We’re not sure if anybody heeded our advice and accepted james’ wager (“i’d give you 100.00 if anyone offers over 1.5 for it”), but the sale of 306 Mullen Avenue closed escrow yesterday with a reported contract price of 2.15 (million).
That’s $145,000 under asking and an “official” 49 Days On The Market (despite the fact that it first hit the market six months ago). Regardless, a Jawa should be so lucky.
A sucker is born every minute……
Sucker or no, I’m thrilled about what this will do for comps in the hood.
bernal guy–
i don’t disagree with you, i’m sure the neighbors are excited, but from a comparable standpoint, this home is in it’s own class. the surrounding homes on this block are nothing like 306 Mullen which makes it hard to use as a comp. don’t get me wrong, the size, bed/bath count, etc. can all be used as comparables, but as far as using this as a direct comp for a typical 4bed 4bath house in bernal, it wont really fly…
Someone named Sideways Glance took james’ wager in the original thread. Pay up, james!
Garrett, I totally agree this house is in another league than most in the area. Still, I think it’s significant in terms of reflecting a new highmark for the north slope. Especially for a property without the best views in that area (bayview vs. downtown/twin peaks etc).
bernal guy, i completely agree.
Yup an interesting place!
Just wondering if Socketsite is going to update the Dataquick graph
https://socketsite.com/archives/2008/02/san_francisco_sales_activity_in_january_down_again_271.html#comments
with this months figures -its normally done on the day of release(yesterday) and this months figures werec certainly interesting and worthy of discussion.
[Editor’s Note: We tend to be sticklers for accuracy, and we’ll publish the numbers as soon as we get some clarification from DataQuick.]
Different James.
Phew!!
I love it when the naysayers are proven wrong. I think you are going to see quite a bit more of it here on SS in the next few months. Everything decent we have seen in Bernal lately has gone into escrow rather quickly and sold for over asking price. Don’t even get me started about Noe Valley.
And another one. North Bernal continues to appreciate, right now. It’s sort of nuts. But then again it is the only semi-central high ground in town that isn’t completely unaffordable.
Yeah something has really got the market going again – Feb sales up 47% (!) compared to Jan, and up 15% YOY.
And prices are certainly holding up – SFHs are actually up 0.1% YOY with condos I’m guessing down around 5%.
Talk about a spring bounce! Looks like SF was last in, and first out of the housing slump…
RE Porn, I was also wondering when we’d see something on the Dataquick numbers. I saw the release yesterda. I’m curious to see what kind of spin gets applied to it this month. I suspect it will be something like the 3% drop in SF prices being is understated due to the sales mix impact (i.e. – it’s really much worse than that), and the 15% increase in sales is due to a shift of sales from Dec/Jan into February. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see later today 😉
“Don’t even get me started about Noe Valley.”
ROTFLMAO! Another great quote from movingback before the price was reduced on that place on Douglass.
“Or simply the fact that they know Noe Valley is hot right now and that their house will most likely sell quickly and with multiple offers, and they will make some money?”
Priceless.
@ nonanon – glad you are enjoying! 🙂
How do you spin the Dataquick numbers as anything other than a great month for SF?
Now that sales are up to a more normal level any influence of a weird mix, or beauty pageant effect is greatly diminished.
Mention will undoubtedly be made of the magic 4th Friday in Feb this year..but of course all other districts had this too without showing the result SF had.
What interests me most is what this might mean for permits in the future. Proposals to replace aging structures of dubious architectural merit with massive modern marvels have in the past raised considerable resistance. Could this outlier represent one face of the next phase of San Francisco’s evolution?
That house is no more “massive” than the countless hulking victorians you find lining any street in SF, or the endless rows of 8+ story 1930s apartment buildings strewn about the city built right out to the lot lines.
In fact it is architecturally very interesting and refreshing compared to the “same old” (and I do mean OLD) that permeates this city.
What spring bounce are you seeing REPornaddict? Listed sales for Feb 08 for SFH’s and condos for San Francisco totaled 295 units. This is indeed up from the 25+year low water mark of 223 set in Jan 08 – but 295 units is still one of the lowest monthly totals EVER. Listed sales were 380 for Feb 07 and 399 for Feb 06 (and these were 28 day months). Where is this 15% increase coming from? It looks like a 23% decrease to me.
FSBO – see the Dataquick numbers just posted.
REpornaddict & Lance,
I love the breathlessness with which the bulls are trumpeting the 15% increase yoy! That tells us all we need to know about what is going on in the real estate broker business!! (well, that and Mystery Realtor’s “about f**ing time” comment about the Fed’s TSLF).
Well, even though SS hasn’t posted the numbers, let’s get into it preliminarily. First, nothing seems too “normalized”. Sales Feb 2008 are well below Feb 2006 and Feb 2005 near as I can tell. Second, we are talking about an increase of 60 sales or so from last year, so it’s a small number. Still, though, it is up.
But third, and most importantly, where could those sales have come from, and do they show significant improvement that can’t be spun? Well, how about One Refund Hill closings?? Didn’t they just close 70 units in the last 5 weeks as we found out on another thread?? Hmmmmm.
On the current One Refund Hill open house thread, fluj gave the numbers for February, and it looks like a total of 344 sales were recorded in Feb 2008, which would be LESS than in Feb 2007. I believe fluj’s numbers, which I bet were derived from the MLS. I also bet that the One Refund Hill closing were NOT picked up in fluj’s numbers, but WERE picked up in DQ’s numbers. That’s probably the discrepancy that the SS editor is trying to track down before going with the full post.
So, IF I am right (no special knowledge here – just using common sense and whatever snipets of info I can glean from SS), there is NO increase in sales yoy. The 1RH closings represent “sales” from prior months and years.
But even if I am wrong, the desire to get the information out there that there is a stat that is positive tells us bears all we need to know about what the realtors are actually seeing….
Oops! In the time I wrote the above comment, the numbers were posted on a different thread (and FSBO posted the info as well). No surprise, looks like I was on target….
Satchel,
First of all, I’m not a bull. I’ve said that many times here before, but I’ll say it again for your benefit. I am however growing tired of the overly bearish comments from you (and many others for that matter) that are based somewhat loosely on economics and largely on gut. When sales are up, it’s an anomaly you say; and when prices are flat or up – it’s due to mix. I have no problem admitting that housing prices are dropping nationwide and the prognosis doesn’t look good for appreciation here or most other places in the next few years. With that said, I’m also not so blind that I can’t see that San Francisco, New York, and few other superstar cities are doing relatively better than the rest. Finally, you mention Rincon Hill and the impact that those closings have on sales volume. That’s a very good point, but it doesn’t discount the fact that 15% more people purchased this year over last year. When the credit crunch caused a reduction in sales volume a few months ago, you had a totally different tone. That was due to the inevitable collapse of the SF real estate market….or so many of you said. Finally, as to your last comment about looking like “you were right”, I respectively agree to disagree.
I confess I often have difficulty reconciling persistent lip-smacking negativity about the market here on SS with what I’m seeing on the ground in my target market segment. Every decent 2+ BR I’ve looked at N. of Market in the past few months has sold immediately with multiple offers. The most recent example would be 170 Alpine Terrace, a preemptive offer was written during the first open house last Saturday at what I understand to be substantially over asking.
In fact, many of the properties featured on SS in the last few months have sold very quickly, with multiple offers, over original asking price. Off the top of my head, I recall the lovely rehab TIC at 37/41 Ord, and even the scary Hartford Street Liberace cottage that attracted so many bemused postings. Both were in contract within weeks and went significantly over asking.
So I would suggest that this month’s vogue axiom, that ‘great houses in perfect condition are selling’ is considerably understating the situation. Sure some flippers are hurting, there is a glut of boring ‘units’ South of Market, District 10, etc., but empirically I have to report that the $1M to $1.5M range for existing properties remains painfully competitive. Just this Irish boy’s 2¢.
@ DerrySF – don’t you know it’s the truth. For those of us out there in the trenches, with our sleeves rolled up and money to spend, we know what is going on – don’t we? Those on the sidelines love to watch and talk about it. They really don’t have any idea. Nice to hear from someone else that is trying.
So did that guy ever pay up on the debt?
My prediction……….’Not Your Life’ bet you he is a ‘Cheap Ba@#*$d’!