815 Haight Street
We oohed (“Location, Location, And Kitchen”), you ahhed (for the most part), and three weeks after we featured it, 815 Haight Street closed escrow (for $2,010,000). And yes, that’s $515,000 (34.4%) over asking. Now about that housewarming…
Location, Location, And Kitchen [SocketSite]

20 thoughts on “We Oohed, You Ahhed, It Sold (815 Haight Street)”
  1. I went and saw this place (and I know the sellers through kids connections at school). It is a fantastic house. They put about a half million into very, very nice renovations. And the place is much larger than the “official” square footage — about 3100 sq ft. At a little under 700/sf for that wonderful a house, the buyers really got a very nice purchase.

  2. Sounds like $2M is still a good deal for such a property. I don’t understand the logic of the listing agent. Sure the price was designed to start a bidding war and a quick sale; but how can you be 34% off the mark. Seems like a starting price so low, and it was obviously low, could do the sellers more harm. I’m sure they are not complaining.

  3. I remember the original thread well. Apparently, it’s too close to Haight to sell for much over $1.5, and the owners are going to take a bath on their renovations…
    Or perhaps not.

  4. Go back and look at that prior thread. Most everyone thought it would sell quickly for way over.
    Except for a certain district 7 cheerleader, whose credibility might be a little suspect, and one other person, the reaction was really positive. The negative was the steep street, and some one proposed that one might replace the windows with double panes.

  5. Over $2M for this – are you kidding me? A bidding war resulting in a $500K premium over asking!
    Lower Haight is NOT a great neighborhood – interesting for some, maybe, but a lot of hassles for most.
    I give up – the bubble in this town will never burst.

  6. That’s okay, you can always buy in the Bayview. In fact, you better do it now, or else you’ll be priced out FOREVER!

  7. I have been jumping up and down to get people to buy SFR’s in this neighborhood since the 70’s.
    The agent priced the house on the soft side to get feet over the threshhold.
    A lot of folks have a misconception about what this part of town is really like.
    It is a terrific neigbhorhood with a funky front.

  8. “I give up – the bubble in this town will never burst.”
    Relax. As with all bubbles, also this one is going to pop. And the longer the party lasts the bigger the headache is going to be later. This part of the bubble is beyond absurd. It is getting comical. I wonder when the comedians will pick up on it and dedicate a special “San Francisco sucker of the week bidding war winner” on their late night shows.

  9. I don’t think the people here understand that there really are a lot of wealthy people in town and prices on prime RE are not going to plummet. Real Estate in general doesn’t ‘burst’; it slowly deflates or holds steady in line with inflation. Yes, there will be a lot of people that do get killed on the option ARM resets but not enough to send the SF SFH prices into a tailspin.
    Bottom line is that the whole city is becoming more attractive to buyers and people that can’t afford Pac Heights are buying in Noe, and people that can’t buy in Noe are buying in lower haight. This causes places like this to go for over $2M. Find me another classic Vic/Ed in the city that is brought up to date throughout for under $2M. Please.
    This place was a good value in the context of today’s market. I’m having a change of mind recently as I observe the market here. I think we’re seeing a more normal market and the best qualified buyers aren’t afraid to throw their money at the best properties. And good fixers are being snapped up. Its the dogs of the city that are going to suffer; and if you overpaid for a dog, then you might get burned.
    [Editor’s Note: Or perhaps as we wrote 14 months ago: “Get ready for what we’re going to call a real estate “flight to quality” (more on this next week).” And while we might have dropped the ball on that “next week” part (so many stories, so little time), the quality flight continues on.]

  10. Yep — very nice places that are priced right will always sell. But the sale of one very large, extremely nice Victorian says nothing about the state of the market. You have to compare with past sales of similar places. From the comps I see, I don’t think this would have gone for a penny less two years ago, and likely a bit more.
    The many price reductions we are seeing (unheard of two years ago) to levels that are at or below recent prices is the trend. Nobody except those reminiscing about the high-turnover bubble days of 2004 are predicting that prices in general will continue to rise appreciably in the near future. The debate is whether they will fall, and by how much.

  11. I’m no bubble blower, but c’mon.
    The place sells for more than a half million over asking, more than 34% over asking, and some see it as further proof of price reductions?
    Perhaps this is more attributable to the quasi-legality of marijuana in San Francisco than perceptiveness with respect to the real estate market?

  12. Here’s a funny post from patrick.net about this property:
    DAiryQUeen Says:
    > I knew a frustrated guy who couldn’t rent a
    > decent place for $5,000 in the city. Instead,
    > he paid 33% over asking in the HAIGHT for
    > this nice SFH for $2 mil. WOW.
    Sounds like a great deal!!
    For only about $15,000 (PITI + Maint) a month the guy has a nice looking older home in the Hayes Valley where he is just steps from gang members selling crack in the housing projects, drunk homeless guys in Buena Vista park and heroin addicted homeless teens who walk up and down Haight on a regular basis…

  13. Come on, folks. There are plenty of people out there with money and they have not slowed down one bit when it comes to buying property. Year in and year out, regardless of what you want to believe, the San Francisco real estate market is a fairly healthy one. Granted, it’s not in the overall frenzied state that is has been for the last several years, but people are still snapping up the nicest properties and best deals in the best and most desireable neighborhoods and locations. San Francisco is a destination, a place where people want to live. We left San Francisco about 6 years ago for the Washington DC suburbs. It is so boring and sterile out here compared to San Francisco. Our house is currently for sale and we are moving back. Bubble or not, bidding wars or whatever, high prices, high rent, it’s still the most beautiful city in the United States. Trying leaving it for a few years like we did, and you’ll quickly realize how much you took for granted and how much you want to come back. We can’t wait.

  14. Plenty of money? Plenty of funny money is more like it. When the last serious bubble burst struck from the end of the 80s to the mid 90s prices didn’t plummet because they didn’t have to. Five to seven years of price stagnation took around 30% or so from the prices through inflation. Boosters were making light of only one or two percent per year in price reductions, but a few years of that with inflation running hot is all that it takes. There are always buyers for premium properties until there aren’t.

  15. Zip Realty lets you search the MLS and filter for just places with price reductions. There are currently over 200 such places in SF of all types (half are SFHs) and in all neighborhoods. The buyers are not all crazy — these are being priced at comps from the last few years and are not moving. Price a place with reasonable (diminished) expectations, and it will sell. Price a place at 2005 prices — it won’t. There is the odd exception, of course, to prove the rule.

  16. For every property, nice or not, there is a fair market price given the market condition. Under-price it, and it will sell. Overprice it, and it will stay. It has nothing to do whether the market is hot or not.
    There are some really nice properties in the best (prime) neighborhood and they have stayed for a long time. It only means the asking price is too high. It is not an indication that the market is cold either.
    Here, we can only discuss our opinion whether a particular property is fairly priced or not. Whether the market is hot is derived from the observation whether the same property would fetched more two years ago. If this house was worth 2.5M two years ago (I am not saying this is the case), we can only conclude that the market is cold even though it sold for 0.5M/34% over asking. However, if this property was worth 1.5M two years ago (I am not saying this is the case), we can only conclude the market is red hot.
    The difficulty is, I don’t remember seeing so many remodeled properties two years ago, and I never looked at Haight area then, so it is hard for me to do a comparison. Maybe someone else has more insight.

  17. funny money… that’s exactly it. How many homes were sold in San Francisco using a tradition 20% down fixed rate mortgage? Sure, you’ll hear of some instances where there was an all cash deal, but from the sounds of it, a very large percentage of sales in the last few years were IO loans.

  18. John, well said.
    anon 9:16, IO loans are only bad if you cannot afford the payments after a rate adjustment. Lots of people have much better places to put their money than in real estate. IO loans have a lot of very real purposes and can be a great product for a lot of wealthy people. Using your statement in SF isn’t really all that valid.
    Mole man, very prophetic statement!
    Although I’d never compare SF to NYC, it is possible for sub-optimal neighborhoods to develop quickly have price appreciation. Brooklyn, Jersey City, Hoboken, even queens and now Harlem have all had major appreciation. Anyone that thinks its safe to walk those neighborhoods is crazy, yet brownstones are fetching $2-5M in those areas. So although it may not be that dramatic in all cases here in SF, its possible that local districts will continue to experience growth while others will stagnate. Never been a more interesting time to watch this unfold.

  19. Then the question is, which is the next district with the msot appreciation?
    Inner Sunset is already hot. Is Central/Outer Sunset next for 2M dollar houses?

  20. I think this also shows that despite what many people write on this site, there are still many many buyers out there who want to live a more traditional “San Francisco” lifestyle. By that lifestyle, I mean NOT living in a modern high rise on a modern street of modern highrises far from most shops or restaurants except for modern big box stores. I just don’t see how anyone can loose buying a traditional San Francisco victorian single family house. Deep down, it still is the housing most people dream of when they think of San Francisco.

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