1499 Masonic Facade Crop
As we reported in June with respect to 1499 Masonic:

Purchased for $2,275,000 in 2005, on the market for $2,095,000 in 2010, and asking $1,999,000 for the past two months, the list price for the tightly cropped remodeled Ashbury Heights Victorian at 1499 Masonic has been reduced to $1,895,000.

As a plugged-in reader noted yesterday, the sale of 1499 Masonic has closed escrow with a reported contract price of $1,750,000, twenty-three percent ($525,000) below its 2005 purchase price on an apples-to-apples basis.
And once again, as the house appears from the street in a little less cropped state:
1499 Masonic (Image Source: MapJack.com)
Another Cut For The Apple Crop At 1499 Masonic [SocketSite]
(A) 1499 Masonic Set Back [SocketSite]
Take Two For An Orange On Oak And Bumper Apple Crop On Masonic [SocketSite]

18 thoughts on “A Half-Million Dollar Drop For The “Cropped” Victorian On Masonic”
  1. They overpaid. And by they, I mean the current buyers. This is such a flawed lot that it’s not clear how a buyer would be able to overcome it. It does open up in the rear quite nicely but this place is really challenged.
    Interestingly, the opening ‘ask’ in 2005 was $1.798 so the sellers here lost every single dollar they overbid 6 years ago and then some. And I’m sure the buyers feel like they got a deal by snatching this so far below the asking price. I wont bother listing out the dozens of homes that would have been better buys. $815/psf is still mighty rich for this home. If anything, it is more of a sign that buyers are still out there making questionable decisions and agents letting them do it. But the interior / rear areas are nice so I do hope the new owners are happy in this home.

  2. Cmon you guys, the Groupon and Zynga IPOs are any day now, and when they happen, the floodgates will open.
    The Pandora shares I bought for $26 are now at $12 and my $122.70 LNKD shares are holding just under $80. I’m looking forward to another set of IPO riches.

  3. tipster’s snarky point about recent dot com IPOs not likely leading to instant wealth redoubting to higher prices for high-end S.F. Real Estate is well taken; however, reading it got me to wondering just how much of LinkedIn’s prices losses are just due to the overall stock market going south.
    On May 19th, LinkedIn closed at 94.95 and on Friday the 2nd closed at 80.27, a 15.4% loss in value. With a market cap of just under 7.5B, let’s call LNKD a large cap stock. So how’s it doing compared to the S&P 500?
    On May 19th, the SPY ETF closed at 134.68 and on Friday closed at 117.85, a drop of 12.5%, so LinkedIn is underperforming the market at large but not by too large an amount.

  4. tipster wrote:

    Cmon you guys, the Groupon and Zynga IPOs are any day now, and when they happen, the floodgates will open…I’m looking forward to another set of IPO riches.

    Probably not gonna happen anytime soon, due to the stock market situation I mentioned above.
    From Money & Company, The Los Angeles Times’ finance blog, Groupon, Zynga reportedly delay IPOs; money ‘graph:

    Groupon and Zynga were seen as the eventual exclamation points on this year’s IPO boomlet of Internet-related companies, especially social-media newcomers. But companies in a number of industries have canceled their offerings at a rapid pace over the last month as investors look askance at investments seen as risky.

    Groupon, which offers daily deals over the Internet, is postponing its offering, according to Bloomberg News. Meanwhile, online gaming site Zynga may delay its IPO until early next year, CNBC reported.

    So there you go. Your riches from an IPO or the S.F. high-end real estate market getting the bump from lots of newly-minted “instantaires” are going to have to wait a bit.

  5. Also, Groupon is based in Chicago…in addition to being a ponzi scheme that will hopefully die a quick death. They lost their moment to push the losses on to someone else by delaying the IPO.

  6. LOL — you guys are dead wrong.
    Tech is the only industry that is booming in this country. And luckily for San Francisco, the bulk of that wealth is centered here. It will continue to drive up property values for the next 20 years at least.
    The IPO market is irrelevant. SF and Silicon Valley are generating tens of thousands of new $100K+ jobs every year. And those are the people that will keep driving rents up and keep buying homes at $500K to $1.5M price points for years to come.

  7. Turning down’s google’s purchase offer is one of the dumbest decisions I’ve seen… just above google’s offer in the first place.

  8. Point taken, eh, and agreed, lyqwyd.
    And luckily for San Francisco, the bulk of that wealth is centered here.
    Right, but some of that wealth is already here because it’s funded by venture capitalists based here. You’re distributing it to people who might actually spend it, perhaps, but it’s not as much new money as was coming into the Bay Area during the tech boom.
    The IPO market is irrelevant.
    First time a kool-aid drinker has said that. Can I quote that in the future? Everyone has always said it’s about IPO money, and it’s rare that someone suggests it’s not.
    SF and Silicon Valley are generating tens of thousands of new $100K+ jobs every year. And those are the people that will keep driving rents up and keep buying homes at $500K to $1.5M price points for years to come.
    A $100K job buys you a $611K house with 20% down, 30 year fixed at 4% with 28% ratio. That’s if you stretch, of course, and you’ll have to work to pay down that $489K loan maxed out like that. If loans go back up to a market rate, buying power will drop commensurately.
    But are these companies bringing tens of thousands of $100K jobs — that is, net new jobs? It’s unclear. Some of those jobs are just being shuffled around among existing companies.
    It’s not clear that median incomes have been rising sufficiently to say that this is some large mass of people with new 6-figure jobs. Yes, incomes have gone up slightly faster here, but not enough to support the claim. Look at the Census statistics.

  9. Tipster cracks me up again. Have a look at the S-1 filing for Pandora and Zynga, linkedin also. Have a look at the amount of grants and the weighted average price of the grants then divide that by the number of employees. Even Pandora at $12 now, (market is down) with employees being there a long time with tens of thousands of grants… you do the math. And LinkedIn. So sad.. down to $80. Have a look at the S-1. Others to follow. Sfrenegade – who only gets $100k at Saleforce?? A person with a couple of years experience… How much do you think they get with 5 years experience plus?? Your math equation is all for not.

  10. Tens of thousands of jobs? Hardly.
    Here’s the data on SF-Oakland-Fremont area: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUMT06418605?data_tool=XGtable
    We had employment over 220,000 in 2001 and just this year, 2011, we got back over 200,000. Looking at the breakdown by sector, the “information” sector actually lost jobs year over year: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUMT06418605?data_tool=XGtable
    I would bet Silicon Valley is slightly better but I doubt it will be anything that will move housing prices much.

  11. And here’s SF-San Mateo-Redwood City:
    http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca_sanfrancisco_md.htm
    Whoo hoo! One thousand jobs created year over year in the information sector.
    And in San Jose-Sunnyvale–Santa Clara? We do indeed get to 10,000 jobs created year over year. Maybe not tens of thousands, but it’s a start. In fact, employment in the sector is now higher than in 2001, and has steadily increased since 2003 or so. http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMU06419405000000001?data_tool=XGtable
    I doubt if these are all $100,000 jobs though. And while the sector growth has been good, total employment in that geographic area has been abysmal. They aren’t even close to the employment numbers of ten years ago: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUMT06419405?data_tool=XGtable
    We’ve just cut 3 manufacturing jobs and replaced it with 1 information job and 1 health care job. Here’s the sorry state of manufacturing in the region: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMU06419403000000001?data_tool=XGtable

  12. “Have a look at the amount of grants and the weighted average price of the grants then divide that by the number of employees. Even Pandora at $12 now, (market is down) with employees being there a long time with tens of thousands of grants… you do the math.”
    I did this math in another thread and I have looked at many of these S-1s — you can track it down. A huge percentage of the stock is held by venture capitalists, founders, insiders, and key executives. The rank and file employees don’t have nearly so much. There are only about 300 employees at Pandora, and Pandora is based in Oakland, not SF or Silicon Valley.
    As for LinkedIn, the same is true, only more so — the insiders have a lot of the stock. The vast majority of rank and file have joined in the last few years and aren’t even fully vested yet (all stats you can see in the S-1). As you might guess, recently-joined employees got a lot fewer shares than long-time employees.
    Does this mean some people have some built-in down payment money? Sure, no one’s arguing that. But it’s certainly not millions, and many times their income doesn’t support some of these prices (especially in parts of the Valley) even with a nice down payment.
    Also, I think you meant “nought.”

  13. I never said millions. Even if they have been at these companies for 3 years, they are 3/4 vested since it is a year vesting. That is a down payment with a few hundred thousand to buffer that low income you speak of.
    Why do people put up personal estimations on macro research? I feel sorry for you if you spend your personal time looking at SEC filings. Most of the time they surely don’t know people at these companies. Also, this is a big world. Not everyone needs to get money from IPO companies some are. I enjoy the pics, these popshot comments are annoying. And talking about someone making 100k without real life variables. Do they have a spouse? Did they get married and get a family gift? Hmmm. Not sure if your books talk about these real life variables. I remember my classes using black and white terms, fun times back them. Thanks for the reminder.

  14. “I feel sorry for you if you spend your personal time looking at SEC filings.”
    Okay, now you’re just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. You specifically asked me to look at the S-1s as proof or argument, and I told you I already did and negated your argument. That’s it. There’s no reason to make sniping comments beyond that that are neither here nor there.
    I certainly know people who work at these companies and know about several real life scenarios. The reality is that we’re talking about a small number of people, most of whom didn’t get all that much if they weren’t key insiders. If you were arguing that lots of new money came into the Bay Area during the dotcom boom, when there were tons of IPOs and lots of funny money, you’d have no disagreement from me, but there has been very little new money coming here in the last several years, and certainly not from a couple of high profile IPOs.

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