As a plugged-in reader points out, 135 Fernwood Drive is back on the market and asking $2,985,000. Purchased for $3,000,000 in December of 2005, its 6,000 square feet were completely renovated, restored and returned to the market in 2007 asking $4,285,000.
Last listed at $3,095,000 before being withdrawn in April.
∙ Listing: 135 Fernwood Drive (7/4.5) – $2,985,000 [MLS] [Plans (pdf)]
∙ The Full Plan Monty (135 Fernwood Drive) [SocketSite]
Nothing like a free 6000 square foot renovation to add a little sweetener to the deal.
All that hard work and money and time. Such a shame!
Gregg Lynn should be pleased to see the original thread resurrected.
As much as it is sad to see the developer lose so large here, I hope that this declining market allows ordinary people to buy cosmetic fixers again. During the boom, every fixer got bid up to its projected flip basis price with the expectation that the remod would pay off double.
Not every buyer needs a completely updated fully granite and stainless equipped home. Some are happy to start with a fixer and incrementally improve over the years.
I hope that situations like this will leave a bad taste in the mouth of flippers and eventually increase affordability in SF.
Amen, Milkshake.
Some of these homes do fulfill a real market: the 10-50M net worth family with exec jobs in Tech, Finance or Pharma. The question is whether there are enough people in this wealth segment in SF to absorb them. 2 years ago, it seemed there were. With everyone’s portfolio gone into a nosedive until March 09, added to the fact that IPOs and leveraged M&As are down to a trickle, I am not so sure.
Doesn’t it bother other people when they see a listing and there are so many words abbreviated? This isn’t a text message, the realtor should be a professional. It also seems strange that the listing would emphasize VIEW and then not have a photo of the view, even though there are 25 photos.
Interestingly, the listing trail of tears is still all up on the web.
First listing with Barbegelata, started at $4.285M, withdrawn after failing at $3.9M:
http://www.residentphotography.com/135fernwood/index.html
Second listing with Vanguard, started at $3.45M, withdrawn after failing to sell as an advertised “short sale” (for only a day or two) at last ask of $3.095M:
http://www.135fernwood.com/
The third listing looks to be Coldwell Banker, and the link is in the intro.
Total investment disaster of course – who couldn’t have predicted that? More was done on the reno than cosmetics (some foundation/new patio, landscaping, new electrical systems, new rooms on the lower level, some new square footage below, etc.). I’d be interested to hear from those with experience in the area what the estimated cost would be (plans and scope of work are linked in that first listing link and in the editor’s intro). The work went on for more than 6 months and looked pretty extensive to my untrained eye (I lived a block or two away).
Let’s not forget the marketing and other staging costs of all these failed sales attempts. If I’m not mistaken, the broker usually nears the risk if no sale on these things, correct? Anyone have an estimate of what these are for a place like this one?
I can’t speak for every private school, but if donations to the annual fund are any indication, high net worth families are being hit. There is usually 100% participation at the private school our kids attend, but this year we are far from it. Yes, there are a lot of wealthy families/individuals in San Francisco, but if you don’t think they haven’t been affected by the economic downturn you must be dreaming.
No eddy, the seller pays the staging costs.
Am I hallucinating? Socketsite is actually featuring a decent looking building. Shocking. Why can’t we build ’em like we use to.
San FranPonziScheme: The 10m-50m families are more likely to settle on the Northern side of the city where all the amenities that they need and can afford are located.
I think this was just a bad call on the flipper’s part. $4+ million dollar homes are the big fat elephant on this side of the city.
With that said, I really don’t think there are that many families in your labeled net worth range, even two years ago. I think there was some fancy financing going down back then–homes bought against portfolios (lower than 10m) and, more…
Outside of Google, the tech industry has not brought in many high flyers in recent years.
And, Finance…I am not sure what was being made here (I have friends who work in NYC, though–and, they were rolling in big cash). My sense was that SF finance people were making money but nothing like the dot.commers in the boom times.
And, Pharm? Haven’t met any here, yet…
If I were the advisor, I would just advise then to rent the place out until the market comes back so they can “profit”. I estimate that they’d only need to get $23,862.04 per month to meet their carry costs, which shouldn’t be too hard 😉
One more “amen” to Milkshake’s comment.
Whenever I see an overdone place like this I think about the cost of having to take a bunch of “upgrades” out – the more “done” it is, the more any future buyers would probably find it too dated in a few years anyway.
pumpkin patch,
We agree on that. That was the point of my post: the 10-50M was the target segment but where are these buyers now? I agree also they can find today what they’re looking for in a better area, but maybe the expectation was that prices in PH would have gotten out of reach by then.
Bank, Pharma: Genentech, Wells, Schwab, Barclays, and so on… Sure it is not NY, but we had our share of big earners to pull the 1M+ home up.
Tipster: Seller doesn’t always pay staging costs; it is a negotiated item and I’ve seen Realtors ™ offer the service. I know one agent who does so routinely, but she has told me that she will only do so if the seller is realistic on pricing. Granted, it is USUALLY a cost born by the seller, but I think it’s a great “value added” role for agents to take on.
This place was contingent for a while, but according to redfin it is active again, and has been cut to $2.395M:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/135-Fernwood-Dr-94127/home/695136
Purchased for $3M in 2005, and then fully renovated (6000 square feet) – what a slaughter! Nothing sweeter than the aroma of roasted flipper imo.
(PS – I pegged this one at intrinsic value of $2M, so we are getting pretty close, much faster than I ever would have guessed. It’ll sell quickly imo here – should go for over asking.)
Wow,
I predicted about $2.7M back in January based on the hood, the remodel, etc and thought that somebody wouldn’t be able to resist.
Looks like the unwind still has a way to play out…