Listed for $2,895,000 nine months ago, the Forest Hill home at 279 Castenada Avenue sold for $2,600,000 this past December. Since “updated with current colors and style featuring refinished hardwood floors in walnut tones, deluxe custom window treatment and nice accents,” the five-bedroom home is back on the market and listed for $3,195,000.
No work permits have been issued for the contemporary luxury home over the past six months, and it would appear that nothing has changed other than the interior design (and price).
Actually, I wouldn’t even call this a “mini-makeover.” It’s just a paint job and staging.
What’s the before and what’s the after???
Technically it is 7 months since that’s when it went into contract (the close date is meaningless imho) and we all know that we just went through huge price appreciation just in the past few months with some of the craziest stories I’ve heard in years. Meanwhile the latest yoy numbers from Case Shiller, First Republic’s Prestige Index, and others show 12-18% increases and don’t yet capture the past few months of craziness. Lastly paint and staging crush any other ROI when prepping your home for sale, and starting too high like they did last time is about the worst thing an SF seller can do. Add it all up and this new price, at 23% higher than the last sale, may be exactly what it is worth today. (and no, I’m not the listing agent)
I have no idea if they will get the asking price.
One thing I do know – when you start to see short term “slap a coat of paint” flips, you KNOW we are at or near a bubble peak. If you’re thinking about selling, now is the time. If you are thinking about buying, wait.
how accurate do you all think zillow estimates are? I bought in Dec 2012 for 925K and the zillow zestimate is now $1.65M. That seems pretty nuts.
It is stunning to me how inaccurate Zillow can be to the point where at least in SF I’m not quite sure if it serves any value at all except to give people unreasonable expectations (one way or the other). I get seemingly random email updates from Zillow on my house, and while I can’t remember the exact numbers, in the last 60 days or so their “Zestimate” has gone from about $3.5M to a little under $10M. I know the market is going crazy and we did do some remodeling that finally hit the tax rolls, but this is truly bizarre (and the neighborhood definitely cannot support anything near the latest price, even if we added a heliport and underground lap pool). Perhaps we’re a singular glitch in their algorithm, but yes, “pretty nuts” is about right.
Of course I doubt your Zillow number is quite as wacky as mine, and if your number is right, then that’s great. And now don’t think about it again and just enjoy your home!
Lovely colored floors. High quality.
Jill, Zillow is inaccurate.
The new color looks like “Revere Pewter”. We recently remodeled our laundry room and used the color that I have been told is the “hot new color”…
UPDATE: The sale of 279 Castenada has closed escrow with a reported contract price of $3,012,000.