The 6,140 square foot home (per the listing) was purchased with rainy day money and last home to Marguerite Rubel Kuckenbecker (perhaps you’ve got a Marguerite Rubel labeled raincoat in your closest) before her passing last May.
Today the corner mini-manse at 393 Marina Boulevard hit the market asking $6,000,000, slightly above its current tax assessed value of $261,289.
∙ Listing: 393 Marina Boulevard (4/3.5) – $6,000,000 [MLS]
1000 per foot for a home on fill land that looks in fairly poor condition listed by an agency I’ve never heard of… None of this bodes well for a fast sale. My guess: It sits on the market for months and after a couple of meager reductions ends up being withdrawn.
Real asking should be about 700 per foot, so somewhere under 4.5 million.
I think I love “fairly poor condition.” White walls, wood trim, no beige, no brown, no granite.
Makris’ agency is in Noe Valley. Maybe a one-man band. Saw a house in Noe Valley he was listing as a three-bedroom. Typical RE agent misstatements, he counted the dining room as a bedroom, so the silly pricing is par for the course.
And it other corner… Can anyone confirm if 311 Marina will hit the auction block this month? RealtyTrac is showing January 13 as the auction date, but we’ve seen him escape the gavel before. Calling inclinejj.
“slightly above”…nice ed. Well, regardless of the price, may I be the first to congratulate the property tax collector.
I’m with kthnxybe on the interior. I’m sure it needs a little bit of work, but the buyer of this place will likely customize it anyway, so who cares if it stages well, as long as it has good bones.
The downsides is the current lot location and being on fill. I don’t understand the pricing either. Does anyone have suggestions of comps?
Yes, Phil Ting will be very happy.
Not sure about 311, but I think 485 was saved as I never saw it change hands? I’ve always had mixed feelings about Marina Blvd. If not for the ‘fill I’d think these homes were under valued in spite of the highway out front. I still think these homes are well situated. Hard to know what would happen in a worst case scenario quake but I guess the potential for bad things is high. That said, I could see this selling well above 4M and maybe in the 5’s? I’m a sucker for the views. One telling thing to me is that I’ve not seen one major renovation in Marina Blvd. The closest thing would be the place on Jefferson that Peter Theil rented a while back but that was an odd lot.
2140 Jefferson is probably the best comp. Name link.
Can anyone confirm if 311 Marina will hit the auction block this month?
311 Marina Boulevard is still scheuled to hit the courthouse steps on January 13 with an opening bid of $2,874,389, but don’t be surprised if it’s postponed due to bankruptcy once again.
Now that’s my kind of staging ! More please.
“…listed by an agency I’ve never heard of…”
Whenever that happens all I can figure is that there is some sort of relationship between the owner (or executor in this case) and the listing agent : friend, family, church congregation, etc.
I can’t understand how an agent can accept a listing with a clear conscience that is so far outside of their expertise. And no doubt doing their “friend” a “favor”.
But at least he staged the house right 🙂
I think that agents should stage most houses just like this. The crappy furniture that appears in many stagings is distracting. Anyone with this much money to spend brings their own taste and probably a lifetime of furniture and objects.
But where are the 6000+ square feet? From the outside, it does not seem close.
TMOD, are you kidding when you say “I can’t understand how an agent can accept a listing with a clear conscience that is so far outside of their expertise”?
Really, like you need a niche expertise to sell a house in SF. That’s what the high-flying RE agents want you to believe so that they can remain a closed cast for as long as they manage to command rich people’s gullibility.
Welcome Markras to the frathouse!
I’m with the “please lord don’t stage this” crowd.
I think it looks great in the pictures, with the exception of being a corner lot…
I just love love love those ceilings… and I agree that any buyer for this place will have a horde of architects and designers running through it to personalize anyway.
I’m sure the bathrooms will need the work, and it is likely the kitchen will be redone as well… but the rest of the pics look pretty good to me.
I am curious… why is a corner lot a negative? I would have thought it is a good thing since it allows for more light and open feeling.
Nice place though and I would really not want to change much; only downside is the landfill situation.
What asiagoSF proposes seems to me to be an eminently testable hypothesis that some eager, local MS-level student in econ should have attacked and addressed reasonably conclusively by now. I guess Real Estate isn’t that glamorous to the Freakonomics crowd, even though there’s a very readable journal devoted to the topic (or perhaps I’ve just missed the definitive treatment). Hell, the data is almost all public and available, it’s crying out for a paper on whether or not “high-flyers” such Nina Hatvany shorten the time-on-market or increase the selling price or have some other measurable effect that benefits the seller in accordance with the commissions paid.
I want to agree that “high-flying RE agents want [us] to believe” that there’s a difference between them and your run-of-the-mill agent, but there is actually none statistically detectable (that’d be your counterintuitive result that would almost guarantee publication, fame, fortune, groupees swarming you at conferences, numerous media appearances, etc.)
But something tells me that there is a difference.
Maybe I was vague but I was echoing Denis’ comment that the brokers who specialize in this part of town seem to have a much better batting average at reaching closure. I don’t know whether that’s due to their connections to eligible buyers, knowledge of how to market these white elephants, their ability to talk the seller into a reasonable listing price, a combination of these, or something else.
But I certainly am not implying that a $10M house requires ten times the effort to sell compared to a $1M house (and hence the proportionally 10X higher commission). While I don’t doubt that it is harder in general to sell an expensive home I truly doubt that the selling effort is linearly proportional to the price. A dumpy $300K house in a challenging location might be even harder to sell. At the base of the problem is how close the seller’s expectations are to the actual market and how reasonable the seller is about re-evaluating their assumptions. Sellers who say “just move it at the best price you can get” are dream clients. On the other hand sellers who are stubborn about a fixed price floor can waste their agent’s time.
As for the corner lot : yes you get more light and air. But you also get more noise and less privacy. Also note that this is no ordinary square 90 degree corner but rather an acute 45 degree angle. So that thin pie slice of a yard is even more difficult to use. You’ve basically got a little point of public landscape space to maintain. It looks as if the prior owner was nice enough to pave a shortcut path past that fountain for pedestrians. The MLS listing photos don’t depict the acute angle of the front yard very well though the editor’s choice of a photo above gives a better idea.
I thought the the “yard” on the corner was subdivided and, at one time, for sale. I like the design of the house, does need work (retrofitting?), the landfill issue, and the traffic on Marina Blvd is constant and loud – I think $4.35 (including adjacent lot – if above scenario is correct).
This house is the most beautiful one on Marina Blvd, it has so much more character then the other ones and looks to be untouched from when it was built.
A lot of other houses on Marina have have floors added on and it looks like someone has been playing with LEGO or they are newly built but are trying hard to look old.
I hope that someone with 4-5 million to spend on a house have the imagination to see the place with its own furniture and design.
Would a red bow on a car on the showroom floor make a difference if you would buy it or not? I don’t think so.
That’d be some nice seats for the America’s Cup.
PPC – That triangular “front yard” is roughly 50′ on each edge. So even if you could build with no setbacks right up to the sidewalk, you end up with a ~1200 sq.ft. floorplate. My guess is that you’d have to adhere to existing setbacks which leaves you with next to nothing for construction.
Maybe you’re thinking on this site’s doppelganger a block to the west at the corner of Marina and Cervantes ? That corner lot is vacant and large enough to build on.
I like that this house seems to be a fairly clean blank slate. The new paint job may have concealed telltale faults though. I agree that the next owner will want to remodel to their taste so it is a great decision to sell it in roughly as-is condition. Even if there are deep systems and structural issues, those are far better dealt with before working on the superficial details that many flippers focus on.
“This house is the most beautiful one on Marina Blvd, it has so much more character then the other ones and looks to be untouched from when it was built.”
Does anyone remember the Marina after the earthquake? You better pray to god that someone did some work on this place. I remember almost nothing was left of the 600 block. I almost bought two blocks away one month before and remember thinking “What a great place. It HAS to appreciate – it’s only a couple of blocks to the bay.”
Best bid I ever lost out on.
I’ve actually always sort of wondered about what the damage cost / depreciation impact of the quake versus the subsequent bubble appreciation in the marina would look like. Has anyone ever comp’d that out. I would have to guess that if you bought a home in the year of the quake and fixed whatever damage there was and held on / sold in 2007 that you would have made a big profit. Anyone?
I think you’re right eddy. I also think that we have a short memory when it comes to quakes. The Medium One in ’89 was hella destructive. Wait until the Big One cracks.
We can’t prevent quakes but we can prepare for them. Improve your home’s structure, have a disaster plan (supplies plus a way to ensure safety), and learn first aid.
“I also think that we have a short memory when it comes to quakes. The Medium One in ’89 was hella destructive. Wait until the Big One cracks.”
I agree with you, Milkshake. Several people I know who live extremely close to one fault or another seem to have the idea that they went through Loma Prieta just fine, so they will be fine during the Big One. Even though it was a San Andreas quake, they conveniently forget that Loma Prieta is more than 50 miles from SF and more than 50 miles from portion of the East Bay north of 580. Despite the distance, structures on fill, such as Marina houses or Oakland airport, had significant damage.
The shake map from Wikipedia says you ain’t seen nothing yet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1989_Loma_Prieta_Shake_Map.jpg
You are 100% correct MOD, checked Google maps,my bad. My late father, an architect, would have laughed his butt off at my assumption. Thanks for the clarification.
Owl – I was only referring to the esthetic look of the house (no consideration taken to any earthquake safety improvements needed).
In this neighborhood, the top agents simply have a better track record closing on these type of homes. It’s very unusual to have an unknown agent/agency come in and sell a $6+ million home. It’s certainly not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely. Like it or not, the top agents have a lot of control over what moves in this district. The Metallica home remains the best example. It lingered for literally years until the owner gave in, relisted with Nina and sold it a few weeks later. I’m not sure what the agent was thinking with the asking price for this place, especially if a similar property could end up on the courthouse steps for under 3 million.
I’m fine with the home being unstaged an open. It makes no difference here since the views are the main attraction. However, going over the pictures, the walls are probably lath and plaster and there are huge radiators in every room. My guess is there’s also a nightmarish lower “floor” that’s included in the square footage. All these type homes have semi-subterranean labyrinths of tiny rooms with external pipes, ducts, and cement etc. They can be a major headache and expensive to renovate.
The liquefaction is a major issue with this property. The foundation is the first thing I’d check. What was done post LP, if anything? All the traffic in front also probably puts additional stress on the foundation as well.
Corner lots are a toss up. Either you like the light and air and are willing to compromise a bit on privacy or you’re not. Some of the most expensive sales in D7 have been corner lots. So, normally, it’s a non-issue. As MOD pointed out, though, this one is a little unusual.
awesome place, tho a little exposed. imo, the better strategy for the disposal of this asset would be a 50 to 99 year lease. you try to monetize that super low tax basis which will be lost with a real sale. otherwise they will suffer from trying to sell into a bad market.
^ obit sez survived by sister and brothers. No Prop 58 transfer available.
^you don’t need prop 58. you still own it tho you’ve sold the long term lease and collect the monthly income stream.
^^^ Who owns it ? The estate ?
Who owns it? Whomever the owner left it to, assuming (almost certainly the case) there was a will or living trust.
So if the property transfers to an heir then doesn’t that cause a new tax valuation to be computed ? I’m just trying how this 50 year lease plan with low tax basis would work.
Tax records put the house square footage at 3,690 and according to the MLS listing the square footage of 6,140 is per a graphic artist.
Your mileage (or square footage) may vary.
Who owns it ?
There is a trust (from 2006). With four amendments. Her brother came to town, it appears, to help manage her affairs and was the original trustee (as well as a 50% beneficiary of the remainder of assets after certain distributions were made).
It’s alleged that Marguerite Rubel was not of ‘sound mind & body’ when she removed her brother as trustee (amendment 3, 2008) and then redesignated the beneficiaries (amendment 4, 2009).
The SF SPCA, the new trustee, & another lawyer win big time if the fourth amendment is valid. The brother gets $100k as a consolation prize. The sorted details are here. IANAL.
Hmmm… it looks like amendment two (2008) sent everything to the brother.
I only read the first pages of the initial filing, but it appears that there were multiple people trying to take advantage of the owner’s advancing dementia by getting included in her will via amendments. One of them was the local UPS truck driver. It looks like elder abuse to me.
The original will allowed one brother to live in the house as long as he wished. I cannot tell whether that clause would still be active if amendments 3 and 4 are struck down. But if that clause did become valid then it could get in the way of this house’s sale. I’m also not a lawyer so please treat this as just idle speculation by an unqualified poster.
ianal etc..but i would assume that these folks had proper estate planning in which case the trustee deals with the assets in the trust (which would have been transferred before her death). imo, it would be better to try the long range lease here rather than outright sale into the teeth of this market.
Speaking of fill…that was a nice one.
Yup, and right on the Calaveras Fault south of Mt. Ham. again. There’s been a lot of activity over there lately. I don’t think that the Calaveras Fault can muster up a really destructive quake on its own, but it is tied in with the Hayward Fault. The Hayward Fault is mucho dangerous.
Ooohh-la-la! Enjoy the non-stop traffic right outside your front door and strangers staring into your windows every evening
Why not get a nice pad in Russian hill or pac heights instead?
“Ooohh-la-la!”
Poor old grand dad/ I laughed at all his words
I thought he was a bitter man/ he spoke of woman’s ways …
This home is wonderful in the sense that every room has a view. Having gone through this home last week, measures about 3800 square feet give or take. The listing agent has included an enormous garage and basement space measuring about 2200 square feet to get us to the 6000 square feet. Great floorplan, light, views, architecture and location if your buying in the Marina. The downside on this one is that the house is less than 4000 living square feet, needs a tremendous amount of work and should have been listed between 3.5 and 3.995.
This home is a beauty. It reminds me of the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the “Ugly Duckling”. The home had fallen into disrepair-an “ugly duckling”, but NOW–it’s a beautiful swan–with it’s head held high! Considering it’s history-it’s almost 90 years old-and all it has seen, it looks fantastic. The views and the accessibility to the Marina Waterfront and the Marina shopping district-plus the lot seems to be twice the size of all the others-make it unique. You are in the “front and centre” of the Marina. It’s even been in the TV show, “The Streets of San Francisco”. If you want to be “IN” the MarINa-this home is for you!
Also wanted to add that when the Christmas Lights are turned on, as are all the house lights, this place looks like a palace-a sterling, gold-plated showplace that is easily the best on the bay! It really does STAND-OUT! The attention to detail that I see there is really quite remakable. Even tourists stop to take pics. Looks like it came straight from the movies.
The room are cool truely cold.They need to be furnished warmed up and fast.With all the wonderful window people feel the cool.This is a great place.
Yes, christmas lights in mid January really do stand out. This pace is lit up with lights and it is totally out of character. Wish i had taken a pic. Somebody pleasel go the at night and take a pic and mail itb to the Ed.
If the reports on the square footage are true than this place is in for an awakening on price.
Odd punctuation, quoting, and capitalization “stand out” too-like a houSe on a HILL.
The use of sterling and gold-plated in the same description is pure genius. At less than 4000 (3690 per tax records) square feet, even with good bones, this price is way off into the stratosphere.
The list price for 393 Marina Boulevard has just been cut $1,500,000 (25 percent), now asking $4,500,000.
Still over $1000/sqft if it’s under 4000 sqft.
EBGuy, any update on the litigation?
This is in firm contract, asking 4.5 million. That should put the sale somewhere under 4.5… which is exactly what I said in my first comment! Let’s see what happens!
Should be interesting. I’ll go with $3.8.
4.4. Denis nailed it in the first comment at the top of the thread.
Ha, I was at 3.8. Good luck with 4.4. Big project awaits this lot.
That was my cousin’s house, stop the bashing. She was an amazing woman who built her life up front being a former farm girl to a famous clothes designer. She bought the house decades ago, it is the real estate down there that is so expensive. Leave it alone.
Every house is somebodies’ house. Doesn’t change its characteristics.
Don’t get so emotionally involved with a lot and a pile of lumber.