On one side of the street and pictured above, 119 Corona which is listed as a two-bedroom, one-bath home of 1,355 square feet with two car garage. Asking $868,000.
On the other side of the street and pictured below, 136 Corona which is listed as a three-bedroom, three-bath single-family home of 2,250 square feet with garage that appears to have been reclaimed. Asking $895,000 having been purchased for $1,010,000 in 2004*.
UPDATE: While the conversion of 136 Corona’s garage and basement into a master bedroom and family room was completed in 1990, a plugged-in reader correctly takes us to task for missing the fact that its kitchen and bathroom remodelings were done after the purchase in 2004. Sorry, comps and competiton but no apples (and double oh my!) here.
∙ Listing: 119 Corona (2/1) 1,355 sqft – $868,000 [MLS]
∙ Listing: 136 Corona (3/3) 2,250 sqft – $895,000 [MLS]
I’d be very surprised if the 2nd home wasn’t priced artificially low to generate a lot of activity with the hope of securing a higher than asking offer price.
I get that the two seem comparable (and I get The Wizard of Oz reference, as well), but the 136 Corona St place isn’t really an apple, is it?
If the information at propertyshark.com is correct, the current owners filed for permits in Feb 2005 for the remodel, so the (negative) return on investment calculation would have to also take into account the cost of the remodel, since if the home sells at asking, that cost won’t be recovered.
I agree with ‘94114”s comment that perhaps the listing agent and the current owners are trying to ignite a bidding war; however even it it happens, I don’t see how they’re going to get all their purchase money back and cover the construction costs for the remodel.
[Editor’s Note: Great catch, since updated, and as always, thank you for plugging in.]
The second one definitely priced lower to generete multiple offers!
The house may sell in the end between $970 – $1M.
This liting agent always does that with his listings to create competition. A little bit risky though….what if he gets 1 offer only at asking??
though….what if he gets 1 offer only at asking??
he just declines the offer?
or are the sellers mandated to accept?
it’ll be interesting to see final sales prices on these two homes. clearly one is far better than the other.
This is a nice area and detached homes with a little space are sadly rare in SF. How different SF would have been for the better if this had been the norm and not the exception for residential development.
I expect these will both sell for slightly more than asking – mid 900s or maybe a bit more.
My only quip – the skies are never that blue in SF. In the northwest yes, not here. Enough with the photo-manips already!
“My only quip – the skies are never that blue in SF. In the northwest yes, not here.”
Seriously, Gil? You’ve taken the Seattle/Portland-love overboard. Seattle and Portland are extremely cloudy cities. Photoshopped or not and regardless of the exact shade (if that’s what you’re referring to), even in the fog zones, you will see blue skies much more in SF on average.
Are you suggesting that the shade is different because of dust or humidity?
Look out your window right now.
They look blue to me.
“How different SF would have been for the better if this had been the norm and not the exception for residential development.”
yeah, it be great if SF were just like every other crappy sprawlburg in the country!
isn’t this daly city?
If it is not officially daly city, it might as well be
“How different SF would have been for the better if this had been the norm and not the exception for residential development.”
They already have that – it’s called Vallejo. San Francisco is a CITY. I struggle to understand people who willfully live in urban environments yet pine for Smallville.
As I look out my office window, Seattle is partly cloudy with blue skies. Gil needs to spend some time up here from Nov-June, then he’ll have a much better appreciation and understanding of what consitutes blue skies.
“Seriously, Gil? You’ve taken the Seattle/Portland-love overboard. Seattle and Portland are extremely cloudy cities. Photoshopped or not and regardless of the exact shade (if that’s what you’re referring to), even in the fog zones, you will see blue skies much more in SF on average.”
Quite serious sfrenegade. The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle – to quote the old but accurate folk favorite. It’s quite true.
The blue skies we get in the Bay Area have nothing on the blue skies you get in the Northwest.
“As I look out my office window, Seattle is partly cloudy with blue skies. Gil needs to spend some time up here from Nov-June, then he’ll have a much better appreciation and understanding of what consitutes blue skies.”
Some of the best times I’ve spent have been during November – June in the Northwest.
If the bottom photo has spliced in skies then it was an excellent job because you can see partly cloudy skies reflected in the upper right windows too.
I doubt that the sky is fake though it does look as if someone pumped the saturation to make the blue look deeper.
The second one has that horrible white tape on the windows which is intended to imitate separate panes in wood framing. Gawd I hate hate hate white tape on the windows. Arggh. At least a 250K ding for white tape on the windows.
“yeah, it be great if SF were just like every other crappy sprawlburg in the country!”
Who said anything about sprawlburgs?
BTW, if you want to see crappy cookie cutter neighborhoods that are SF’s version of sprawl you have the best of the best in the Sunset, Sunnyside, the Ingleside and many areas around Mission.
Don’t discount the need for green. Even in cities. That is human nature and to live in a sterile Sunset like neighborhood may not be good for your psyche. Why are many cities, unlike SF, so depeerate to green themselves? What do they know that we don’t? And I am talking urban to the core centers – Chicago is at the forefront of the green city movement.
SF’s Westwood Park is a perfect example of what should have been – what actually could have been.
Conceived of in 1910 – 1920 before there was such a thing as sprawlburgs – the concept didn’t even exist then.
So what was the idea of Westwood Park – and the Corona homes are not too far from Westwood?
Noted architect Louis Mullgardt was involved in creating a district of Arts & Crafts style homes. A new vision for SF and a break from the Edwardian and Victorian themes that dominated large parts of SF. Instead an interesting mix of affordable styles were created – Mission, Craftsman, Prarie, Colonial, Spanish Revival and English Cottage. Off-street parking and a little room between houses.
It was a vision for a model urban home community for the family of average means. Way ahead of its time.
It is beautiful to this day – preserved intact mostly.
If you leave Westwood and cross Ocean to Ingelside your visual senses are shocked. The 25 foot lots, no greenery, cemented in fronts. That is sadly what followed Westwood Park. It was done too in the Sunset and many other areas. The developers and city did this cause they wanted to create an urban environment? No way. These 25 foot fronts and tiny lots were done out of greed. Make as much as you can even if it visually destroys the natural surroundings.
SF’s buildout took a ruinous turn in the decades that followed the creation of Westwood Park. Something the city will never be able to recover from – short of bulldozing large areas and starting over.
So, when you convert your garage, you get to keep your curb cut and driveway and park on your lawn? OK, then.
“So, when you convert your garage, you get to keep your curb cut and driveway and park on your lawn? OK, then.”
I was wondering that too. You can eliminate your garage? Is that in the code?
In tfis area the curb cuts allow for 2 car off-street tandem parking. So the impact would be muted to oh say Miraloma Park where there are no curb cuts. It’s your 1 or 2 car garage or the street.
No one has eliminated their garages in Miraloma but they might as well. Half the folks don’t use their garage and have 2 cars. The streets are an mess – and dangerous for kids.
But the Corona St, area has far fewer cars parked on the street and that is because of the long curb cuts. Even if you have 2 cars and don’t use your garage you still don’t have to park on the street.
Still I’m surprised they were allowed to eliminate the garage.
After the bridge to nowhere, the driveway to nowhere
@Gil
if your argument is that the Sunset needs more green, then I couldn’t be more in agreement, but that has nothing to do with the style of the construction. They just need some trees on the streets, and more small parks scattered around.
Cities need density to be walkable and I am not sure Westwood Park is dense enough to do the trick. Does anyone know what the population density is in that neighborhood? It is pretty, I will grant you that.
How did people get back and forth to work from there in the 10s and 20s? There must have been a streetcar line on Ocean, like there is today.
They drove a horse & buggy, and I’ll bet it was still faster than Muni is today.
Westwood Park was developed after the Twin Peaks tunnel opened up. It was totuted as being just 20 minutes from Fourth and Market.
It was partly a result of the City Beautiful movement. San Francisco, unfortunately, did not embrace the movement in general. This is why there are visually and physically unattractive neighborhoods blanketing so much of the City.
A point of interest. In reaction to the City Beautiful movement and because of very devoted and persistent “green city” locals Portland Oregon enacted a City Beautiful agenda in 1903 that resulted in the preservation of huge areas in in-city-boundary forests. Of course this was a hundred years before the official “green” monvement took hold.
The density is relatively high in Westwood. Far higher than you find in “sprawl” cities like San Jose. The lots are small as in most of San Francisco. It’s just that the idea was to try to place the home central to the lot. The backyards are small allowing for more front and side space. In many parts of SF the home is placed at the very front lot-line and the open part of the lot is invisible – hidden behind the front and often just unused space.
Someone said above they agree the Sunset needs lots more green but they don’t have a problem with the style of construction. I do have a big problem with the style. Certainly far more cookie cutter and uniform that what you find in the suburbs.
To get an idea how different it feels – based on the type of construction, go out to Ingleside Terrace where these Corona homes are. Drive down Lunado Way which is just above Juniperra Serra. Keep driving till it turns into Beverley Street and follow Beverley till it ends.
You will in a few minutes go from the City Beautiful vision a la Westwood Park that SF could hav become to the 25 foot, grid street with no front yard reality that, unfortunately, San Francisoc became.
The open, expansive, flowing feeling you have on Lunado gives way to a closed, in-turning, restrictive sense when you get onto Beverley. It makes for a world of difference.
Westwood Park was statement that San Francisco did not have to all be Edwardians and Victorians packed one on top of another. There were other visions which worked for San Francisco middle class residential neighborhoods.
Density is certainly higher than in large lot cities, but I doubt it is as large as in neighborhoods with the 2 and 3 unit Victorians. Though many of those were originally built as single family homes and converted to apartments later.
City zoning actually encourages this kind of development, you know. We are looking to expand and since our home is set back about 15 feet from the street, we can’t go back, even though we have a relatively large lot by neighborhood standards. So it looks like we will end up pushing the envelope of the building right to the front, even though that will destroy a nice little front garden that the neighbors have commented before on how nice it is. The block would look nicer if there were at least a few feet of greenery in front of the houses, but the zoning code discourages it.
Gil, you paint a very good picture of what could have made the western side of San Francisco the most attractive part of the city, but instead it is truly underwhelming, and in some parts, downright ugly. (Westwood Park being one of the exceptions.)
Two of my favortie books that mention information about the struggle by some to embrace the “City Beautiful” movement in San Francisco are “ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD”, and “IMPERIAL SAN FRANCISCO”. Both of these books chronicle a period of time when some wanted this city to have the type of bold organized beautiful plan that cities such as Portland and Chicago chose to build. The pictures in “Imperial San Francisco” of Market Street being as wide as Champs Elysees and of waterfront parks similar to what Chicago built are truly inspiring. At least some of what they wanted has been created including Golden Gate Park, the Civic Center plaza, and now the new plaza in front of the Ferry Building.
(“On the Edge of the World” shows an even bigger plaza planned 100 years ago in front of the Ferry Building that would have been similar in size and layout ot Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican! They truly “made no small plans” back then)
Thanks AnonArch for the resources. I hadn’t heard of ‘Imperial San Francisco’. Will definitely check it out.
It’s not just the western neighborhoods either. Glen Park and Bernal heights, in spite of their being “in” have generally awful looking housing stock. And dangerously narrow streets.
The other issue that has resulted in a further degrading of SF’s neighborhoods more in the past decade is the fact that less than half the folks seem to use their one-car garages to park in. Coupled with more than half the folks having 2 or 3 cars its a veritable eyesore in many residential neighborhoods on weekends when everyone is home. Not to mention dangerous for kids and adults alike – if you are walking.
This has driven the accelerating cementing in of fronts this past decade as more and more folks park a car or two on their cemented in front and one on the street beyond.
The cementing over is against code but it’s like who is looking. In my neighborhood when a neighbor went to our such as it is neighborhood association complaining her neighbor had cemented in the front she was basically told to mind her own business. Like the upkeep and ambiance of homes immediately next to her are not an issue for her to be concerned about. What makes it worse is that the new owner rented out the place and 4 adults live there now with 4 cars. Two of which are almost always cluttering up the sidewalk in front of the home.
What’s done is done but, because of it, SF can never be a great city.
I bet you get in trouble for daring to say the emperor has no clothes – that many SF neighborhoods are underwhelming at best and down right ugly at worst.
b
Gil, I have posted before on this site that people confuse the amazing beauty of the natural setting of this city with its urban design and architecture. The bay, mountains, fog, light, ocean, and Golden Gate are spectacular, but can the same be said for the urban landscaping, pedestrian spaces, architecture and planning? Frank Lloyd Wright said when visiting that if you were to take the city away from the bay views and hills and drop it in some flat area of the Midwest, most people would think the city was rather ugly. This I believe is your point about the Sunset, in any other city it would be an ugly neighborhood in need of major civic improvements.
The cars parked on concrete, lack of trees, telephone/electrical wires that were buried long ago in other cities all create a drab dull unimaginative enviroment.
To repost your quote..”Don’t discount the need for green. Even in cities. That is human nature and to live in a sterile Sunset like neighborhood may not be good for your psyche. Why are many cities, unlike SF, so depeerate to green themselves? What do they know that we don’t? And I am talking urban to the core centers – Chicago is at the forefront of the green city movement”
WELL said!
Here is a quote from one of the reviews for Gary Brechin’s “Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin”
“Challenging San Francisco’s popular image as a tolerant, carefree, gracious city, Brechin unearths 150 years of deeply unsettling history. San Francisco’s founding aristocracy were Southerners drawn to California as a mecca newly opened up for enterpriseAparticularly for plantation culture. After the 1849 gold rush, San Francisco was built on what Brechin terms a “Pyramid of Mining”Aa pre-capitalist financial structure employed from Roman times through the Renaissance, uniting miners, financiers, the military and land speculators in a power elite whose only concern was limitless economic growth. While press lord William Randolph Hearst converted a mining fortune into a media conglomerate preaching the superiority of “the American race”
Be sure to check out Richard Longstreth’s “On the Edge of the World, Four Architects in San Francisco at the Turn of the Century”. This book provides some dramatic illustrations of the some of the “City Beautiful” plans for San Francisco and especially the western neighborhoods.
Gil, I want to thank you for turning me on to Westwood Park, which was a neighborhood I knew nothing about. One of the interesting things about a city like San Francisco given its rather small size is that there are still neighborhoods like this yet to be discovered.
AnonArch, IMO what happened to San Francisco residential development is a tragedy – precisely because it didn’t have to happen. A road not taken.
I was reading about Detroit recently. Perhaps most hard hit major city in the US because of the downturn. And it was in bad shape before the downturn.
What are they doing? Bulldozing blocks and blocks and blocks of abadonned housing.
Replacing it with greenbelts and new housing eventually that will have front yards and side yards and space. Some Detroit boosters think it can eventually become a great city again. We’ll see – I wish them well.
San Francisco does not have that option which is sad.
The capitalist/financier past haunts the city to this day in a way.
In my neighborhood a backyard on a corner was sold after the original owner passed away. The proposal is to build 3 homes on a lot that just squeaks by as fitting 2 homes. But it is near an intersection and there is a weird loophole in the regs. And our neighborhood supervisor, quite progressive don’t you know, doesn’t want to get involved. As in demanding only 2 homes be built on the sold lot. The neighborhood, so to speak, association is paying lip service but that is all. The nearby neighbors are up the creek. A massive wall of 3 3-story homes with 15 foot backyards will overshadow them.
IMO an appropriate ballot initiative would be that in SFR residential areas the little remaining open space/lots cannot be subdivided into less than 40 foot fronts.
Speaking of neighborhoods – check out Old Miraloma. On a foggy evening coming up Portola you just may catch a glimpse of an elf – or maybe it’s light and shadow playing tricks on your vision. A mix of Mission, Spanish and Mediterranean styles with peaked roofs and rounded doors and windows it could almost be right out of Alice in Wonderland.
I was at the open house at 119 Corona yesterday. Very nice house. The 2nd one won’t be open until next Sunday. Driving through the neighborhood (Ingleside Terrace), I couldn’t figure out if the neighborhood was on it’s way back from a rough period or was on it’s way down. A lot of brown lawns and deferred maintenance. It seemed like sort of a shabby St. Francis Wood.
Agree with you 94114. As much as Gil yearns for this suburban utopia (elves included!), this hood ranks pretty low on the desirability ratings.
It’s great though if you work or study at SFSU, or like to shop at Stonestown.
🙂
Willow, I liked Ingleside Terrace(s) and the idea, in general, of a more planned, more gracious neighborhood of charming detached homes. It’s great that SF has these older suburban style neighborhoods. Not everyone wants to live in a congested “happening” neighborhood with cars parked wall to wall. I just wished that this particular neighborhood showed more pride of ownership.
Not everyone wants to live in a congested “happening” neighborhood with cars parked wall to wall.
That would be the reason that we have 6 million people living in suburbs around the city. No reason to change the rest of the city to match the overwhelming amount of supply that’s out there. Clearly (based on price/sqft) urban dwellings are in very, very, very short supply – no reason to make that supply even less by manipulating the market and changing zoning laws to make it harder to build in urban areas.
Who said anything about changing zoning laws? I was commenting on an existing established neighborhood. Why does every comment warrant a big argument?
The list price for 119 Corona has just been reduced by $69,000 (8%), now asking $799,000.
Very interesting. They’re going to try the same strategy as the sellers did on 136 Corona. List it at price low enough to generate an overbid. Hopefully, for their sake, it will work. It may have been something they should have tried a few weeks ago.
94114, do you have any insight on how much 136 Corona was overbid?
It seems a lot harder to generate an overbid when you overprice something in the first place, doesn’t it? Do you really think someone would bid above $868K even in a competitive bidding scenario? If so, that person should really feel like a chump.
I imagine 136 Corona went for about 50-75 over asking. Just a guess.
Re: 119 Corona, I was thinking that at 799, their strategy would be different than if they lowered it to 829. They’re making it look sort of like a “deal” and maybe hoping for 825. I was just surprised that they lowered it that much. Of course, they should be prepared for offers of 750.
136 Corona closed escrow at 953.
As noted, the sale of 136 Corona closed escrow on 9/14 with a reported contract price of $953,000. Once again, the property was purchased for $1,010,000 in 2004 with the kitchen and bathrooms remodeled thereafter.
So it’s not an apple, it’s been improved, and you still run with it. Funny how when something is improved and it gets good results the property gets laughed right off the website.
[Editor’s Note: Yes, if we’ve previously featured a property for sale we follow it through to close. If you prefer, you’re welcome to think of this one as selling for 6 percent under its 2004 price not accounting for the cost and added value of its remodel. And as we wrote above, “Sorry, comps and competiton but no apples (and double oh my!) here.”]
Good guess, 94114. Don’t really understand fluj’s complaint. The editor also featured 1130 Cole, which had an amazing result, but was also not an apple. For 136 Cornoa, the owner got a very favorable result on a non-apple, even though the owner lost a ton of money. The prior sale was $1.167M in today’s money.
sfrenegade, I was wrong about the other house on Corona. No bites so far. I thought 799 would do the trick.
The sale of 119 Corona closed escrow on 12/10/10 with a reported cotract price of $770,000 (11% under original asking).