As we highlighted in the third quarter of last year:

Purchased for $950,000 in February of [2018], the 1,700-square-foot, four-bedroom Bayview Heights home at 1119 Hollister Avenue was subsequently taken “down to the studs” and subfloors.

A structural wall was removed to open up the floor plan, a third bathroom was added, the electrical was upgraded (along with the furnace) and the all-new kitchen now sports a La Cornue range.

And having returned to the market [in February of 2019] with a $1.399 million price tag, the sale of the fully remodeled home…closed escrow [in August of 2019] with a contract price of $1.15 million, a price which will help push the average sale up, and is “21.1 percent more expensive,” just not on an apples-to-apples (or likely profitable) basis.

As noted by a plugged-in reader, the four-bedroom home at 1119 Hollister has now returned to the market, a year later, listed for “$895,000,” which is roughly $500 per square foot and 25 percent below the average sale price per square foot for the neighborhood over the past six months.

And yes, the aforementioned La Cornue range, which retails for $8,475, has been replaced by a roughly half as expensive, but still higher-end, Bertazzoni.

If you think you know the market for single-family homes and the Bayview, now’s the time to tell.

46 thoughts on “Remodeled Bayview Home Returns (Sans That $8K Stove)”
    1. I’m only just learning that there are others like me out there who think “can” lights are sad and awful!

      1. I love my Bertazzoni. It looks great and it functions great. The one downside is the slightly shallow oven compared to the American made brands, which my wife gripes about. I guess everything is a bit smaller in Europe.

          1. It was around $3000 about 11 years ago. But that was a niche spot in the price range. Below that you were looking at a lot cheaper for more mass produced junk or a lot higher (eg $5K+) for other brands.

            The “downside” I mentioned was not an unknown and it’s not a design flaw per se. It’s just the design of the product which was designed by European company, presumably for a primarily European market. It works great as far as I’m concerned. If you do a ton of baking of large quantities or using the oven to cook for large parties on a regular basis, maybe not the best choice, but the problem would be in the consumer’s lack of research and not a problem with the product. We knew exactly what we were buying.

            Also, I am generally skeptical that the money people spend for fancy or large stoves (eg 6-burner, etc) ever get used to their full potential and that is basically money thrown away for useless ostentation. If your appliance meets your needs 98% of the time and you gripe about the remaining 2%, you made the right choice. It’s like retailers/malls wanting enough car parking sized to handle christmas shopping crowds, rather than for the other 11 1/2 months a year.

          2. Keep in mind that the La Cornue above is actually the least expensive “starter” model that La Cornue offers (a CornuFe Albertine). The average price for a Château Series range, which is La Cornue’s signature line, is around $40K. And their top of the line model, a Grand Palais, starts at $60K.

      2. I agree with Zac. Failing to provide standard ventilation for the stove, coupled with the galling lack of a kitchen island, indicates to me that the flipper meant the stove to be a status symbol for the eventual owner instead of an appliance for actual cooking.

      1. Looks legit to me. Check out the shadows on the cabinet handles caused by the diffuse light from the skylight. Under the sink they are nearly vertical, gradually angled more to the right and more as you move to the right. You’ll see a faint shadow of the oven’s door handle at an angle that fits in well with that series.

  1. The market is not as hot and it’s October. At what price do they expect this property to sell? I couldn’t see any profit or breakeven. Why do they sell right now?

  2. What is the attraction to a La Cornue? Is it appearance or does it cook better?

    I upgraded to a Wolf but it cooks no better than the $700 Kenmore it replaced. Looks sharper though.

    1. When we were shopping for a stove we found that the lower priced options that would offer decent performance all had digital displays and other electronics that we didn’t like for both aesthetic and long-term reliability reasons. If you want a solid, last-forever dependable stove that also looks nice without a bunch of digital goo-gasws, seems like you have to spend more money. It seems backwards, but that seems how it often is in modern merchandising. The cheaper the product, generally the more tacky and filled with useless bells and whistles. Simplicity should cost more, not less. Sigh.

      1. This won’t work for a stove, but if your dishwasher or refrigerator has an electronic display, a surge suppressor will keep the electronics lasting much longer.

        1. The exterior of the house looks old and dreary, the bathrooms look cheap, the backyard is a gravel pit, and the kitchen is small, awkwardly laid out, lacking an island, and bland-looking after the colorful stove was removed. There seem to be nearby homes that are a much better value.

          1. “gravel pit” = “low maintenance neo-Japanese rock garden”
            Your future in ad copy-writing is bleak.

          2. It is a good thing that I own my own business, which has nothing to do with writing ad copy 🙂 But, yes, I am familiar with “creative” and puffed up for-sale home descriptions—it may get a seller in the door, but when they see the dreary reality with their own eyes, they usually quickly depart.

      2. Bosh! We are all supposed to be managing our stoves through our cell phones! And our refrigerators need to be connected to the internet so it can order groceries from Amazon for us!

    2. I bought a true commercial Wolf range. It was only about $3k and it’s AWESOME! Of course it’s not the stove for most home cooks, the fit and finish are pretty rough and there’s zero insulation so I had to build a firebox around its space in the cabinetry. But other than that super happy. Cooking on other stoves, even high end ones is a disappointment now.

      1. My plumber said that you can’t put a commercial range in a residence for code reasons. Something about the size of the gas supply line among other things.

      2. I hope that range doesn’t cause any issues. Your home insurance is now toast if it does. Is losing out on your home’s value worth the “benefits” of a commercial stove?

  3. Assuming this is not a lowball listing price, this is as bad an example of a failed flip as I’ve seen on this website since the great recession (given how quickly they lost several probably 30% to 50% of their original purchase price. The interior seems to be builder’s grade with few upgrades (Ikea closets!). They probably spent a lot of money removing that load-bearing wall and it doesn’t appear to have added any value. Street View doesn’t look that great.

    1074 Ingerson is about a block away. Similar home with a remodel that looks at least as good as this home. 50% more square feet asking another $138,000. 1003 Hollister (asking $949K – contingent) looks like a nicer home, albeit 10% smaller. Situated on a corner with a better parking setup.

    1. 1074 Ingerson originally listed for $1.28M and just slashed its ask down to $988K. It has an odd floor plan. More square footage in the form of an in-law unit so if the buyer wanted to use all of it, would need to put some work into it. This one definitely has a better parking setup comparable to 1003 Hollister (2 car garage + 2 car driveway). Street parking is a nightmare in this part of the city so any off street parking is a plus.

      Looks like 1119 Hollister was purchased last year and was rented out in the past year (most recent rental listing of $5,625 was removed from Zillow on 9/16/19). Probably felt like they got a deal when they purchased and now getting out while they can.

    2. This is indeed a low ball [list price]; talked to the seller agent they didn’t allow viewing the home unless buyer is approved with 1.2mil

  4. I’m baffled by the trend of having open shelves in a kitchen. You’re supposed to have your food and dishes out on display?

    1. ‘cept we all agreed (see second post, et al, [above]) that this “kitchen” isn’t really for cooking…more like spillover waiting area from the living room. So the only thing you really need is enough charging stations for guests’ smart phones.

    2. Plenty of beautiful kitchens actually look like kitchens. Maybe you need nicer food and dishes.

      The old reason for doors was to keep critters out, which is less necessary in a modern house. It’s still better for long term storage to minimize light exposure.

      Around here earthquakes are probably the best argument for cabinets.

      1. Doors also conceal the untidy clutter of some shelves. For example most people’s pantries are full of random food packages with clashing colors, fonts, and graphics.

  5. While I love the stove talk, and never knew a stove could cost $60,000. Insane! I will be the first to venture to the question at hand. I’m going to go with $925,000

    1. A sale at $925,000 would represent a 19 percent drop in value for the single-family home over the past year on an apples-to-apples basis, save the stove, and would be 18 percent below the average sale price per square foot for the neighborhood over the past six months.

    2. I think $925K could be close. It’s a buyer’s market now, and anybody that wants or needs to sell now is going to get a pretty thorough bath (in cold water, yet.)

  6. That $8,000 stove has gas burners, not induction? I can’t imagine paying that kind of money to still reek up my whole kitchen (and living room, hooray open plan!) with all the toxic fumes a gas burner puts off. And as other commenters have noted, no hood, so it’s actually a worse cooking experience than a lot of rent-controlled apartments where the landlord put a cheap GE range. This proves it, the rich have no sense.

    1. Clearing out the fumes from a range is why there should be a good high volume hood over the stovetop. Oh wait …

  7. I visited a woman in Alaska who had a wood burning stove & brought out amazing bakery goods from it. A good cook does not need an $8,000 stove to cook well. The magic is in the cook, not the stove.

    1. Absolutely agreed. 🙂

      And the fancy stove cannot make up for the depressing Third Street neighborhood commercial corridor. If you want to eat somewhere – you are hopping on the T- line heading north. It’s a neighborhood that needs a lot of work.

  8. Yikes. Zillow lists that it was sold for $1.15 8/2/19 and listed for rent for $6,025/month 8/7 then reduced to $5,625 10 days later. Whoever bout this *as an INVESTMENT* is going to lose their a** no matter what they sell it for.

  9. The $8,000 kitchen stove in a remodeled Bayview shack with a metal security gate has to be one among many “market top” indicators.

  10. Price raised to 1.195.000. I’m not a realtor, can anyone kindly explain the strategy behind listing at for 895,000 and then bumping it up to 1,195,000?

    I understand that the low ball price was to instigate a price war which I presume didn’t happen.

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