3615 20th Street #6: Kitchen
It was a Valencia Corridor comp at $950,000 in August of 2007 . And while it’s already in contract, although not without contingencies, it’s a plugged-in tipster that notes they were asking $799,000 in 2009 (15.8% less than what was paid).
We’ll let you know when it closes.
∙ Listing: 3615 20th Street #6 (2/2) – $799,000 [MLS]

47 thoughts on “A New Valencia Corridor Comp Coming Soon (3615 20th Street #6)”
  1. Ouch! $200K or more to money heaven. But maybe it doesn’t matter since the current seller is/was a commercial banker for Wachovia who made a $250 donation to Obama. (It’s unbelievable the s#!t you find on Google…I am never donating to a political party again!)

  2. Looks like another example of “double digit cash on cash returns” in SF. Double digit negative, that is.
    Still, it looks like a sensible strategy. The seller recognized that this was going to be a loss, and didn’t monkey around with some initial dreaming price that could have gotten him out whole. In the end, I think it will turn out to have been very wise to cut the losses here by listing at a reasonable price for the current market (18 DOM and already in contract tells us that this was listed at ballpark “market”).

  3. LMRiM,
    I thought you didn’t ‘understand all this talk about historical cash on cash returns in SF real estate’ – or does that only apply when they are positive!
    Hopefully this thread will avoid copious attempts to prove that August 2007 wasn’t the peak, and prices were at least 10% higher before or after this!

  4. It’s not just you, it is still very expensive. The property is 1022 sq ft too. 950K was astronomical for a 2/2 on that block. Nice deck tho.

  5. Spencer, Valencia and 20th is a really great area and I’d live there in a heartbeat. That said, I agree that $800k for an unspectacular 2BR there is ridiculous given prevailing rents in that area. The 2007 $950k sale is simply mind-boggling and a great illustration of the bubble in SF. But if this goes for anything close to the asking, the new buyer will lose more during the next couple of years than the 2007 buyer.

  6. But if this goes for anything close to the asking, the new buyer will lose more during the next couple of years than the 2007 buyer.

    Sez you. It’s also possible the difference is the very shift.
    A quick glance sees about 10 condos in 5-M and 9-C in contract or pending for ~900K – ~1M right now, plus six sold since 1/1/09.

  7. A quick glance sees about 10 condos in 5-M and 9-C in contract or pending for ~900K – ~1M right now, plus six sold since 1/1/09.
    all 2BR’s?

  8. Wow. Anonn, those are comparable 2/2’s selling for 900k and 1M right now? What happened to the Mission I used to live in when I was young and broke?

  9. It’s not just you, it is still very expensive.
    Posted by: anonn at June 8, 2009 9:57 AM
    Sez you. It’s also possible the difference is the very shift.
    A quick glance sees about 10 condos in 5-M and 9-C in contract or pending for ~900K – ~1M right now, plus six sold since 1/1/09.

    Posted by: anonn at June 8, 2009 10:14 AM
    What a difference 17 minutes can make . . . .

  10. Oh yeah huh? I didn’t even realize both those posts were from anonn. So, yeah, is $950k astronomical or is it the norm?

  11. I live in the mission and like it but cannot believe anyone would pay anywhere near 800k for that. Ouch.

  12. It’s astronomical when viewed objectively or the norm when anonn exercises his characteristic knee-jerk baseless response to anything posted by me or a number of others, even if my post was in total agreement with anonn himself 4 minutes earlier! Let’s see what anonn comes up with on these 16 recent Mission condo comps in the $900k – $1M range. He’ll prove one of his two conflicting statements wrong in any event (but one will be proven right!)

  13. Do those two thoughts contradict one another? The activity is a little surprising. I didn’t think there would be that much, tho I have been following one particular development on South Van Ness.
    Most of these are 3brs or more, but there’s at least one 2br in the same range.

  14. Well, if that’s your opinion OK, but most people understand the word “possible” to contain wiggle room. Also understand that I do not believe that the poster I questioned is ever sincere or knows what he’s talking about when it comes to SF r.e. Above he would have us believe that he’s in touch with current prevailing Mission rental rates and intimated that they aren’t very high. Well, yesterday I overheard a young woman saying that she and her flatmates were looking for a 4 br flat, and each would pay up to 1000. Four K, for a Mission flat? Yeah. I thought that was really high myself. And she was talking about how it was a “renter’s market” !
    The 2 brs currently pending in that range are in the Chelsea Park development. The solds are 768 Guerrerro and 43 Cumberland were both 2brs, both larger, but each went for 1.1M in February which was a pretty crummy month.

  15. Well, if that’s your opinion, OK, but most people would see your posts as contradicting each other.
    Regardless, I’m pretty surprised that 2brs @ Valencia are getting 800k let alone 1M. Those prices certainly do make 4k/mo for a 4br look “cheap”.

  16. Just catching up, and we have another signature anonn moment! “I do not believe that the poster I questioned is ever sincere or knows what he’s talking about when it comes to SF r.e.” Even when he makes a statement that echoes what anonn posted just a few minutes earlier! Hee hee, and anonn wonders why he has not an ounce of credibility.
    And if 4BRs are going in the Mission for $4000/mo, surely even anonn can do the math to see how overpriced this 2BR place is in the rent vs. own analysis.

  17. 4 BR’s should be alot cheaper to rent than to buy. I would be surprised if they were not.
    basically if you are buying a 4br it’s for you and your family – people you want to live with and have permanence with.
    but renting a 4br with 3 others (and maybe as many as 6 others), that’s just a temporary, convenient thing to get a bulk discount, sometimes with complete randoms.
    I can definitely see why one would be more expensive than the other, but many seem continually amazed by this phenonemon.

  18. anonn wrote:
    > $950K was astronomical for a 2/2 on that block (in August of 2007).
    Then (a full 17 minutes later) anonn writes:
    > A quick glance sees about 10 condos in 5-M and 9-C in contract or
    > pending for ~900K – ~1M right now, plus six sold since 1/1/09.
    If $950K was high for 2007, but now almost a dozen are in contract at that price I wonder why the owner listed for $799?
    But what do I know anonn doesn’t even think I’ve worked in real estate. I have learned not to argue with someone who “wins every argument” but I’m wondering what the outcome will be when anonn argues with himself?
    Is “$950K an astronomical price” (as anonn wrote at 9:57am) or are “about 10 condos in 5-M and 9-C in contract or > pending for ~900K – ~1M right now” (as anonn wrote at 10:14 am)?
    P.S. I bet anonn’s lady friends will snap up this place since it is $500 below “market”:
    http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/1200373063.html

  19. Wow. In come the snakes.
    The condo is 1022 feet, aptbroker, and right at Valencia. So yes, ~930 a foot is astronomical for that area. I mentioned that the other 2 brs are larger. I also mentioned surprise.
    Joe, he echoed what I said and said something else as well. He said that the new buyer would lose more than the 2007 buyer, didn’t he? And that’s what I objected to, now wasn’t it? How about you have one take that isn’t purely bashing me on here, Joe? But if that’s not possible can I ask that you at least carefully understand what it is that I said, so you can bash it properly?

  20. The solds are 768 Guerrerro and 43 Cumberland were both 2brs, both larger, but each went for 1.1M in February which was a pretty crummy month.
    Of course those are both nicer locations, particularly the Cumberland one. The side of Cumberland on the other side of Church is the real luxury side, but this block is quite nice as well (I used to live on it) — and is really more Dolores Heights than Mission.

  21. REpornaddict,
    I agree to some extent with what you are saying, but should it be a cheaper monthly payment to rent a 4br than to buy a 2br? Is that to be expected?

  22. Probably not to be expected, no. not places of similar location, quality etc anyway.
    They didn’t post any pics on that place for 3.5k above – so can’t really judge looking at that- it could be a dump.
    But I would expect the cost to buy a 2BR to be above that of renting a 2BR – always. Although I would expect the differential to be less than on a 4BR.
    I rent out a 1 BR for 2500 – certainly the differential there is lower again. well, actually, its more expensive for them to rent it than it is for me to own it since my refi.

  23. The 2 brs currently pending in that range are in the Chelsea Park development.
    Keep in mind that the most recent comps at Chelsea Park have closed at significant discounts to their “pending” (list) prices: Two New (But Actually Old) Chelsea Park (3620 19th Street) Comps.
    That being said, we do see two Chelsea Park two-bedrooms in escrow with list prices of $849,000 (1,280 sqft) and $899,000 (1,492 sqft); one Chelsea Park townhouse (2/2.5) in escrow with a list price of $975,000; and two three-bedroom Chelsea Park condos in escrow with list prices of $749,000 and $799,000 (1,305 sqft).

  24. I would be curious to know what, if any, editorial discretion Socketsite uses in deciding which “apple” tips to feature.
    I am the tipster who submitted this apple. I also (unless memory fails) emailed Socketsite a couple of months ago to report on the sale of 79 Valley St., a nice 3/2, architect-designed condo in outer Noe that sold in 10/2006 for $1,109,000 and resold in 4/2009 for $1,090,000 [but was never featured on SocketSite].
    It goes without saying (assuming that 3615 20th doesn’t go way over asking) that these two apples convey quite different lessons about how much the market has fallen since its peak. If the SocketSite applecart is to provide useful information to market participants, it is essential that the site’s editorial policy with respect to apple picking not systematically favor or disfavor “bearish” apples.
    To this end, I would encourage the editors to adopt a transparent policy of posting on *all* submitted apples that meet objectively defined criteria. E.g., prior sale within 3 years; no significant remodeling during the intervening period (this being definitional of an apple); and perhaps certain neighborhood or price-point conditions (to exclude apples unlikely to be of interest to many SS readers).
    [Editor’s Note: A fair question. As much as some would like to believe, we don’t “cherry pick” our apples. It usually comes down to our ability to verify their “apple-ness” (most don’t make the cut). And quite honestly, some just slip through the cracks (think spam filter).]
    [Editor’s Note Redux: A Couple Of Apples We Missed (For One Reason Or Another)]

  25. OK. 930 a foot = incredibly expensive. 781 a foot = still quite expensive for the area. A comment that the new buyer is certain to lose more than the 2007 buyer = not tenable in my opinion in light of the numerous other properties now currently selling for ~700-~800 a foot. Understand, rubberband? Contradictory? Hardly.

  26. >>A comment that the new buyer is certain to lose more than the 2007 buyer = not tenable in my opinion in light of the numerous other properties now currently selling for ~700-~800 a foot.

  27. it is amazing to me the extent to which people can argue about the affordability of real estate on a blog.
    there is a condo on the market on 21st and Valencia that has been sitting around for quite a while – they were asking 675k, i think, originally although not sure what they’re asking now. it’s not as modern and has no view and was a semi-2 bed with 1 bath.
    prices in the mission are ridiculously high for condos, especially considering that you can go to SOMA and get a brand spanking new multi-bedroom condo with parking for the range that these are listed at….

  28. I am going to take a wild guess and say this sells for less than $600K. I just can’t imagine paying anywhere near this for this location, but 550-600/sf seems more reasonable

  29. These things don’t mean much to some of you, but they do to me. This property was last listed at 849K, about 830 a foot, itself aggressive IMO. It must have been quite competitive to go over by 120K. I’m curious to see whether the new sales price falls in line with the former list price as 799 would only be about 6% off that.

  30. “This property was last listed at 849K, about 830 a foot, itself aggressive IMO. It must have been quite competitive to go over by 120K.”
    It very well could have been that they were trying to create a bidding war by listing it low. It’s not as if that technique was not used rather effectively by the sellers and their agents.
    The last list price is as meaningless as the current list price. The only number that matters is the sale price.

  31. But it wasn’t listed low, as I demonstrated, by noting that it was last listed at 830 a foot @ 20th and Valancia.

  32. $830 psf means nothing if the comparables were selling for $900 psf.
    The more important point is that sale price matters and not the list price.

  33. This property was last listed at 849K, about 830 a foot, itself aggressive IMO. It must have been quite competitive to go over by 120K.
    I don’t understand this argument. It would seem to me obvious that the last listing price realy doesn’t mean much, now that we have knowledge of the actual sales price back then. (BTW, I think it went over by $101K, not $120K, if the numbers in the editor’s intro are right.)
    The listing price is arrived at jointly between the listing agent and the seller. When something actually sells for a huge overbid, at least one of two things must be true (it’s possible that both are true, as well):
    1. The agent and seller were aware of the state of the market and deliberately underpriced it in order to generate a bidding war. This is a very sensible strategy when dealing with relaively unsophisticated purchasers who suffer from the information asymmetries inherent in real estate markets.
    2. The seller and the agent were genuinely unaware of the state of the market and the “market price” of the subject property.
    In either case, the listing price thus has little relevance. In the first instance, it’s a deliberately manipulated price arrived at for strategic reasons. In the second, it is simply an incompetent and incomplete reading of the market.

  34. “I don’t understand this argument.”
    It’s just anonn’s latest bit of sophistry to try to convince himself and us that the market isn’t really going down. It’s all just an optical illusion.

  35. Neither of those takes “must” be true, nor are they the only possible scenarios. Whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, many of us repeatedly saw a third scenario play out. It was, the listing agent and the seller were fully aware of the state of the market. They priced at the top of the market accordingly, only to see it still sell for way over asking, greatly surprising everyone in the process. That’s the tempest in a teapot scenario. A dozen offers poured in, but three or four groups simply “had” to have it.
    Who knows if that’s what went down here. That’s how it looks tho. Of the 50 2/2’s sold in calendar 2007 in areas 5-M, 5-K, and 9-C, this was the single most expensive one east of Guerrerro. Its closest rival, 3333 21st street, sold for 945K a month prior. But it was 500 feet larger. Coincidentally the MLS feature chose this property’s dimensions for the median size for the dataset. Yet the median selling price? 744.5K. They were way out in front on pricing and it still went over.

  36. It’s just anonn’s latest bit of sophistry to try to convince himself and us that the market isn’t really going down. It’s all just an optical illusion.
    Read it ^ and weep, snarkboy.

  37. They priced at the top of the market accordingly, only to see it still sell for way over asking, greatly surprising everyone in the process.
    That would fall under my second scenario: “In the second, it is simply an incompetent and incomplete reading of the market.” Surprising? That’s another way of saying that they didn’t know what the market actually was for the property. Again, no need to ascribe much relevance to the listing price in that case.

  38. Yeah. Those are just your words, eschewing median this time. I look forward to seeing you embrace median in a negative scenario sometime very soon. Then again you probably don’t know the area at all so 1022 feet, 20th and Valencia, 830 a foot, 930 a foot — the proper resonance of all these facts is likely lost on you as well.

  39. Oy vey. It’s hard to believe that I have to explain to a realtor that the market is determined by selling prices not asking prices.
    The fact that a couple of years ago realtors would underprice compared to what the property would fetch and now they are overpricing is …
    ir-rel-ev-ant. (which is why I label your arguement sophistry.)
    Selling prices are going down.

  40. I prefaced this all by saying this was meaningless to some of you, but meaningful to me. You’re welcome to take that at face value and not talk to me about it, diemos. And you don’t need to explain anything to me. I know what happened here, and I also know your take on it.
    It wasn’t underpriced in 2007. You too are welcome to make me chuckle with an embrace of median during a scenario of your choosing sometime soon.

  41. All of this bickering over what any particular apple tells us about the state of the market strikes me as largely pointless. Save for some cookie-cutter SOMA condos, SF real estate is tricky to pice, due to the many idiosyncratic features associated with most properties. It’s possible, per anonn, that the 2007 buyer of this property is now suffering from “winner’s curse.” It’s also possible the market is down 15%. To get a good read on the plausibility of each of these scenarios, we need *a large number* of apples. (Such that the idiosyncrasies of any given property and bidding/pricing strategy wash out in the aggregate.)
    The Socketsite editor could do us all a great favor by maintaining a downloadable and (regularly updated) spreadsheet of the apples featured on this site. Editor?

  42. “To get a good read on the plausibility of each of these scenarios, we need *a large number* of apples. (Such that the idiosyncrasies of any given property and bidding/pricing strategy wash out in the aggregate.)”
    Indeed. It’s called Case-Schiller. Unfortunately we don’t have public access to anything finer grained than the SF MSA.

  43. Did anyone else actually walk through on this place? I did, as a possible purchase. I’m interested to see if this closes at a price near the reduced listing price. While the location was good and the roof deck was a nice feature, the kitchen needed an update and the bedrooms and bathrooms showed obvious wear. The listing pictures actually do this property more justice than it deserves. The living area was relatively small and while the roof was deeded it was only accessible through the common stairwell. Comps reveal better value. This combined with a lackadaisical listing agent who didn’t have the place cleaned, or didn’t stop by to pick up the pile of business cards left on the counter screamed “avoid!” to me. I’m guessing the seller was very motivated considering the scoop was he/she was in China during the time of purchase. Listing agent was obviously setting a price to stir up multiple offers. I saw no reason to get into a bidding war in this market over a mediocre overpriced mission condo.

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