Price drops: July 2010 Archives
The Neumanskys already covered 1831 San Jose Avenue, but I figured I'd throw my bonnet into the ring because this listing is so completely out of touch with the market it deserves an award.
1831 San Jose is a very pretty Victorian (although I personally ogled its roof and siding a week or two ago, and let me tell you neither looks all that great, but then again I'm not a roofer, sider, or home inspector, so for all I know it's all brand new and I need new glasses). It sits semi-grandly in the famed Leonardville district, named after a prolific and talented builder of the late-ish 1800s, surrounded by other Victorians with varying degrees of grandness (the corner-lotted one east of today's property is particularly magnificent, and huge).
It's large-ish (2,072 sqft) on a decent sized lot (6,600 sqft) and sports 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, which is nothing to sneeze at. The listing claims 3 levels, but it's not clear whether the "lower level" (frequently, and equivalently, referred to as "basement") meets all the city's criteria for regular living space (e.g. the city has stringent requirements on parking availability for any unit or subset of a larger home to be counted as living space, over and above what the building code requires in terms of ceiling height and such). 2,072 sqft isn't a small home, but by way of comparison its prenominate easterly neighbor at 1835 San Jose is over twice as large, with 8 bedrooms in 4,761 sqft of Victorian goodness standing unarguably grandly on a large corner lot.
The property does look very pretty in its Craigslist photos, and the yard is quite a sight (the agent calls it "magical"). The listing agent also describes the kitchen as "French-infused", which may have been achieved by steeping French chefs in hot water for some period of time and spraying the infusion throughout the room using elegant little perfume spritzers (the listing doesn't specify if that is indeed the process the owners used to French-infuse their kitchen). However that French infusion was arrived at, it seems to involve hanging your pots from a ceiling rack, commissioning your appliances from Solingen, and julienning your veggies on very shiny stone slabs. In other words, French infusion is indistinguishable from every other splurge kitchen financed by home equity withdrawals between 2003 and 2006 in the continental United States, at least to the untrained eye:
The price tag for this medium-sized hunk of gorgeosity is a mere $1,390,000. The current owners (over)paid a cool million back in 2004, and proceeded to sink beaucoup bucks into la maison to make it all grand and gorgeous and warm and custom-sound-systemed and French-infused. A good foundation job doesn't come cheap, and neither does finishing a basement-media-room-au-pair-wine-cellar deal, getting Harry Potter to bless your yard, or French infusion, so I wouldn't be surprised if the home improvements since 2004 total north of $150,000, which is again nothing to sneeze at.
The problem, however, is that $1M + whatever French infusion et al. cost bring the total amount to recoup when you want (need?) to sell way, way, way out of line with, well, pretty much anything on the island. One issue the owners may not have planned for is that the lower level improvements don't count towards your legal square footage if they're not, well, legal, as in tall enough and/or accompanied with whatever the city wants you to provide when you make yourself a big ol' house (I'm not implying the owners didn't do this by the book; there's an extensive permit history available over chez the 'skys and I'm not seeing anything untoward here; you may want to check for yourself at www.velocityhall.com; no direct link). But as far as I can tell from the language in the foundation permit, the basement job was never intended for living space (emphasis mine):
What that means is that your price per sqft isn't $1.39M / 3,100 = $448 (assuming the basement is the same size as the main floor, roughly), but instead a much less palatable $671, which I don't believe has been fetched by any property of any size at any point in the past four years (and almost certainly not the past two). For context, it is 12% higher than the next-highest listings (on a per-sqft basis) currently on the market, one of which has been sitting there unsold for 75 days. At any rate, however, even $448 is pushing the envelope given recent market trends. And there's no garage.
Another way of looking at this issue is by comparing this property to its aforementioned neighbor. Let's do some comparison shopping:
That's a really long way to say the odds this listing will fetch anywhere close to its asking price are below zero.
Update 8/1/2010: Price dropped to $1,200,000. It needs another $400,000 at the very least to be competitive.
1831 San Jose is a very pretty Victorian (although I personally ogled its roof and siding a week or two ago, and let me tell you neither looks all that great, but then again I'm not a roofer, sider, or home inspector, so for all I know it's all brand new and I need new glasses). It sits semi-grandly in the famed Leonardville district, named after a prolific and talented builder of the late-ish 1800s, surrounded by other Victorians with varying degrees of grandness (the corner-lotted one east of today's property is particularly magnificent, and huge).
It's large-ish (2,072 sqft) on a decent sized lot (6,600 sqft) and sports 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, which is nothing to sneeze at. The listing claims 3 levels, but it's not clear whether the "lower level" (frequently, and equivalently, referred to as "basement") meets all the city's criteria for regular living space (e.g. the city has stringent requirements on parking availability for any unit or subset of a larger home to be counted as living space, over and above what the building code requires in terms of ceiling height and such). 2,072 sqft isn't a small home, but by way of comparison its prenominate easterly neighbor at 1835 San Jose is over twice as large, with 8 bedrooms in 4,761 sqft of Victorian goodness standing unarguably grandly on a large corner lot. The property does look very pretty in its Craigslist photos, and the yard is quite a sight (the agent calls it "magical"). The listing agent also describes the kitchen as "French-infused", which may have been achieved by steeping French chefs in hot water for some period of time and spraying the infusion throughout the room using elegant little perfume spritzers (the listing doesn't specify if that is indeed the process the owners used to French-infuse their kitchen). However that French infusion was arrived at, it seems to involve hanging your pots from a ceiling rack, commissioning your appliances from Solingen, and julienning your veggies on very shiny stone slabs. In other words, French infusion is indistinguishable from every other splurge kitchen financed by home equity withdrawals between 2003 and 2006 in the continental United States, at least to the untrained eye:
The price tag for this medium-sized hunk of gorgeosity is a mere $1,390,000. The current owners (over)paid a cool million back in 2004, and proceeded to sink beaucoup bucks into la maison to make it all grand and gorgeous and warm and custom-sound-systemed and French-infused. A good foundation job doesn't come cheap, and neither does finishing a basement-media-room-au-pair-wine-cellar deal, getting Harry Potter to bless your yard, or French infusion, so I wouldn't be surprised if the home improvements since 2004 total north of $150,000, which is again nothing to sneeze at.The problem, however, is that $1M + whatever French infusion et al. cost bring the total amount to recoup when you want (need?) to sell way, way, way out of line with, well, pretty much anything on the island. One issue the owners may not have planned for is that the lower level improvements don't count towards your legal square footage if they're not, well, legal, as in tall enough and/or accompanied with whatever the city wants you to provide when you make yourself a big ol' house (I'm not implying the owners didn't do this by the book; there's an extensive permit history available over chez the 'skys and I'm not seeing anything untoward here; you may want to check for yourself at www.velocityhall.com; no direct link). But as far as I can tell from the language in the foundation permit, the basement job was never intended for living space (emphasis mine):
(ALL WORK IN BASEMENT) R/R FOUNDATION, BRICK TO CONCRETE; EXCAVATE BASEMENT TO 8'2" CEILING HEIGHT FOR STORAGE ONLY (ONE LIGHT, ONE SWITCH AND ONE PLUG IN STORAGE AREAS); DIVIDE LAUNDRY AREA & INSTALL UNDERGROUND PLUMBING FOR FUTURE FULL BATH; BUILD NON-BEARING WALLS TO CREATE UTILITY ROOM & WINE STORAGE ROOM; ADD 2 STEPS TO EXISTING INTERIOR STAIRWAY; INSTALL NEW WATER HEATER, FURNACE & SUMP PUMP - NO EXTERIOR CHANGES (BLDG/ELEC/PLUM/MECH)
What that means is that your price per sqft isn't $1.39M / 3,100 = $448 (assuming the basement is the same size as the main floor, roughly), but instead a much less palatable $671, which I don't believe has been fetched by any property of any size at any point in the past four years (and almost certainly not the past two). For context, it is 12% higher than the next-highest listings (on a per-sqft basis) currently on the market, one of which has been sitting there unsold for 75 days. At any rate, however, even $448 is pushing the envelope given recent market trends. And there's no garage.
Another way of looking at this issue is by comparing this property to its aforementioned neighbor. Let's do some comparison shopping:
- To my right, a beautiful 4,761-sqft, 8-bedroom Victorian on a 8,800-sqft corner lot, sold for $1,390,000 near the peak of a bubbly real estate market
- To my left, a beautiful 2,072-sqft, 5-bedroom Victorian on a 6,600-sqft lot with neighbors on both side, listed at $1,390,000 near the trough of an epic, unprecedented nationwide real estate meltdown accompanied by substantial price cuts in essentially every neighborhood in every city in every state.
That's a really long way to say the odds this listing will fetch anywhere close to its asking price are below zero.
Update 8/1/2010: Price dropped to $1,200,000. It needs another $400,000 at the very least to be competitive.
Miscellaneous