While A Bird Tweets, A Shark Sings

He can afford his solvency taxes. Can you? 🙂

No, this can’t be true. One of the richest men in the bay area negotiated the asking price down by more than 15%? Not possible. I heard they pay whatever price the owner asks just because they can.
You can imagine what the mere mortals are doing.
[Editor’s Note: Keep in mind the list price had been reduced a number of times and the property was last listed at $2,495,000 before it sold.]

Plus it was re-remodeled after the purchase

I can’t remember the square footage, but the price per square foot for a well done high end home in Noe sounded fair to me at the time.
I wonder if he will rent out the back cottage to me, that was my favorite part of the property.
[Editor’s Note: The listed square feet was 3,200.]

I am glad it was re-remodeled. For all the talk of how much time was put into the design, there were some functionality issues with the place. I have to say Sparky, I felt the house you built on 25th flowed much better.

“I am glad it was re-remodeled.”
Is that actually true? If that is in fact the case what a waste of time and valuable resources. So much for green housing…

anonn said: “You heard that rich folks pay whatever the owner asks because they can, eh?”
I don’t know, in defense of tipster, maybe it hasn’t been said directly, but various people seem to imply that here:
If you use the income stats of the SF residents (existing owners and renters), yes, the fundamentals are off. However, why haven’t the price dropped? Because the buyers are a different group from the existing residents. There seems to be a new found interest in city living from those Google millionaires, who don’t see a big problem paying 1.5M for a condo or house which would rent for $6000/month. And no, they are NOT paying higher percentage of THEIR income on mortgages than other folks. They just have higher income.
Posted by: John at October 30, 2007 11:03 AM
https://socketsite.com/archives/2007/10/socketsites_san_francisco_listed_housing_inventory_upda_3.html
fluj said gentrification meant that people could afford these properties:
I posted a long post to answer Timkell’s question what has changed in SF in the past 10 years, but it got flagged somehow. It didn’t contain anything offensive?
Anyway, in a nutshell, what hasn’t changed in the last 10 years in SF?
We’ve seen at least four new highrises greenlighted for the first time in decades, high volume desirable real estate in former industrial wastelands anchored by the prettiest ballpark in America, a new north south line to facilitate research facility infrastructure and a world famous medical school extension, tech as American’s top product, Web has come and gone and is back and profitable, Noe Valley has emerged as Pac Heights South (not really, but quite expensive), Bernal Heights has gone from dangerous to desirable, ditto Potrero Hill, Ocean Beach has gained a foothold as a desirable location, etc. etc.
Posted by: fluj at October 30, 2007 2:51 PM
https://socketsite.com/archives/2007/10/socketsites_san_francisco_listed_housing_inventory_upda_3.html
Of course, when all those highrises didn’t quite work out, fluj wanted to exclude them from consideration in favor of SFRs, even though those condos were a reason for why SF is different now:
And again, the MLS is the only database that matters to me, and I have continually shown price remaining static … sometimes a bit higher, sometimes lesser. You guys like to seize on condos. I prefer SFRs as indicator. It’s a bit of a broken record really. Condos are taking a hit. That’s because there are a lot of them.
Posted by: fluj at April 8, 2008 3:30 PM
https://socketsite.com/archives/2008/04/justquotes_national_pending_home_resale_index_hits_seve.html
And then fluj pointed out it was about boomer money making sure that people could afford SF real estate:
My chief criticism of the theory is this. The Bank of Mom and Dad, a k a Baby Boomer Union, has had a whole lot to do with liquidity at every step of your various bubbles imploding and/or being supplanted by other “bubbles.” I just witnessed it firsthand again, selling a ~3M property that is pending. It was almost all Baby Boomer money. (anecdotal, of course. But it’s still happening and it is an unmeasurable liquidity resource.)
Posted by: fluj at April 9, 2008 10:57 AM
https://socketsite.com/archives/2008/04/justquotes_national_pending_home_resale_index_hits_seve.html
Can’t forget the trustafarians:
It is not the “internet”! San Francisco price stability is based on a buyers community which has the largest concentration of people with income sources that are “unearned” in the U.S. As Forbes noted last year, San Francisco is the Trustafarian capitol of America. I am most familiar with the northside of the city, and with single family homeowners, most don’t work at all. Daddy or Grandmother made a fortune in Kansas or Salt Lake City, and they moved here to eat arugula and walk to coffee.
Posted by: jeff2 at January 8, 2009 5:12 PM
https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/01/but_hey_whats_the_bay_area_economy_have_to_do_with_real.html
And don’t forget the tech millionaires:
I wonder if top and bottom will ultimately get hit harder than middle? Middle (think largely gentrified southern parts of town that were not what they are today 10 years ago) has white collar south commuting tech incomes. These folks are able to afford $1 to 2M, arguably, for say Noe, along with perhaps useful 625K superconforming loans and the like for say, the Sunset.
Posted by: fluj at January 8, 2009 5:30 PM
https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/01/but_hey_whats_the_bay_area_economy_have_to_do_with_real.html
It seems like there have been plenty of indirect insinuations that rich folks (whether they’re Google millionaires, trustafarians, kids of boomers, gentrified folks, or white collar tech people) can afford to pay whatever they want for SF real estate, i.e. that the demand in SF is based on these people and that such demand is sufficient to keep prices up. That’s sufficient for tipster’s claim as far as I’m concerned.

ouch, that’s a pretty complete history.

Great! I guess we’re all in agreement:
1. Just because some people still have money doesn’t mean they are idiots. They are going to pay the lowest price they can. If they have money but they know that others are unlikely to pay more than X for a product, they will not likely pay much more than X for that product, even though they clearly can.
2. Just because some companies are still hiring does not mean they are idiots. They are going to pay the lowest wage they can. If they have job openings but they know that others are unlikely to pay more than X for a person, they will not likely pay much more than X for that person, even though they clearly can.
Like if Twitter just got VC funding, but they can hire programmers more cheaply in India, they will unless they can find people locally who will work for a lower total cost (which will be higher than just the salary, but not infinitely so). In fact, the VCs will of course, *demand* that they do. And they will pay local hires less than they did last year.
Anyone hiring right now is paying WAYYYY lower than they were last year. We have all of our new hires in and started, and we are paying about 20% under last year. All our new college hires report that not a *single one* of their close friends is employed, not even part time. So the 20% off salaries we are paying this year were probably too high. Next year, we’ll probably cut more.
All of our new hires are living at home. Last year, all of our new hires rented apartments.
That’s going to ripple through to older applicants. Friends of mine who are unemployed are reporting offers at less than 80% of their former salaries for similar positions. In some cases, the offers are nearly 50%. Couple that with more conservative financing, and that tells me prices will continue to fall for the foreseeable future. Salaries down: funding down ==> lower prices. No way around that.

Hah–I also chimed in on 313 Duncan back in May:
http://insidesfre.com/2009/05/13/who-says-theres-a-recession/
Not surprised this is the house the Twitter founder purchased.

So much for green housing…
Green housing doesn’t work that way.
A good comparison is using up precious materials, energy, and labor to build and deliver a new car for improved efficiency and reliability. How well that works out depends on how much the car is used, how well it serves, and how long it is kept in operation. Keeping cars longer can help, but inefficient operation, increased pollution, and lower suitability including higher risk of injury in collisions adds up over time.
Using sustainable sources when possible reduces the impact of any construction, and buildings that are more efficient save huge amounts of energy over the operational lifetime of the structure. Longer times between remodels and maximum adaptation may seem desirable, but these compete with getting the maximum utility out of the property and not using so much labor that costs get out of hand.

“The ‘mere mortals’ who we are lucky enough to not have their addresses published on the internet?”
I consider myself to be a mere mortal and my address is published on the internet, along with how much I paid for my condo. Most mere mortals in SF have their home purchasing information published on the internet. Seems you are advocating that rich people should be excluded or that we just not talk about them. Public records are a b*tch.

“WhatFlujSaid”‘s link posted above really is a SS classic. It makes for a good laugh of nostalgic reading with familiar names, some of which have not been seen for a while. It contains many SS favorites including the familiar “world class” battles, Chicago envy posts, and numerous attempts by some to claim San Francisco is “immune” because of its various unique qualities. The justifications that are presented are desperate and hysterical.
https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/01/but_hey_whats_the_bay_area_economy_have_to_do_with_real.html

So there aren’t people out there with “unmeasurable liquid resource” who pay $2.4M for Noe houses and then re-remodel them while building their even bigger place? Or, was that already happpening in Noe pre-2004? I don’t think there was even a Google Lazy Indicator pre-bubble.

You are right nostalgic, that post is nice. Turns out fluj was pretty much right on every point, don’t you agree?
Where is the 50% drop in prices you keep predicting? Prices in my neighborhood have actually started to go back up. When are we going back to 1997 prices? Wasn’t it supposed to be by 2011? Are we going to see a 50% drop in home prices next year?

Nice scoop. I looked at a bunch of PropertyShark records for $2M+ SFH in Noe and eventually gave up. I had not gone far enough back.
Hi, this is Calin from PropertyShark
You can always use for these type of searches our Advanced Criteria (Seller & Buyer) in the Comparables tool (which is free in San Francisco).
In this particular case, a comparable search by buyer’s name Williams Evan, would do the trick. For better results, always enter last name before first name when you search by buyer or seller.
[Editor’s Note: Thanks for the tip. And as always, thank you for plugging in.]

“Where on the previous thread linked above did ANYONE predict 50% price drops NoeValleyJim?”
No one on the last thread but there’s a group of vocal bears who have predicted these size drops from peak over the years.
Including me.
“Case-schiller below 110 and 50% off peak prices by 2011.” was a prediction that I made a couple of years ago.

my recent experience is just the opposite. The BofM&D is open. Although, this was not on the peninsula.

“Was your NAME + ADDRESS published on a blog full of half-informed haters?”
No, but I also do not go around giving interviews and promoting myself and my latest venture. You can not have it both ways, putting yourself in the public eye, then being concerned that people might look up your public information.
Public information is public information. Famous people’s public information will be discussed publicly. Whinning that famous people’s public information shouldn’t be talked about publicly is silly.

It seems that none of you has much experience with either market research or the working definition of a public figure.
First — extrapolating your class of new hires or the rich mommies at a baby shower to the market at large is not a particularly stable methodology. They are both extremely small samples, highly suspect ones at that, and prone toward reporting bias.
Second — being an executive does not automatically qualify you as a “public figure”, which is a person that actively seeks public office and/or fame. Your rights as a citizen and your rights to privacy are preserved until it appears reasonably certain that you are, again, seeking either public office or “fame”. Twitter is a private company, albeit one that seeks promotion.
Third — Whatever the specific rules defining a public figure (“reasonable judgment” comes into play), it is in bad taste to publish the name and address of someone here on this site. Having worked with a couple of known billionaires, you cannot imagine either the level of zeal nor the sheer numbers of creepy people seeking your money. The usual approach is a sob story followed by an appeal for “just” $1 million, since “that amount can’t possibly matter to you.”
So — while these facts are public and therefore can be found, it would be good and right for SS not add fuel to a fire.
This property should be discussed based on its relative merits, not the personal details of the owner.

amused — That’s not really the definition of a “public figure.” You are right that typically a “general” public figure is someone who is deeply involved in public affairs, but that involvement need not be voluntary.
The other way to be a public figure is to be a “limited” public figure — i.e. a public figure within a particular area because that person has put themselves into the middle of a controversy.
What sometimes separates a public figure (both limited and general) from someone who is not is the distinct ability to counter any information said about that person in the media.
I don’t know where a judge would come out on all of this, but we already know that the buyer in question here tweets about his house being for sale, and that gets recognized by a sufficiently large media org:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/twitter-co-founder-evan-w_n_307596.html

what happened with the place he wrote about in the nytimes?
“We’re building a modern house that we hope will be done by 2010.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/jobs/08bosses.html

Do you have to pay a fee for the advanced criteria on Property Shark?

Anyone who tries to hawk their house (as Williams did) in the Chronicle should expect their next residence to be public knowledge.
Why whine for other people?

Regardless of whether Evan Williams is a public figure, his children deserve to live in a safe environment. Ask any personal security expert and they will tell you a prominent person is typically most vulnerable at home, and most vulnerable through other family members living in the home. There are many documented cases of such home invasions, some which ended well and some that did not.

Right…
now even less sophisticated stalkers who aren’t particularily adept at researching public records can simply type “evan williams” ‘noe valley’ and ‘address’ into their google search engine and guess which web page is the first to come up…

Auden,
You are right. Google should be ashamed of itself.

While this SS post may the origination point that led to William’s address being commonly known and spread throughout media outlets, thereby allowing all sorts of people to figure out his home address with ease— I’m not actually defending Williams.
I don’t think he cares about the safety issues associated with making your address widespread knowledge. He tweeted about his apartment for sale, stated in an interview that he was moving to Noe Valley, and then purchased the house under his and his spouse’s name instead of an LLC. If anything, he doesn’t mind the publicity, and possibly wanted it. I don’t know the answer though, I never asked him.
Joshua did make a good point though that William’s may want to consider in the future.