It’s not your typical lot which can be problematic. But considering the address to which this one is attached (3169 Cesar Chavez), we’ll say it could be a good thing.
Tucked behind the buildings lining the street, the turn-of-the-century three-bedroom home sits listed for $529,000 and awaiting a remodel and a bit of landscaping.
∙ Listing: 3169 Cesar Chavez (3/1) 1,480 sqft – $529,000 [MLS]
I’m sure someone will come along and “modernize” it by using up all the outdoor open space, turning the rooms into biology lab style “living spaces” and add three more huge “hotel style” bathrooms. Turning historical craftwork into “high end” is the way things go in this town.
plenty of parking
I remember the old projects across the street (seemingly improved since a rebuild), anybody ever been killed in that alleyway?
The best use here is merging with the adjacent lots and creating some urban infill housing. The prior owner died last year from an Obit @ sfgate. Sounded like a nice woman and family.
Personally, I love this little quirky lot with the long driveway. Asking feels a little high.
typo in the title: I believe Chazez should be Chavez no?
[Editor’s Note: Si (and since corrected).]
Love the staging!
location may be a little rough and busy…but the driveway negates a lot of this. a gated entrance along with the neighbors’ homes would pretty much ensure privacy and security.
then you’d have a double sized lot in the banana belt (a great victory garden) and a free standing home with over 2000 feet after a $200-300k REMODEL. it would still be quirky and not everyone’s idea of city living but this seems cheap to me. i’m betting over asking (at least $50-100K, if it gets good sunlight and the framing and foundation are OK).
You do realize that this is still across from the “projects”. Just look around sometime and see who hangs out.
at least you can get into Clarendon or Miraloma if you have kids!!
Michelle – sadly, that’s not CTIP1. It’s on the wrong side of Cesar Chavez.
sincere question: how do odd lots like this get created? was it established this way for some unknown reason during developer partitioning at the turn of the century? or is there some means in the convoluted SF planning code of re-partitioning existing lots?
Average Joe,
Usually this means this house was the first house on a much larger parcel, that then got divided over the years. The owner keeps dividing and dividing but wants to stay in his house so he just divides around it.
Just before the owner takes off, he’ll divide his lot into one parcel with his home on it, and the two parcels in front of his, sell the two new ones (after building on them or just selling the lots) and then sell the original home off. It’s just a way of maximizing the value of a large lot when the home started out on the back of it and then infilled. You get more by selling the three lots than one large one. Perhaps when the dividing owner bought years ago, that wasn’t the case but it is later so it gets done, usually before the owner sells when a realtor tells him it’s worth more that way.
On either side of Precita there are unusually deep lots. On the south side of Precita, west of Folsom, just a stub of a street (Bessie) remains, but there used to be an additional street further west separating Precita and Mirabel. Basically, homes were built before the current street grid was established.
Saw it Sunday, out of pure curiosity. Lots of folks walking through. It’s a mandatory down to the studs remod to make it habitable. Hard to believe that someone actually lived here recently…feels like it’s been empty for 20 years. This is not a live in DIY project, but a contractor special, IMO.
Auto access will be a little difficult. Assume that you could put an automatic vertical gate (with a doorway enclosed), but it is quite narrow, and a Mini would be more comfortable than a Hummer, that’s for sure.
Often mid-block properties are wonderful, because they get to “share” the landscaping of surrounding properties. Unfortunately in this case, the surrounding properties are kinda junky (not surprising given that a couple of them front on Cesar Chavez), so this properties is not quite the urban oasis that it could be. So I don’t think the upside is everything it could be, but with some new fencing to hide the adjacent properties it wouldn’t be too bad. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
The sale of 3169 Cesar Chavez closed escrow yesterday with a reported contract price of $599,000.