It’s nothing fancy nor luxurious. And at 311 square feet, 195 7th Street #308 is anything but large. But it is a South of Market condo that’s just hit the market as a short-sale listed for $150,000. And it’s not a BMR.
Purchased for $51,000 in 1995 it sold for $79,000 in 1998 (appreciation of 14 percent per year). And five years later it sold for $180,000 in 2003 (appreciation of 18 percent per year). Apparently “short-term” holds and frequently flipped properties do show price appreciation. Well, at least when the market is actually appreciating.
Three other studios listed for sale in the 34-unit building currently range in price from $189,500 for #208 (time to strike that “Best Priced Studio Condo in SOMA” tout) to $238,000 for #404 which is larger by twenty-one square feet.
∙ Listing: 195 7th Street #208 (0/1) 311 sqft – $189,500 [MLS]
∙ Listing: 195 7th Street #308 (0/1) 311 sqft – “$150,000” (short sale) [MLS]
∙ Listing: 195 7th Street #404 (0/1) 332 sqft – $238,000 [MLS]
Can we tone down the snark a little?
Faketorian ugly building with a very unattractive first floor. In Europe they call this social housing.
Still 500/sf for one fugly stretch of 7th street. The only regular people you’ll see are the drivers walking to the impound.
And I think the editor is right to deride this. Desperate “priced-out” buyers pushed prices almost 4-fold in 8 years, BEFORE the ’03-’08 run-up! Low quality deserves to go back where it belongs: rentals.
R wrote:
> Can we tone down the snark a little?
Can’t you see that it is even a little bit funny that the “Best” Priced Studio Condo in SOMA has a unit for sale in the same building that is priced more than 20% “Beter”?
As a point of comparison, we should note that these are mostly larger than the studios at Cubix Yerba Buena (eight of the studios at Cubix are 350 ft.², the rest are smaller) that were selling for $279k for a penthouse level unit two years ago.
The Book Concern Building has the smallest units that I know of at 260 ft.² and those are asking $268k right now (‘course that’s not a short sale price, but REOs were asking between $212k and $227k according to info posted in the comments in that thread).
I live half a block from that condo on 7th. It’s a neighborhood there. Shops, restaurants, cafes, dry cleaners, neighbors at all economic levels. So, ‘lol’, what do you mean by “regular people” and how do we know if we qulaify?
For extremely small units the price per square foot measure tends to break down. Minimal, livable units have a kind of base value that doesn’t scale dramatically along with the details. The look and quality have limited appeal, but the builder deserves credit for putting up an affordable building in 1995 when markets were just starting to recover.
Back when things were raging I predicted that these and other small studios in the area would bottom out just under $200K. This got me derided as an extreme bear who was being snarky. Now the market has gone below what seemed unreasonable to project, at least by some, after only a few years.
I have s friend in one of the new metal-clad ugly buildings on Mission and 7th and I dread the days I have to visit. It’s either an empty wasteland or transient central. Working people I see between Market and Howard are mostly zooming through. The rest is hogging the sidewalks because that’s where they spend the most of their time.
Martha: I have to agree with lol. I used to live in the Tenderloin for a brief period and while I was there I used to think it wasn’t too bad. But then I moved and realized how insane that whole area is. 7th and Howard is no better.
It takes a tolerance for friction to live here but you could also call that variety. Good farmer’s market in Civic Center twice a week, great access to small and large grocery stores, serious foodie block developing between Seventh and Eighth on Folsom.
The problem with that Seventh and Howard unit isn’t the neighborhood, it’s the location within the neighborhood: on a corner of two major commute arteries. As in many parts of LA, the living environment in the same area depends radically on whether your home faces a big street or a small one.
lol wrote:Working people I see between Market and Howard are mostly zooming through. The rest is hogging the sidewalks because that’s where they spend the most of their time.Aren’t you glad that Proposition L passed? Democracy in action: solving problems, addressing citizen concerns.
I think studios at BayCrest Towers, around 430 sq. feet, have been listing at $250,000 …. and that includes a parking spot.
“It takes a tolerance for friction to live here…”
Martha: I think you are sugar coating the quality of life issues that reside in this area. However I applaud those like yourself that are willing to tough it out in the hope that a transition will come.
Jamie: Why would you spend 250K on a studio at Baycrest? Renting an equivalent space would be so much more cost effective. Perhaps as a pied-a-terre but I don’t think the building attracts that type of clientele.
I think Jamie’s point is that, subtract $50K for the parking spot, and you have a lower ppsft than the subject of this thread.
Baycrest: $200/430=465 psft
7th street: $150/311=482 psft
Willow, how much do you think a studio rent for in Bay Crest? Craigslist goes for $2000/mo furnished. Let’s say unfurnished studio is $1,500; that still means a slight advantage to buying vs. renting.
samuel: There’s a big difference between asking and actual prices on Craigslist, or any site for that matter.
Even if you can get $1500 a month, with HOA’s, property taxes, maintenance, lost opportunity cost from your down payment you are still going to be better off renting. And with little upside appreciation in the medium term I don’t see how this makes sense.
Last year, I toured a studio in Bay Crest that was renting for $1,700/mo. Around the same time, I toured a studio in nearby Beacon that was renting for $2,250. I know someone renting a 1/1 at Avalon Mission Bay for $2,450. So yeah, I’m pretty sure an estimate of $1,500 is doable, if not altogether conservative.
Factoring in the property tax and HOA, one probably breaks even. I propose neither buying nor renting, but merely wonders why you would say renting is so much cheaper when in fact, it’s about even.
And another thing I notice is that some of the posters here really have little idea about the rental market in the SOMA/Mission Bay/South Beach area.
Just throwing it out there as another possible “value” in SoMa. The Bay Bridge traffic is the big negative for me as a resident at BayCrest.
Willow wrote:
Martha: I think you are sugar coating the quality of life issues that reside in this area. However I applaud those like yourself that are willing to tough it out in the hope that a transition will come.
No, this place is a good home the way it is: various, lively, near services, restaurants, and shopping, and not economically segregated. It’s the closest place we have to the old Times Square. It would be really ghastly to live in a neighborhood “in the hope” of seeing half one’s neighbors forced out for money reasons. Sometimes we think about moving somewhere quieter with more space, but that’s just because we’re getting older, not because we have anything against our neighbors. They’re good neighbors.
And Proposition L? It’s an insult to the idea of the rule of law. It gives permission to the bullies in the SFPD to arrest poor people preemptively for the “crime” of looking like they might bother a paying customer. Real self-respecting cops arrest people for real crimes, not for minding their own business in public.
I know someone living at Soma Grand who is very happy where he’s at. So, I suspect it’s a case of one’s expectation. If you like to be smack in the middle of it all, I think you may like this area. On the other hand, if you prefer quiet and hilly, this is not going to be your cup of tea.
However, I find it amusing that some make it sounds as if 7th and Howard is like Hunter’s Point. I drive by that area every day to and from work, it doesn’t look bad at all. Especially for those who likes to walk to work.
“not for minding their own business in public.”
Yeah right, tell that to people on Haight. Prop L gives the cops the authority to deal with jerks and aggressive homeless who lower the quality of life here. If people were minding their own business, as some of the friendly street people do, there would be no problem and no need for Prop L.
samuel wrote: “If you like to be smack in the middle of it all, I think you may like this area. On the other hand, if you prefer quiet and hilly, this is not going to be your cup of tea.”
Yes, that’s a much better way of putting it.
“sfrenegade”, if someone in the Haight is committing one of these sidewalk crimes that the Chronicle claims are typical up there, such as dealing drugs or making threats, well, it was already illegal to deal drugs or make threats. If there’s evidence to support an honest charge of real wrongdoing, then that charge should be brought. Any officer who falls back on Prop. L is really admitting there is no evidence of crime.
Prop. L is a way of imposing collective guilt on members of an unpopular category. Whereas yr basic American bedrock principle is that individuals should bear personal responsibility for their own actions, not those of others.
Sorry, I always have to laugh whenever someone on any side of a discussion says something about an “American principle.” Please. If the idea is really that people should bear personal responsibility for their own actions, this city wouldn’t spend $200M on the homeless and on street people every year. I differentiate street people from the homeless, because the homeless actually don’t want to be homeless, whereas street people want to be street people.
There are plenty of things these violent street people do that are crimes, but no one wants to be the person who came forward only to become a target. Even Berkeley passed sit/lie for this problem, and it worked. It’s not like the cops actually have the resources to bother every friendly street person in this city, except in the imaginations of so-called “homeless advocates” who make it politically incorrect for cops to arrest even violent street people.
Now all we need to make this complete is for someone to tell me to go live in Walnut Creek. 🙂
So, “sfrenegade”, are you saying that individual police officers should have discretion to arrest people for fitting the general image of “street people”, without evidence that they have commited a crime?
Why put up straw men? We’re talking about sit/lie, not some improper arrest situation you made up. What benefit do street people blocking the sidewalks and harassing people provide for our city? What do you propose instead we do for street people?
Blocking the sidewalk and harassment are both independently defined offenses. If the intention is truly to detect and punish such acts, there is no need additionally to arrest people for sitting down. My concern is that Prop. L proponents wish to see certain of their neighbors arrested, not for committing any particular act, but for being the wrong kind of people.
Maybe you should encourage SFPD to use *their discretion* to punish people for their criminal acts. California Penal Code Section 647 comes to mind. The real problem is that some people in this city have made it impossible to enforce Section 647 without complaints that it’s being applied in a discriminatory fashion (i.e. against that “wrong kind of people” as you call it).
Hence, the people voted for sit/lie which can quite easily be applied in a non-discriminatory fashion because no discretion is required. If anything the proponents feel that the opponents have made it politically impossible for the cops to enforce the law in this scenario.
I noticed you still haven’t answered my questions.
Please continue to cap on the property, gives me more time to gain funds so I can buy it.
I implore anyone here to find a studio 3 blocks from market street where you will own, not rent, for less than 1K.
By the way, factoring in HOA fees, buying the property will cost 1K flat a month. I don’t know where you guys are pulling 1.5K mortgage costs but I can assure this, people need to go back to finance class.
To further add to the discussion, I’ll be gaining equity while you’re blowing 12K a year on non deductable checks to me, while I tax deduct the interest charges and walk away with a property in 30 years without dropping as much as a down payment.
You do realized that equity is forced savings right? And that the tax deduction is already incorporated into the price and is just a discount on interest? Maybe you’re the one who needs to go to a finance class.
On the plus side, #308 is pending:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/195-7th-St-94103/unit-308/home/1565312
Btw, I get a shade under $800 at 4.75% if you do 100% financing, with a $289 HOA.
Boy, have fun in that 311 square feet off skid row for the next 30 years, Joe. Don’t forget to pay the property taxes, insurance, and maintenance you neglected to account for in your cost estimate.
This place makes sense at under $100k, where you could save off comparable rent for a few years before you tire of such a tiny place in a marginal area, and then turn it over to the next person looking to do the same thing.
sfrenegade, please correct me if I am mistaken, but the mortgage broker I run into at the gym all the time told me in no uncertain terms that “there are no more 80/20 loans, and you have to put at least 5% down, and in that case you’re required to pay pmi”.
Or perhaps there’s another way to get 100% financing without paying PMI that I don’t know about. I’m asking sincerely.
Brahma, I don’t disagree, but I’m specifically going on Joe’s assumptions (“without dropping as much as a down payment”). Wouldn’t this be ripe for FHA considering what a small loan amount it is? That’s only 3.5% down, which is effectively nothing down. I also assumed the fake listing price of $150K was the sale price, which presumably the bankster still needs to approve.
Btw, #208 sold back in the glory days of 1996 for $67K. Wow.
Yes you are correct that these studios are a good fit for an FHA loan.
So with a $5.2k down payment on the $150K selling price (the eventual buyer will offer less and the lender will accept it, of course, but you have to add in closing costs, so let’s call it a wash), 4.75% 30-year loan the buyer’s going to still have to pay approx. $60 per month in PMI for over 100 months; that’s where I disagree with the “shade under $800” conclusion.
But I’m splitting hairs here; the larger point about the basic cost of owning this place as being under $1k per month holds, though. Anyway, as you wrote above, #308 is pending so this is all moot.
Yeah, that would make it a shade over $800 + almost $300 in HOA + tax, etc.
The list price for 195 7th St #208 has just been reduced from $189,500 to $169,500.
Originally listed for $238,000, and “not a short sale or bank owned,” the sale of 195 7th Street #404 has closed escrow with a reported contract price of $165,000 having been purchased for $98,000 in 1999.