As a plugged-in reader notes, asking prices for the trio of “ultra chic” new construction condos at 161-165 Collingwood have been reduced for the second time (each now listed at $150,000 under original asking).
And while the website touts “Hot New Prices! Motivated to Sell!”, and the listings “lease purchase option available!”, there’s no new mention of any free wine. Oh well, it’s probably time for the hard stuff anyway.
∙ Listing: 161-165 Collingwood [collingwoodchic.com]
∙ Listing: 161 Collingwood (3/3) – $1,349,000 [MLS]
∙ Listing: 163 Collingwood (2/2) – $1,049,000 [MLS]
∙ Listing: 165 Collingwood (3/3) – $1,599,000 [MLS]
∙ It’s Been A Rough Week, So You Might As Well Grab A Glass Of Wine [SocketSite]
Looks like some developers misjudged the market and so there will be more rental supply coming on line.
Hey look, 10% off. Guess it’s a great time to buy!
now if they would just lop off another 300K from each of those, they might get some interest.
i think they need to cut those prices in half. and i want the wine too.
I was going to say that, with the lower prices, the the buy cost of this place is now closer to the rent on a Ritz Carlton 2 bedroom – the buy used to be $3750 higher.
Unfortunately, they dropped the price on the Ritz rental to $6500, so, although the rent vs buy did get better, it didn’t get better by much! About $3500 to go!
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/945219872.html
Durn those falling rents! You drop your price and you are STILL way out of line.
Who could have known? $1M 2/2s are not selling…
looks like they got a deal on cheap blue stone…
This building is a great idea that turned out very underwhelming and uninspriring. Better luck next time.
Quite the usual (b’error) suspects at the top of this thread. So, without further ado, a few notes of dissent. First, lowest condo is viewless and even now asking mid 800s a foot. The middle unit advertises views, but where are its photos? Judging by the location, I’m guessing the views are halved. Neither of the “three” bedrooms is technically a 3br.
Fronzi, a grand total of one day into the 1M price structure is a little premature for “1M 2/2’s are not selling who knew?” I know it seemed like the other kids were having fun, but really. Truly, it is OK to not post if you got nothing.
The developer picked up a rundown sfr for 735 or so in 2003. Probably socked a worker or acquaintance in there for decent rent in the interim. (Perhaps not, tho, as there was a suicide on the property.) Figure what, 350 a foot to build? They look nice. There is redundancy so costs were likely reduced. I know you lot enjoy tweaking all costs skyward, so 350 it was.
Do the math. They are now in mid 800s, so these units will at least be garnering attention. But this developer has ample room to negotiate. Selling agents are being offered four points at this point. My guess is that these will sell near their current pricepoints.
These are on the part of Collingwood called “The Fruit Loop” and the noise on weekend nights is pretty load.
even though the housing market and financial sector are plummeting, the market for crack seems to be doing just fine
spencer- Alcohol, drugs, and gambling sales soar during a depression, even you should know that!
Mystery Realtor- I’ve always known it as the park that all the desparates loiter after last call in order to hopefully (or agressively) pick up a young stud traveling by who is wearing serious beer goggles.
“the noise on weekend nights is pretty load.”
Freudian slip?
I was there during the first open house. The agent has no control over the extremely demanding builder. She needs to talk some sense into the him. He was there and she seemed timid to offend him or be herself… No matter how chic the property, you need to price right from the beginning. OOPS!
fluj, that’s an awesome post. I don’t know enough to agree or disagree with the content, but it’s feisty, full of information, a bold prediction and a nice turn of phrase to boot.
I guess this is why we miss you when you’re gone.
Now about the the prediction, knowing nothing about the listing beyond what I read here and based just on what’s going on in the economy and credit markets, I’ll say you’re wrong. I predict they go through multiple reductions and don’t sell. I’ll offer a small wager if you were so inclined.
🙂
I, too, was a little surprised to see fluj make a real prediction. Kudos to you, fluj, for putting a small piece of your credibility on the line!
I don’t know this area too well. Clearly, the sellers (and their realtor, who took on the listing) misjudged the market, and have now signaled to anyone with a brain that there was no interest anywhere near the current listing prices. (Otherwise, a deal would have been struck.)
Additionally, not even a single one sold. That tells us that the demand pool (at prices anywhere near what is currently being asked) is shallow, because surely at least one potential purchaser would have been bold enough to “insult” the seller with an approx 10% underbid, had the pool been large.
I’m with chuckie on this one, but I really don’t have a specific price guess because I’m not too interested in $1M+ apartments in the Castro.
(PS – I shortened my tag. It was a mouthful, and it seems like a number of bitter owners took offense, and we are getting to the point where people who bought in SF over the past few years deserve some empathy 🙂 )
“Additionally, not even a single one sold. That tells us that the demand pool (at prices anywhere near what is currently being asked) is shallow, because surely at least one potential purchaser would have been bold enough to “insult” the seller with an approx 10% underbid, had the pool been large.”
LOL at “that tells us.” It’s funny sometimes how bad you guys play yourselves bending over backward to obviate realtors. Like redfin gives you access to human beings’ private dialogs. You have no idea whether or not anyone has attempted a lowball offer or not. GTFOOH.
“You have no idea whether or not anyone has attempted a lowball offer or not. GTFOOH.”
LOL. You’re right, no one knows the backstory here 🙂 But the market tells one a lot, if one is smart enough to understand the signals. If someone “lowballed” at 10% off the original price, the seller was a fool. Because that is exactly where the “wishing” price is now. Even an idiot would have gone back to the original offeror and tried to garner the same “lowball” (now “asking”) bid. If there ever was one, it has now gone “poof”. As I wrote, the seller has signalled that the pool is “shallow” at best.
Additionally, if the hypothetical “lowball” was significantly below 10% off the original listing prices, then it’s as I said: the demand pool is shallow at prices “anywhere near” where the current listing prices are. Q.E.D.
This behavioral economics approach of course will not work in all situations in SF, because SF contains many foolish people – just like every other city of course (SF is not very special in the end). But I think it’s useful to structure one’s thinking in approaching any market, including SF real estate. Structured approaches lead to better investment decisions IME.
Again, though, kudos to you for going out on a limb and making a prediction.
Draw any and all conclusions, sure. But I remember another funny one on here. It was the guy who said, “We can tell by the fact that Google Earth doesn’t even map this street scene how crummy the neighborhood is” — or something like that. Well, no. Not really. You can tell, precisely, that Google Earth didn’t map the neighborhood. And that is all you can tell. Seeing is not knowing. Thank god for that.
I prefer to see sofas at a ninety degree angle as it relates to a fireplace. Something about that photograph that just doesn’t sell the space. Online Marketing and images really do drive foottraffic to the site. Upward and Onward Amanda!
this place looks like a cheap and half-baked take on modern design.
To add to a current theme, these three places are all also now listed for rent on Craigslist:
161: $4800/mo
163: $3800/mo
165: $5800/mo
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/sfc?query=collingwood&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max&bedrooms=&neighborhood=
Still on the MLS as far as I can tell. Trying to reduce the carrying costs?
These all got cut again by $50K each. I guess the rental route didn’t work out. The smallest of them is advertising “Lease purchase option available!”:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/163-Collingwood-St-94114/home/675973
Here are the links to the other two:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/161-Collingwood-St-94114/home/17464640
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/165-Collingwood-St-94114/home/17393017
PS – So far fluj is losing the wager with chuckie and myself over these condos (see posts above, starting with “Posted by: fluj at December 5, 2008 10:45 AM”).
The newly reduced listings for 161-165 Collingwood have been withdrawn from the MLS without a sale. Last asking $999,000 to $1,549,000 (versus $1,199,000 to $1,749,000 in October).
Ding ding ding! We have a winner. Congrats, chuckie and LMRiM.
“Guess” –> “Prediction” –> “Wager”–> Enter Sycophant –> “Ding Ding Ding”
It looks like these are back, with some more cuts. Now asking $995K to $1,485K. Redfin lists 5 DOM, lol. Looks like they couldn’t get them rented, couldn’t sell them. My advice it just keep cutting the prices – it works every time.
“fluj” –> “snark” –> enter declining market –> “anon”
Oh. So a guess = a prediction = a wager then? OK. You win bro. Ding ding ding!
Well, these places are garnering attention — unfortunately, only on this web site as a poster child of the bursting bubble. I think SF Fronzi had it right — Who could have known? $1M 2/2s are not selling… I assume at some point the developer will get serious about trying to sell them and make some real cuts, but maybe he’s fine just driving by once a day and beaming at the empty building he owns.
Trip, I hadn’t read your post. Out of PST timezone and working too many hours to read it all. Any wild predictions on where this place is going?
– Lower price?
– Rental
– A bit of both?
Boy, I admit I’ve been proven wrong again and again on individual units (although I’ve been pretty good as to overall trends). I actually live pretty close to these places — I like the area but these are not in the best spot. Another SS post shows these are going rental again, so this may be moot. Regardless, with pretty nice SFRs in Pac Heights now under $2M and really nice condos all over town in the 800s, I really cannot imagine the 2 BR here going for more than 800k and the 3 BRs for more than 1M. I think the developer would be wise to jump on any offers like that. A year from now, my bet is these will fetch much less than these sums.