps the owners and the agent realized that of those few people who can drop that kind of money on a house, not a whole lot of 'em decide to live in our little town. The highest-priced sales I can remember are the enormous bocce ball court on St Charles and the gigantic, fantastically laid-out Victorian compound at 1723-1725 Central, and those were only about $2M (each, sadly). Update: a short sale (?!?).

• The apparently unsellable "mansion" at 1626 Alameda Avenue miraculously dropped its price and now stands unsold at $950,000. Dan and Irene have a writeup on this one as well that points out some serious potential issues with the property's permit history, among other things.

• The super-classy trailer park Victorian at 1609 Lincoln (the one with the coin-op laundry facilities) has dropped to $899,000. It's been on the market for ages now. $899,000 is only $9,000 over the last purchase price back in 2005. 

• The oddly-shaped 709 Haight Avenue is sticking to its highly-successful strategy of multiple, itty-bitty price drops:

07/21/09: $419,900 to $414,900
07/21/09: $414,900 to $399,000
07/29/09: $399,000 to $389,000

We know how well that worked out back when it was $624,900 $614,900 $609,900 $589,900 $569,900 $504,900.

• The giant red-tagged wreck at 855 Cedar Street dropped its price from $935,000 to $885,000. There is no chance in hell this is selling for a penny over $500K, and even that would be completely insane given how much work it will require. Check out the big photos on Zillow to get a sense of how ruined this property is. I walked by a few months ago and was struck by what looks like years, if not decades, of complete neglect and abandon, sealed by the red tags on the boarded-up front door. It's a real shame, because the woodwork in the interior photos looks as though the house could be truly magnificent (not to mention huge; 4,810 sqft of living space on a big lot). This one breaks my heart a little. Zillow has it listed at $790,000, so at this rate there's hope for a more reasonable price in 10-12 years or so.