As the exterior of 1919 Vallejo looked in 2006 when purchased for $2,960,000 above, as it looks today below. Can you spot the difference?
And while the interior had been remodeled prior to its last sale, it’s obviously not an apples to apples sale to be with a new garage and asking price of $3,725,000 in 2010.
∙ Listing: 1919 Vallejo (5/4.5) – $3,725,000 [MLS] [Map]
I wish I could make my backyard neighbors disappear like that!
And a garage is nice too…
What’s with the dead zebra left on the staircase?
another two public on-street parking spaces gone and privatized. this shouldn’t be allowed.
Garage and a paint job: $800k?
Shza – Do you really think a garage would cost that much ? When I queried various listing agents about creating an excavated garage, their estimates were in the $50-75K range. And this job doesn’t seem to require much excavation.
I surprised myself by actually liking the dead zebra.
Maybe it’s real zebra, and that explains the $800K?
du-oh ! never mind my question about the $800k garage. I now understand what Shza is saying. $800k == cost of garage + cost of paint + potential profit
@milkshake: not a chance in you know where that a garage like this could only cost $50-75k.
This is exactly why you don’t ask listing agents the cost of construction for anything! They don’t have the knowledge to give you correct numbers. They will ALWAYS lowball the number to get someone interested. Sorry for my rant, but everyone knows how I feel about this issue. Listing agents (realtors) should stop misleading the public when they don’t have the knowledge to back up the numbers. Stick to selling.
I have designed several garages similar to this. Each one is unique, but they have ranged in actual cost from $100k to $250k..It depends on the structural challenges, the amount of excavation, difficulty of site work, materials, etc.
“various listing agents about creating an excavated garage, their estimates were in the $50-75K range. ”
That sounds super lowball, especially in SF.
Btw, it looks from this picture like it’s customary to give your neighbor an easement of some sort to extend their stairs into your yard? Maybe that’s how you appease the neighbors when building a new garage?
Hmmm – It’s their property, they should be allowed to do what they want with it. If that means adding a garage, so be it.
@fischchum, if you look to the right neighbor theor stairs clearly come into the 1919 property line.
The deletion of the building in the background is way out of line. Retouched images like this should be footnoted. The overexposed garden pic in the listing is a little too much also. If only they could photoshop out the buiildings to the north and throw some views there too.
http://www.mapjack.com/?fuCnWha2bFKA
The good news is the 2 car garage really yields closer to 4 spaces since they can park in front of their curb cut.
@fishcum:
(1) actually, no, it’s not their public right-of-way. They don’t own the sidewalk and they don’t own the street, so no, it’s not theirs to do what they want. The people, in the form of city govenerment, own the right-of-way and have to grant permission to drive across the sidewalk, change the curb, and eliminate public parking. They don’t have to grant that permission.
(2) I know you really don’t believe that hyper-libertarian claptrap “people should be allowed to do what they want with their own property.” By that logic, they should be allowed to tear the house down and build an aluminim smelter, operate a rock quarry, open a slaughterhouse, or run an all-night nightclub on their property on that residential block. No? That’s what I thought. Drop the stupid quips.
Oh, you mean like the bedroom shot in the 418 Liberty listing?
That one bugs me.
I’m fine with burning in washed out scenery, as long as it’s actually the scenery. That one is just rude.
Also, I thought DPT decided to ticket driveway parkers regardless of “right” to park there.
I think these folks are still in peak mindset, new garage or not. The similar neighboring houses sold for a good bit less not too long before, I’m assuming with garages already there, though maybe not. They paid high premium near the peak, and want it all back regardless of the large drop in the market. Good luck with that, guys.
sfrenegade, it looks like the neighbors’ steps already impeded on the property line, so it wouldn’t be a new easement in exchange for anything (though I recognize that was tongue in cheek). The neighbors probably prefer the garage to having random people parking near their homes anyway, for better or worse.
They offered to pay the city a premium to get the curb cut, and after a review the city took it. Maybe some of that money is going toward fixing Dolores Park. Maybe this takes two cars off the street. It isn’t so black and white as all that.
I don’t think they photoshopped the new pic. It’s just taken from a point closer to the building, so the apartment building behind it is hidden by the building. You can see a bit of it on either side of the top floor ceiling height.
And the “dead zebra left on the staircase” is hardly a laughing matter. That is, sadly, all that remains of Bilbo, last surviving specimen of the now extinct zebra articulata.
“The deletion of the building in the background is way out of line. Retouched images like this should be footnoted.”
It is not entirely clear that the looming buildings to the rear were edited out of the photo. The “before” mapjack photo was taken from approximately the center of the street. The “after” photo looks as if it was shot from the sidewalk in front of the house and then perspective corrected to compensate for the keystone distortion.
By shooting closer to the house, the skyline of the looming rear neighbors falls lower in the frame, possibly eclipsed entirely by the roof line of this house.
If my theory is right then though this is tricky, it is really not cheating if it were possible to stand on the sidewalk and not see the looming rear buildings. If you’re right then this is definitely cheating. I guess the only way to verify is to go to the location and take a look.
Hmmm – well, I’m assuming the city has granted them permission for the curb cut and right of way as that’s what they’ve done. Heck, as anonn pointed out, they probably had to pay the city for it and now there are two less cars on that street that’ll compete for a street parking spot.
As far as your second comment, I wouldn’t be in favor of any of those things. Yes, I do believe people have a right to do what they want with their property as long as they don’t negatively impact their neighbors private property.
But that wasn’t the intent of your comment. You lamented the loss of two street parking spots, as if you’re somehow entitled to street parking on every inch of sidewalk in SF. You’re not.
As far as stupid quips goes, you’re in no position to talk with your little “joke” about my screen name.
Of course the owners had to pay a “premium” to secure the curb cut. That’s called a Building Permit. The Planning and Building codes are clearly defined as to curb cut dimensions and other criteria.
The codes are also in place so that a property owner cannot just do “whatever they want”. They can, of course apply for a permit to do an addition or garage or full remodel. Those are all allowed when they meet the ALL elements of the building and planning codes.
You do NOT own the sidewalk in front of your property. The City does, but the Owner is legally liable to maintain and repair the sidewalk when necessary. You also are not allowed (legally) park on the sidewalk, even if it is directly in front of your new garage.
The rear buildings were not photoshopped out. The new photo was clearly taken from a closer vantage point. Look at the angles of the neighbors roof line and the lines on the side of the house — the lines converging more in the newer pic indicate that it was taken from a closer distance (this has to do with the relative distance from front of building to rear of buiding, relative to where the camera is).
I do not know whether the price increase is reasonable or not, but don’t you gaugue the value added by the garage not by what it cost to build it but rather by the value of the fact that the property now has parking as oppossed to no parking before?
In addition, the first pic looks like it was taken from higher up. In the first pic, the camera looks like it was level with the first landing at the bottom of the top set of steps; in the newer pic, the camera looks like it was level with the 8th or 9th step (from the sidewalk).
“You do NOT own the sidewalk in front of your property. The City does…”
I think technically property lines go to the curb, but the city has a public easement for the sidewalk. And yes, you’re required to maintain the sidewalk.
It gets stranger out in the country where property lines often go to the center line of the roadway though fortunately owners are not required to maintain the road. That would be a mess.
From my research that is not correct information.
I checked the codes and called the Planning Dept. Property lines are well established and typically at the front edge of a buildings face, or a garage walls face. You can look down the block on most streets and see the clearly defined property line. In some cases, a property line can be in FRONT of a building face (at the sidewalk), but not typical.
There is no public easement for a sidewalk period. The sidewalk is public property. In the house above, the new garage would be defined as in the “front yard setback” of the property. The planning code defines what is allowable in the front yard setback.
As for the “added value” of a garage, typically that is worth more than the actual construction cost of the garage itself. That’s where market conditions and different neighborhoods define the added value to real estate of that new garage space.
@noearch.
Not correct. Property lines do not, almost ever, go to the curb in SF. For 99.99% of all properties in the city, the property line is the back of the sidewalk. Sidewalks are part of the public ROW, and has no legal distinction from the roadway — it’s all public property for which the public has a right to pass. The only distinction is that the abutting property owner has the requirement to maintain the sidewalk in front of their property unless that responsibility has been explicitly taken on by the City.
There is the horribly misguided mis-assumption by many (car driving) residents or property owners that the sidewalk is somehow their “driveway” and therefore they have the right to park on it. The public grants the revocable right to drive over a public sidewalk, and never grants the right to park on it.
@intheknow –
Learn how to read. noearch never said that property lines go to the curb.
Multiple uses are the trend to watch. For this property a good mix might be a quarry on the bottom level, a slaughterhouse above that, then open up the roof with some decking and make the top floors a nightclub. Call it the Thump and Grind or some such catchy name so that the four million or so invested starts generating cash flow right away. Ka-ching!
A house on Vallejo foreclosed recently.
The garage that likely cost at least a couple hundred thousand dollars and lots of pain and agony.
I think this thread shows why a garage is worth 800k. I thought, actually the city had put some type of moratorium on garage additions, but I’m seeing a lot of them being put in in Pac Heights… Ok, not a LOT, but a surprising amount given the complexity of doing so.
Anyway, this is a very pretty, well maintained block. Vallejo is kind of an odd street; each block offers something new, unexpected, or totally unwanted – especially east of Fillmore. The art-deco high rises on the north side are well maintained and give the area a sort of faux Manhattan feel; plus Laguna is the least steep street in the area to walk down to Union, which is a bonus. My thoughts are this is a decent price for a very nice home. I would’ve put it at 3.5 though…
Now for a pointless anecdote – when I first moved to SF back in 99ish, one of these victorians was for sale for 2 something and I was astonished at the high prices. It’s amazing how inured one can become to the outrageous. See also this thread on adding a garage….
Take it from a person withe current, personal experience: an SF garage addition can easily run to hundreds of thousands of dollars when you need to replace the brick foundations and/or the soft story needs a moment frame, which then of course triggers a substantial remodel to fit 11″ i-beam ‘inside’ a 5″ wall.
It would be nice to think that agents (especially your own!) have a clue and share their vast experience of The City so you’d at least a sense that the $25k “quote” could easily run 10x, even 20x. A lesson learned.
“It’s amazing how inured one can become to the outrageous.”
The thought that keeps running through my mind is, “How do the people in flyover country manage to build an entire house for $100K?”
It’s funny– the houses are beautiful, but walking down the street is practically unpleasant. You never see them: it’s just garage–small staircase–garage–small staircase. I’m always disappointed when I see another garage being put in.
It’s funny– the houses are beautiful, but walking down the street is practically unpleasant.
Just keep your eyes on the other side of the street.
@apropos: thank you. obviously intheknow never read anything I said in my previous posts..I hope intheknow reads this at least.
@Katy Dinner: thank you for your comment, and yes a garage like this can cost several hundred 1000 or more..which is exactly what I said earlier.
@df: thank you also for your experience and real costs in a garage like this..they easily match what I said..and thank you for your opinion that real estate agents REALLY should get a clue and spend some time learning about construction costs, if they also choose to give out that advice to clients. I have been saying that all along for well over a year here on SS..and most agents simply think I am “bashing” the industry. I am not. There are good agents who know the realistic numbers for remodeling. Some get their advice from me. A lot of others simply must spend more time educating themselves before giving out false and misleading information. Thank you.
The flood gates are starting to open on D7 homes… The move-in homes seem to be selling while the fixers are sitting… and sitting. I give this home a good chance of a fast sale provide there’s nothing really wrong with the house not visible from the photos.
Also, this is a really nice block to walk down – the north side, especially, though normally I cut down Laguna to go to Starbucks – don’t judge me!
If you want to talk unpleasant, take a look at all the former SFRs in the hood that were chopped up into units and, thanks to prop 13, rent control, and cheap landlords are almost all in a state of disrepair.
There are many that have been unchopped too, back to SFR, including 1976 California, with a magnificent Victorian interior, and 1823 Jackson, which is being garaged.
Then there are the former institutional uses returned to SFR, including 1772 Vallejo (has this sold?) which was a “transpersonal” psychology institute, and the three former California Historical Society houses.
That’ so cool; they added a garage to keep all their bikes in!
The sale of 1919 Vallejo closed escrow yesterday with a reported contract price of $3,500,000 (6% under asking).