Speaking of around the corner from a Bi-Rite, having been redecorated and remodeled a bit since purchased for $1,695,000 in August of 2008, the 2,350 square foot Dolores Heights home at 3769 20th Street has returned to the market listed for $1,849,000.
While not perfectly apples-to-apples, we’ll call it close enough for horseshoes, at least with respect to the property as the neighborhood has remodeled a bit since 2008 as well.
∙ Listing: 3769 20th Street (3/2.5) – $1,849,000 [20thvictorian.com]
Mission Bay Block 7 West Rendered With A Bi-Rite In Mind [SocketSite]

32 thoughts on “Let’s See What’s Changed Since 2008 Up In Dolores Heights”
  1. I like how half of the images are of the neighborhood rather than the house. Hidden message: “The house ain’t special but the neighborhood rocks!”
    Photo 18/47 is a space that would classically be used as storage in most normal homes, here it is staged as a yoga retreat. Why not practice yoga in that back garden instead?
    And speaking of staging, clever tossing a rug over that space in the kitchen where the center island used to be. I wonder what the floor looks like under that rug?

  2. It is basically a 2 bedroom. The 3rd bedroom upstairs is long and narrow, and staged as a family room. The deck off of the 3rd bedroom has an entertainment area and a hot tub, only accessible from that room. I can’t imagine using that as a 3rd bedroom for a child and then never using that deck. Also, you enter directly into the living room – no foyer. It was not my favorite.

  3. It is SFH prices like this and 121 Beulah that lead people to believe that San Francisco is immune to the recession. It is foolish of course to make generalizations from examples, but it is hard to ignore apparent trends.
    In this price range, one could buy nice apartments in NY or Paris in excellent neighborhoods.

  4. I don’t think anyone thinks SF is immune to recession. But certainly there are plenty of buyers for certain types of property that are still paying peak prices. I don’t think 121 Beulah goes for much more than $2.5 at any point in the past 5 years.

  5. “I don’t think 121 Beulah goes for much more than $2.5 at any point in the past 5 years.”
    But we’ll never know, will we? All we can do is guess.
    How soon we forget that stuff went for crazy f***ing prices a few years back. See:
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/2127-Broadway-St-94115/unit-6/home/12400658
    Sold for $4.5 (or 4.8) million in 2008, then re-sold yesterday for $3.5 million. If we didn’t have that 2008 sale in evidence, one could easily say “wow, I don’t think this would ever have gone for more than $3.5 million.” Meanwhile, the 2008 buyer is out $1 million (or $1.3 million).
    But I agree that the 2% of SF sales that are the best houses in the best neighborhoods have held up the best – something has to be at the right of the curve. It is certainly a mistake, however, to simply pretend that the other 98% do not exist.

  6. “It is certainly a mistake, however, to simply pretend that the other 98% do not exist”
    Nobody is saying that, at all. Not one person.

  7. Good flujie! Here is one of those 98% that nobody is ignoring:
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/516-27th-Ave-94121/home/1996361
    Nice SFR, nice neighborhood. Top tier SFR per Case Shiller (though not top 2% SF). Sold for $850,000 in 2000, $1,300,000 in 2006, $838,000 yesterday in 2011. Curiously, down 36% in nominal dollars since 2006, and down about 36% in real dollars since 2000. Crazy prices 5-6 years ago, now coming back to earth, albeit still high.

  8. I’ve watched cole valley pretty close and I don’t recall anything like this one on such a street trading above this range. The 137 Beulah Street Apple listing that sold in 2006 / 2011 is a good example of a home that just held its value. But I’m the first to admit that there are big time down market sales. Some of the prices from 06-09 were grossly out of line and my tune was such at those times. I’ve not studied the wide array of properties to say whether we’re talking about 2 or 10% of the market.

  9. ^^ Happy to “reel it in” if you’ll drop the reflexive posting of “wrong, you’re an idiot” or words to that effect every time somebody makes a comment that you don’t like.

  10. That’s not what it is. Rather, it’s taking objection to your continual efforts to casually mention that SF is 30 to 40 percent down in the last five years, and just move on. As if that’s something that’s real. Today I called it nonsense but I didn’t call you an idiot. It’s clear what you’re doing, and it’s not idiotic. There’s a motive, there’s intent, it’s not idiotic. But it’s clear that your intent is to flame, and it’s not valid for that matter.

  11. “it is hard to ignore apparent trends.” I don’t know what the right percentages are (not 2/98). But looking recently in the more modest 1.2 to 1.5 range, there are quite a few condos that are having trouble selling, have been marked down repeatedly or have been on and off the market. A lot of segments don’t look recession-proof.
    Keep peddling the story– all you need is one person to pay up and think that SFH is recession proof . . .

  12. Well, flujie, how far do you think SF has fallen, and based on what? Still sticking with your 5-10%? Not gonna say because “micromarkets” and all that, and that way you avoid ever saying anything concrete at all since anytime you even come close your point is easily disproven? Gonna stick with discussing top end homes in Noe or Pac Heights and pretending that equates to all of SF?
    My guess is you’ll just continue with your old “wrong, just because” with nothing more, as that has been your m.o. for years now.

  13. The constant A.T./anon.ed rancor is getting more than tiring, and a new year’s resolution for more civility is in order. And I, for one, don’t care which one of you is “right”.

  14. Don’t mourn the kitchen island. It appears to be the very same one I just received for Christmas. Purchased at target.com.

  15. Micromarkets? Of course, why would anybody posit otherwise. But in terms of peak to trough performance it’s not arguable that we’ve seen a bifurcated market vis a vis D10 + SOMA condos versus most of the rest of the City. Instead of putting that down to me saying “you’re wrong,” solely, instead refer to the foreclosure thread. It has been ongoing that those areas are disproportionate. For years.
    Regardless, you simply cannot knock it off with trying to goad. “Flujie” all the time, like you’re my pal? Grow up buddy.

  16. Where do you get your numbers from AT, other than the occasional cherry-picked apple.
    http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/market-trends/
    Here is some actual data, not just opinion:
    “Sales prices have depreciated 12.9% over the last 5 years in San Francisco.”
    These are medians, so it is hard to see how mix could have too much effect here. Perhaps there is a minor gentrification effect, but that can’t be much more than a few percent.
    To compare an area we know took a hit, Trulia says that sales prices declined 66% in Vallejo.
    My guesstimate is that prices declined about 20% from peak to trough but have recovered slightly since then.

  17. NVJ, I have no idea what that Trulia chart is supposed to measure. I’d like to see their data. You can’t seriously think that home prices have declined only 12.9% citywide.
    Here is a more comprehensive set of data for medians (and averages which are far less reliable), breaking out SFRs and condos:
    http://www.rereport.com/sf/index_a.html
    We know medians are imperfect, but over a large data set like this, they are a pretty decent indicator. SFRs down 33% and condos/TICs down 25% from the 2007 peak. Back to 2002-2003 prices, which is just about what the “cherry-picked” apples generally show. Obviously some SF areas/homes have done much worse and some have seen smaller declines.
    I agree that SF has not done as poorly as Vallejo, except perhaps in terms of dollars/home lost (rather than percentages).

  18. As has been pointed out more than once, REReport’s numbers look very odd to say the least. SFR median is down 18.4%, from 2010 to 2011? That runs counter to every chart ever displayed on this website during the past year. And SFR sales volume is up by a count of 1000+ sales, making 2011’s 3448 sales the highest SFR sales volume in 11 years? There’s absolutely no chance that’s even close to correct. For example MLS shows 2436 in D1 – D10 for 2011. By contrast MLS for 2006, an avowed peak volume year shows 2718.

  19. OK, I’ve had a chance to take a better look at the Trulia chart (better than on my Android).
    First, I don’t see how they could possibly get a median of 835k for 2007, way to low – same for the median for every other period. Second, it shows a peak to trough loss of . . . 30%. 835k to 590k.
    Looks like the rereport guy has pulled his page – he does that occasionally to fix things.

  20. I’ve kept the monthly DataQuick medians by county for the last seven years. Here are the medians by month for San Francisco City/County for 2007:
    J 750.0
    F 757.5
    M 753.0
    A 790.0
    M 835.0
    J 825.0
    J 799.0
    A 822.0
    S 773.5
    O 795.0
    N 814.8
    D 731.0
    Based on these the Trulia numbers look a tad too high, not too low. Median for November was 644.5, so roughly 20-25% down from 2007.

  21. You are looking at the same graph as me, right AT?
    http://graphs.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/graph.png?version=287&width=600&height=250&type=qma_median_sales_price&city=San+Francisco&state=CA
    I agree with you that peak to trough on that graph is $835k to $600k, and that is $235/$835 = 28%. I don’t see where you are getting a $590k tough data point.
    Current prices are $675k, so down 19% from peak.
    The peak on that graph is a funny little summertime bump: if you compare prices from Jan 2007 to today, prices are down 12.9%. But the difference from 19% to 13% is not really that big a deal. I expect we will see our typical summertime bump this year, unless things really melt down in Europe.
    And these numbers are nothing like the 30-40% you routinely claim that current San Francisco prices are down from the peak.
    It is more like 15-20%, or maybe 15-25% if I want to be really really generous.
    I am pretty sure that these median prices include all sales including condos. Re Report says that SFHs have come down more than condo’s, which is very surprising to me. But they also have all these other problems with their data that [anon.ed] points out which make them very suspect.
    Trulia and DataQuick seem much more believable and seem to generally agree with each other. It is possible that Trulia uses DQ as their source of data though.

  22. NVJ, I was looking at the graph you linked to! Here it is:
    http://graphs.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/graph.png?version=287&width=600&height=250&type=qma_median_sales_price&city=San+Francisco&state=CA&exclude=1|2|3|4&period=5
    835k to 590k.
    Regardless, we’re talking medians here. Who knows what Trulia’s data is. The various sources in this thread show something like 20-33% down for medians. Factor in continuing improvement in the housing stock (ie medians are not apples). Factor in 8% inflation since summer 2007. Factor in countless “apples” all over the city showing big declines. You can disagree with my 25-40% estimate for the sweet spot of the decline, but it certainly has some pretty solid support and is not pulled out of thin air.
    Not Vallejo, but pretty bad.

  23. Sure if you throw inflation in there.
    I thought you were talking about nominal price changes.
    I am not sure that there really is a continuous improvement in the housing stock but it might be true. An “apple” from 2000 that has not has its kitchen updated is not really an apple anymore, especially if the kitchen was new in 2000. Now it is a house with a 12 year probably badly dated kitchen in need of a remodel.
    Entropy tends to make things fall apart just as fast as we can fix them up. I agree that there was a lot of fixing up during the boom, but there is definitely much less going on now. The overall housing stock in San Francisco is probably not improving anymore and might even be falling back a bit.

  24. ^ Yeah. It’s all relative. Improvement is ongoing but what was new in 2007 maybe won’t even look that good in five years. (Especially that candy apple lacquered thing that happened. Think about it;)) The claim that housing stock is in general more markedly improved right now, at this very moment, is specious. Hell, there wasn’t even any construction money to be had year ago. And there hasn’t been much in the way of home equity lines for over three years.

  25. Everything is deteriorating at all times. Varying degrees of refurbishment are occurring at all times on any given city block. Credit availability generally effects the frequency and level of refurbishment in cities. Do you disagree with any of those statements? Also, did you not participate in the Prop 13 discussion?

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