While hinting at what might lie below, the street view of 50 Saint Germain is but the tip of the 5,400 square foot Clarendon Heights contemporatry view-tastic iceberg.
Five bedrooms, four and one-half baths, a 1600 bottle wine cellar “with biomatric (sic) lock & dumbwaiter,” and bamboo inside (the house, not the cellar). Booyah.
∙ Listing: 50 Saint Germain (5/4.5) – $4,980,000 [50saintgermain.com] [MLS]
I’m going to buy a lottery ticket tonight.
Maybe even a bunch of ’em.
And hope that Fortuna will smile upon me and provide me the resources to purchase this place and live happily ever after.
Interesting photos. Cut the price in half, and I might take a look.
this is an impressive space and an incredible view.
I like this one much more than the one on palo alto but they’re not in the same price point so hard to compare them.
I can never discuss SF pricing rationally, so I have no idea if this place is “worth” $5M or not.
4.750
Some more detailed thoughts on this house:
Pros:
* Relatively new construction.
* Attractive styling if you’re seeking a mid-century/Dwell aesthetic.
* Fantastic views that on clear days will take your breath away. Imagine watching the sunset, the Blue Angels, etc.
Cons:
* Windy.
* You must drive everywhere — the Castro is the most convenient ‘hood. Some, though not many $5MM buyers want that.
* 37 St. Germain is a much grander house, and has been on and off the market since the mid-90’s. It could probably be purchased in the same price ballpark.
* Check the geology up there.
And a random piece of truly trivial trivia. Way back in the day this house was owned by two UC Berkeley professors. The second floor was an open communal area often sublet by various graduate students for a group-living arrangement. I can imagine some good stories about the happenings there…was probably a lot of fun!
Perfect specimen. Bravo!
With all that wood floor, I could develop an aerobic dust-mop routine and kiss the gym goodbye!
I don’t love it. Given that price, I would expect higher-end finishes. For example, what’s with the really hideous, and cheap-looking, bathroom tiles?
Beautiful, modern house, inside and out; not sure I would call it “relatively new construction”, though. It was built in 1972: 37 years ago.
I used to live around this place, and always liked it. The “most convenient” hood to this house is Cole Valley, not Castro. Is there any precedent for homes going in this price range up in Clarendon Heights? I have seen a few go up and not close, but wondering if anything has closed in the $5MM range up there in the past 3-4 years.
Alrighty then,
* 50 St. G was redone in the past 5 years, to the studs, addition, foundation work, etc.
* Cole Valley would be a more convenient ‘hood…if you had reserved parking.
* A few folks have tried to pierce $5MM: https://socketsite.com/archives/2006/05/weve_added_fant.html
http://www.37saintgermain.com/
* If the style works for you, 37 St. G offers much more house. It might be over the top for some, though it works better in person than the photos. If it was located in D7, it’d be listed at $20MM or some similarly stupendous number.
happy friday.
I love it and love that it would adjust our cat per square foot number nicely.
Pricing aside, this one’s more my style than 37 St. G. I really don’t think there would be any overlap between the groups looking at either one of them, which means this one’s overpriced. That’s my jackass opinion, anyway.
And man, if anybody will agree that real estate photo site/galleries are as twitchy, clumsy and slow as they appear to me, I’m gonna build a better mousetrap.
I like the Palo Alto house better.
No garden ? Looking on google earth shows some green around the house, but no photos of any decent garden. Hint anyone ?
^^^
Do you not see the bamboo stand opposite the stairwell in the photo above?
The bad thing with bamboos is that they spread underground seeking for humidity…
The list price for 50 Saint Germain has just been reduced $330,000 (7%), now asking $4,650,000.
After a brief respite “Off The Market,” the listing for 50 Saint Germain is once again active and its list price has been reduced another $162,500 (3%) to $4,487,500.
The bad thing with bamboos is that they spread underground seeking for humidity…
That’s why I have my bamboo off-ground, in planters. You should have them contained wherever you do not have unlimited space between your garden and any type of built structure. These babies will crawl everywhere they can sustain and grow a new shoot! I hope this bamboo is contained in some type of reinforced box.
The sale of 50 Saint Germain closed escrow today with a reported contract price of $4,200,000 ($778 per square foot).
Wow, the ever optimistic Tipster guessed 4.75. Of course that was several months ago….
We seem to be in the “chasing the market down” phase…which always happens in the fall anyway but threatens (promises) to be much more significant this year…
Actually the whole “Clarendon Heights, 3.5M and higher is routine” thing is very new. Almost all of these pricepoints are speculative and without much precedent. There are only four ever, one in mid ’07, two in ’08, and one this year. “Chasing the market down” ? Hardly. More like the exact opposite of that.
“Chasing the market down” ? Hardly. More like the exact opposite of that.
Remember that you said that next time you think someone else on SocketSite is exaggerating.
How many houses sold in Clarendon Heights since mid’07?
Twenty-eight, and of them there are 11 2M+ sales, six of them are post 9/08’s market shift, and three of them are this year. There is not one 2M+ sale in the area before May of 2007. As I said, this is a recent phenomenon. Any talk of “chasing the market down” is not apt.
I see your point, Fluj, I guess what I was saying is that there has been ALOT of speculative pricing in Clarendon Heights this year, very little has sold, and the offer prices keep coming down (as do other things at that price point like the Firehouse in Noe Valley, or that new construction house on Ford). I just think this Pacific Heights kindof pricing for these places is crazy, and we will see where it all settles out.
Those are all pretty similar, I agree. You can probably go back across time and find three or four similarly ceiling pushimg properties that have had to reduce prices in most markets. The difference nowadays with these is their locations. They’re all in areas without much 4M and higher precedent. Side note: once again one bear picks up another’s train of thought as if they are one and the same. It’s sort of odd, as if I’m talking to the Borg always. Or should I say “the Bearg.”
It seems like 4 out of 28 in 3 years is probably not “without precedent.” I think you’re trying to push an agenda here while trying to pretend you’re not pushing an agenda by arguing that these properties are outliers. Too many of your arguments are basically “the buyer overpaid.”
“It seems like 4 out of 28 in 3 years is probably not “without precedent.”
You’ve tied two different thoughts together there disingenuously. Ford, the Firehouse, 100 Palo Alto trying to repeat its own outlier luck — that’s one thing. The Clarendon 2M and on post May 2007 performance, that’s another.
Overpayment is irrelevant.
Outliers are irrelevant.
Precedent is irrelevant.
Your equity will be assimilated.
ha ha! Do you mind if I adopt that last line as my handle? Sounds like something a real estate professional will say to you when trying to sell you a place.
“Too many of your arguments are basically “the buyer overpaid.””
That argument wasn’t even in this.