From the listing for 1931 Lyon (which doesn’t appear to be identified by address on the MLS): “We will be holding one, and only one, broker’s tour on tuesday march 17th from 10:00-12:00, and then by appointment only from then on.” We’ll keep you plugged-in.
∙ Listing: 1931 Lyon (3/2.5) – $2,450,000 [MLS]
One of my personal pet peeves is a listing that does not provide square footage, which I believe is the quickest way to tell if a property is mispriced. I get that this has been “thoughtfully rebuilt” but according to propertysharks, it is only 1294 square feet. $2.45m for 1294 square foot house is absurd, no matter how lovely, and I suspect they’ll be holding a few more broker tours before a buyer comes out of the woodwork…
FIRST AND ONLY BROKER’S TOUR!! (and apparently no open houses)
Wow… I can’t possibly see the upside to limiting exposure… What is this agent thinking???
Open Houses don’t sell homes. It just an opportunity for the neighbors to lookie-loo.
Owners seemingly only “lookie-loo” during open houses in a declining market. Lately i’ve seen situations where one open house in a neighborhood would lead to several new local listings a few weeks after the house sale. During the boom years I suspect there were less “nosy (scared?) neighbors” at open houses than there are today.
Btw, pretty house, overpriced for location IMHO.
I know of a condo building that does not allow open houses. I guess the theory is that if you really want to live in this upscale building your realtor will know enough about you and it to put the two of you together.
I’m on the same page with you k10!
And I really think brokers should invest in good photography rather than posting those butt ugly pictures. This “thoughtfully rebuilt” residence looks not so appealing from this point of view. I’m a buyer but this listing with those pictures would never motivate me to taking the next step.
I’m sure the owner told the realtor what they wanted, the realtor laughed, and the owner figured they were in for a long sales cycle and didn’t feel the need for endless showings.
This is a 2/1.5 that had a third bedroom and bath added to the basement. The ceiling heights are substandard (so they can’t include them in the square footage) and the entire lower level has a basementy feel.
If you assign 800psft to the 1294 upstairs, and 550psft to what looks like another 600 square feet down, you get 1.365M. They are asking more than $1M more than that. Even if you offer $1000 psft for the entire place, including the 7′ tall basement space ala being John Malkovich floor 4-1/2, you still don’t come anywhere near their asking price.
So this is just a “make me move” deal by someone who has no real interest in selling. It’s a miracle they are having even one open: it’s very unlikely to sell for anything close to this price.
Very overpriced house… with much to be modest about.
I’d buy it for 1.5mil.
And thank you socketsite for tracking down the address for us.
Yeah, so there’s only one open, big deal. There are lots of reasons, not all of them conspiratorial, for this. Perhaps there’s a baby or a difficult tenant?
M.R.
@Tipster – thanks for the color on the place. As much as I’ve coveted an extra bedroom in the basement so my relative Ruprect, the monkey boy, can move in with my family, I think I’ll pass on paying an extra $1 million for it.
Seriously, do agents believe these kind of tactics work in this market?
thats a small house with some really unattractive design features for a one tour only attitude and a too high price.
Wow, this looks beautiful from the outside and borderline hideous on the inside. WTF were they thinking? It’s like a bad dwell-inspired remodel of an older home or something.
Outside looks great. Inside, the kitchen cabinets remind me of that run-down house in Noe Valley selling for $715K. The inside just doesn’t have a consistent feel to it. IMHO.
I’m pretty sure the reason for the square footage omission is “property tax avoidance”. The basement looks like it just makes the 7′-6″ celing height requirement, but they never closed the permit so they wouldn’t be assessed at a higher value. This is very common throughout SF regardless of the ceiling height.
I guess it’s up to the buyer to close the permit…
“…but they never closed the permit so they wouldn’t be assessed at a higher value.
If the intent was to keep the new square footage off of the assessors records then why even open a permit in the first place ?
I think they wouldn’t mind having the square footage show up on the record! The point is to not pay taxes on the new value of the house, which I think may be subject to even higher valuation than the cost of construction (per the permit.) I don’t know the particulars since I haven’t undertaken this kind of a remodel on my own property, but I’ve seen this countless times where people have complete A&E drawings done, pull the permits and do everything through final inspection and simply never close the project. I guess a better term for this would be property tax deferral.
If the buyers understood the game, they could simply close the permit and have the square footage updated since the FMV of the property has now been determined by the transaction and they’re paying the appropriate taxes, anyhow. There are a lot of these permits floating around uncompleted, but they’re all bubble-era. I’m not sure if the City is ever going to get around to chasing these down or if it’s quietly understood this will go unenforced because it would kill the market for these remodels.
Oh, and you still want to do things by code because otherwise you could technically be forced to demolish the remodel.
I agree that sound construction practice includes building to code. Code should be followed whether or not permits are pulled. I’ve rarely encountered a code rule that did not make solid sense. And on those rare occasions where code was a little too picky, crafting a well engineered variance seems to solve the issue.
My guess is that the pulled but not closed permits were cases where the last inspection resulted in a long punch list that the developer was not motivated to close out. If the property sells, then what is the motivation to complete the job ?
Kaya –
“Oh, and you still want to do things by code because otherwise you could technically be forced to demolish the remodel.”
I find this difficult to believe. Are you certain this is the law?
“I’ve rarely encountered a code rule that did not make solid sense.”
Like mandating the use of copper piping for plumbing?
kaya, what do you mean by “never closing the project?”
Anyone make said broker tour?
Suckers! You missed your chance! Withdrawn from market.
LOL, back on @ $2.275.
Reduced to $2,175.
in escrow
Sold Price: $2,125,000
Anyone have any insight to the real sqft of this place? Tipster’s estimate would place it at above $1000/sqft. It looks like that permit being discussed above was never closed, so presumably the space is still unwarranted. It seems like they may have made some profit on this one, even with the extra 1+ year hold for not cutting the price quickly enough.