2701 Van Ness Avenue #409

As we wrote this past August:

Purchased for $639,000 in early 2009 after which the kitchen was completely remodeled and an electrical subpanel moved, the 785 square foot number 409 in the Marina Chateau at 2701 Van Ness Avenue returned to the market in late 2010 asking $649,999.

Withdrawn from the market a month later having failed to find a buyer, the one-bedroom has now returned to the market listed for “$525,000” as a short sale but without any mention of being pre-approved at that price (and “no longer staged”).

And no, that’s not the official bedroom above.

The sale of 2701 Van Ness Avenue #409 has closed escrow with a reported contract price of $525,000, 17.8 percent below its price in early 2009 prior to the new kitchen.

56 thoughts on “Marina Chateau Vintage 2009”
  1. Ah, another young couple loses their life’s savings and departs.
    They bought at “the bottom”, suffered through, and paid for, a kitchen remodel, and then lost everything.
    We’ve seen this again, and again. Things looked cheap in 2009. The market looked like it was going up. And it probably did go up for a while.
    But in the long run, prices fall to where people’s incomes can support the payments. That’s the cold hard reality.

  2. They put 3% down…. but I guess $22k was their “life’s savings”.
    As for the bottom and top of the market – D7 suffered it’s first losses with the Q4 2008 financial collapse. But per tipster, these buyers just assumed 3 months later was the bottom of the market.
    Meanwhile, in SOMA/SoBeach, which had been dropping for a while (later than the rest of the country, but earlier than areas like D7) it may well have been the bottom back then – it sure as hell was for the stock market. In general, the earlier you declined, the earlier you recovered.
    D7 1 bedrooms only began to decline in late ’08. IMHO they have now bottomed, and this will end up being a good buy for the new buyer. That a buyer paid over $600k for this place in 2009? Well, tipster isn’t the only idiot on the planet.

  3. “They put 3% down…. but I guess $22k was their “life’s savings”.”
    Could have been – there are an awful lot of posers in SF, especially in the Marina.
    Regardless whether it was a significant chunk of savings for them, look on the bright side. They got a nice credit ding from the foreclosure as well! They also probably paid through the nose for the remodel.
    This worked out the way a 2009 purchase was supposed to.

  4. Being that all the discussions here and elsewhere still focus around homes as an investment rather than a place to live, we surely have not seen the bottom
    A home is not an investment, retirement income account, or printing press. It is a place to live and an economcic liability to boot.
    You can rent a ~1000 sqft Pac Heights apartment (with parking) for nearly half the total PITI and HOA needed for an equivalent condo on the same block.
    Just saying

  5. “That a buyer paid over $600k for this place in 2009? Well, tipster isn’t the only idiot on the planet.”
    Funny to hear r/e people call a buyer an idiot. I’m sure that is not what his/her realtor was telling them when they bought it.

  6. This place has sucked since day one. It’s not even the marina. But it always felt like D7’s Beacon to me.

  7. So hangemhi now believes that this is the bottom for that area, and that in 2009 when they bought, things had barely moved downwards? Really?!
    Let’s review what he posted in the prior thread on this same property:
    $639,000 for an unremodeled 1BR at the bottom of the market is crazy. that was a time to bargain hunt, not fire and then aim.
    that said, $525k is exceptionally low for a GGB view condo of this size and location. so the open question is whether or not the bank will approve an offer at this price.
    Posted by: hangemhi at August 15, 2011 3:33 PM
    Ha ha!!! A clearer statement that 2009 was “the bottom” was never made last August. Yet, 7 months later, now that prices have fallen even more, well, I guess prices had barely budged downwards!!
    But don’t worry, NOW, now he’s sure we’re at the bottom. Therefore, prices will again be heading up, up, up.
    I hate to say it again, but: Read! For Realtors! READ what you you yourself wrote!

  8. My point in that sentence is abundendtly clear if you simply place yourself in that buyers shoes AT THAT TIME. March 2009 – the end of the world, financial armageddon, all hell was breaking loose and people were running for the hills. What were YOU buying then? Can you imagine yourself making any big purchase back then and not DEMANDING a major, major deal? A vacation rental, airfare, a car, a loaf of bread? People were crawling into holes back then – THAT is the “bottom of the market” I was referring to as anyone without an agenda or a screw loose would see.
    March 2009 was the “bottom of the market” in so many ways – the overall economy, jobs, the stock market – and yes, many parts of the SF RE market. Yet someone chose to “fire and then aim” as I put in many months ago.
    Tipster – if I could get paid for posting your flat out lies over the years I’d have a full time job. You are such a f-ing loser it is amazing. Now back to your stock picks – lets go dig that post up – all of your hated stocks up twice that of the market at large. Great going financial genius.

  9. @tipster: Read! For Realtors! READ what you you yourself wrote!
    I’m still not convinced you’re not the read really commentor.

  10. Anyone have any idea how much they wasted, err, I mean “invested”, in the kitchen remodel and electrical work?

  11. “I’m still not convinced you’re not the read really commentor.”
    Look man!
    I/we/Tipster full on faked the moon landing too!
    Ya thinks thats a one man job?
    Installing all those SmartMeters that emit troll radiation thats makes guys think ya can actually lose money in RE? A one man job? Really?
    FWIW, its clear that hangemhi thoughts they paid top-o-da-market price in 2009 for that place.
    But nobody, Really! nobody, reads “the bottom of the market ” whence talking about a specific property to mean “the overall economy, jobs, the stock market – and yes, many parts of the SF RE market.” and excludes the part of the SF market said property is actually in.

  12. Eddy,
    Why lie? Bad job*. 🙂
    I’m not R for R, but boy does that phrase come up a lot in my postings!
    I’m thinking “debate” was not one of the subjects on the realtor exam.
    *inside joke/play on a different thread. No insult intended to eddy, and does not mean to imply he lied or did anything wrong-just parroting other language on the earlier thread.

  13. hangemhi- if we could get paid for posting the flat out lies of realtors over the years the country would have zero unemployment…
    yes, poking fun at your comment — but actually a lot of truth there — it is truly an industry full of flat-out lies…

  14. avgconsumer – I’d like to stack those “lies” against the claims SS posters make about the circumstances of a transaction when they have no credible evidence whatsoever. I bet they’d be fairly close.
    I’ve lost count of the number of times a poster has claimed a realtor told a client something with no evidence whatsoever to back up that claim.

  15. I see, so “bottom of the market” must mean the particular market the condo was in….. please tell me exactly what market that would be? Would it be the City of SF, or the entire Bay Area? Or would it be D7? Or Cow Hollow? Or is it only Condos in Cow Hollow? Or only 1Bd condos? Or only 1Bd condos in very large buildings on loud busy streets? Or was it the 1Bd’s in this building with GGB views and parking vs. the ones with no views and no parking (because that is how diverse this particular building is).
    Which one, because I really, really want to know which part of the market I called a bottom in? Or isn’t LOGICAL that I was referencing someone paying a HUGE price during a time when everyone thought we were entering a Great Depression??????
    As for Realtors lying… nice try. I’m pointing out one liar here, and I can go back and pull up specific lies by him from many, many comments – I know because I called him a liar on many of them – like his claims that all buyers were getting lower prices than what was stated because all buyers were getting closing cost credits – yes, he said that, a bunch of times because he heard of one or two anecdotes and extrapolated it to the entire market. Your proof against me? That I’m a Realtor. Wow. #Fail on your debating skills. All blonds are dumb, all Americans are loud, all SS commenters are losers.

  16. ^At least one SS commenter makes pathetic arguments that just digs him in deeper and deeper.
    Dude, just admit you were wrong and move on.
    Things went up after March of 2009 for a bit and it looked like that was the bottom, but then they fell below that, so we have a new bottom.
    No biggie, I’ve stated several times it won’t be a straight shot down. The decline is being managed, and it isn’t a perfect process. They’ll put in place programs to keep prices from falling too fast, and then hit an updraft somewhere and so they’ll let a little more air out. Then prices will fall too fast and they’ll prop them up a little more than they were.
    The whole thing is being controlled, yet with outside influences gaining here, losing there. There will be lots of false bottoms. Lots of people will be fooled. Doesn’t mean you are a looser, it just means you’ll lose money.
    Like these people did.

  17. Another day in tipster’s Fantasy Island. Inventory is extremely low, prices are holding on OK, the world is not ending, all shoes had dropped 3 years ago already.
    Time to change the air purifier on your underground doomsday bunker, it’s getting a bit stale in here. Or better, open the hatch and enjoy the day.

  18. “Things went up after March of 2009 for a bit and it looked like that was the bottom, but then they fell below that, so we have a new bottom.”
    Ah yes, this is the double dip you’ve been speaking of. I’ll take two scoops of whatever your having. 🙂

  19. Government managing economy for a soft landing leading to “false bottoms”? From a control theory standpoint tipster’s assertion makes a lot of sense.

  20. We may in fact be in the dawn of looming a recession. Riholtz is one of the better voices out there. Roubini has gone off the deep end a bit. It’s significantly less clear the the next recession will have the same, or even a similar, impact on housing like it did in 2008 when housing was at the heart of the crisis. Although you could certainly argue that housing is still in play. I think the subject of housing will be a hot topic for a while but that doesn’t mean its going to get clobbered again anymore than it would take off.
    Also from ibitimes: 5 Ill-Fated Celebrity Marriages That Ended In Divorce

  21. Tippy: I don’t think we’re headed to a recession, but.. if you’re arguing that we are, at least use someone more balanced than Roubini. Heck, he makes you look optimistic..
    Also, that article is referencing his prediction from 6 months ago.. so not exactly fresh.
    And ‘never been wrong in 15 years’ isn’t all that great. ECRI has been saying we’re heading imminently into another recession for six months.. When do we get there?

  22. “Also from ibitimes: 5 Ill-Fated Celebrity Marriages That Ended In Divorce”
    Errr? What?
    Does ibtimes have any relation to the ECRI?
    Who cares what other stories they link to?
    And if you would Read! rather then just talk out your eddy youd see they sourced the money bit to the NYT:
    “Perhaps more importantly, the ECRI has issued no false alarms in the last 15 years, according to the New York Times.”

  23. Tipster: “BTW, everyone is blasting ECRI for their prediction, even the bear blogs. But ECRI has never been wrong in 15 years.”
    HAHAHAHAHA!!
    Reading For Realtors: And if you would Read! rather then just talk out your eddy youd see they sourced the money bit to the NYT: “Perhaps more importantly, the ECRI has issued no false alarms in the last 15 years, according to the New York Times.”
    HAHAHAHAHA!!!
    There is more to reading then just looking at the words. Sometime understanding and context is needed.
    No false calls in 15 years? So that is since 1997. That means they called the 2001 and the 2007-2009 recessions. But why do they use the 15 year mark? Since they have been around longer then 15 years that really implies they got one wrong 15 years ago. So they are probably 2 of 3 in the last 15 years. So they have been wrong 33% of the time the last three calls. Throw in the fact that six months ago they were predicting we were already in or about to enter a recession and they have called four of the last two recessions. I can totally see why you two are mocking others questioning that.

  24. “HAHAHAHAHA!!!”
    Darn Autocorrect!!
    You meant to say
    “AAAAAHHHHH!!! I can’t Read!!!!!!
    Where’s that DRE to GRE class again????”
    Founded in 1996
    http://www.businesscycle.com/aboutecri/history
    Hadn’t heard of ECRI guys before but
    “Our track record in forecasting cycle turning points has been unparalleled for decades. The Economist magazine noted in 2005 that: “ECRI is perhaps the only organisation to give advance warning of each of the past three recessions; just as impressive, it has never issued a false alarm.””
    carries a lot more weight than some shilliness about an unrelated site linking to Celebrity Marriages!

  25. Read! then Talk!
    “Q: Typically, how long after the beginning of a recession does the BCDC declare that a recession has started? After the end of the recession?
    A: The committee’s determination of the peak date in December 2007 occurred 11 months after that date and the committee’s action in determining the trough date of June 2009 occurred 15 months after that date. Earlier determinations took between 6 and 21 months. There is no fixed timing rule. The committee waits long enough so that the existence of a peak or trough is not in doubt, and until it can assign an accurate peak or trough date.”
    http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions_faq.html
    No results for a while
    Now if you want my scorekeeping skills, I’d give them the win on “about to enter on” within 1 year. Biff on say… more then 3 years. 1-3 Good Effort
    6mo-1year for a long term purchase like housing is nothing.

  26. So you’re saying they are correct and we’re in a recession, but we don’t know it yet? It’s kind of hard to know because your writing is so terrible.

  27. During the last recession, all the business channels were clamoring we WERE in a recession. The official declaration came a few months after as was expected.
    Right now, no mainstream business news source is saying we’re in a recession. Growth is > 2% per the latest #s, revisions were up, unemployment is improving (and again revisions were up.
    I think this is the usual broken clock crowd who want to party like it’s 2008. There are pills for that.

  28. RfR- so reading above, they have been around since 1996 or “decades” (one decade is ten years, two decades is twenty). They have also correctly called the last three recessions, yet there have only been two since 1996.

  29. Ah, more attempts by anoned to stop anything that doesn’t toe the realtor party line of “great time to buy!” He whines to the ed to delete posts. He says things like “stop writing.” And now he tries to claim “nobody reads your writing.”
    Better to try to suppress the facts than admit them, I suppose, if the facts are not what you want them to be!

  30. eddy,
    Riholz is a good find. They even had an update from ECRI.
    ECRI appears to merge a bunch of publicly available data into an index, but with a twist. They look for the rate of growth, the second derivative, (the rate of change of the rate of change) to slow. When the rate of growth slows dramatically, ECRI says a recession is unavoidable.
    I take it they are used to the heat. Their index is designed to read negative while the economy is still growing, so I suspect every prediction has been met with the same catcalls.
    It makes sense because the business owners really notice and cut back. And it becomes self fulfilling. So Salesforce senses the slowdown, skips the SoMa building and 200 architects, builders, plumbers, electricians, etc. now don’t get hired. Owners of the businesses those people work for make less too.
    I read the stats, and the stats say the economy is going up. Even ECRI’s index is up a bit, but they say it is from seasonal adjustment distortions from the last downturn being so severe.
    The seasonal adjustments normalize the numbers from one week to the next. If home sales between Christmas and new years always fall by 80%, you can seasonally adjust them by multiplying by 5 to get an idea of how housing sales are in that week compared to a normal week in July. They use the historical data to determine what the adjustment should be. If one year, housing sales fall by 99%, the seasonal adjustment will be increased to a weighted average of what it would have taken to multiply the sales in that week to the average sales for the year, so say that one bad year gets the adjustment to 10. The next year, they will multiply the number of sales that week by 10, and it will look fantastic, even if sales are off by 85%, making them worse than average.
    That’s what ECRI says is happening now. The seasonally adjusted numbers you see in the news, which includes some of the inputs to their index, are being distorted by the downturn in Q4 08 and Q1 09. They called the recession in Q3, so the distortions, which would affect the second derivative too, were not in those numbers, so they claim.
    I suppose we’re about to find out.

  31. “Riholz is a good find. They even had an update from ECRI.”
    Guy sure has the full on best intro to the Comment section I’ve ever seen!
    “Comments
    Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.”

  32. Tipster – you didn’t read my replies. Everyone else did. Typical of you – you can’t be wrong, so you just state that I’m wrong and you’re right. No need to think.
    As for your ECRI stuff – more “no need to think”. If ECRI is always right – guess what happens – it gets widely followed, everyone bets that way, and then it doesn’t happen. EVERY chartest said the stock market was going to correct recently…. it keeps going up. Why? Because that’s how the market works. Of course it will eventually correct – but the market is staying irrational longer then people can stay solvent. That’s the market. And that is the economy. ECRI can not always be right – it will eventually be wrong. And guess what, it is already wrong because it’s been predicting recession for many months while every data point has improved beyond their thresholds.
    ReadingforRealtors – I’ve stopped bothering with the delusional commenters on this site, and the site in general. I made the mistake of checking in a couple of days ago. So I have no idea if you’re a new schmo, or an old one with a new name. But your name alone tells me all I need to know – that you have no ability to be a critical thinker. You’re like the 3rd grade teacher who can tell 3rd graders where they’re wrong and get all cocky until you talk to someone who is actually educatated. So read my ECRI tip. You probably think my statement is simplistic. But of course you would because you know nothing about the markets. Or anything for that matter. Tell me your profession and I’ll read for you… I bet I’d do a better job than your delusion.
    Good riddance again… there is no value here. The smart ones are gone… long gone… and we’re left with Tipster, RFR and anon’ed. Barf

  33. WHoo boy, a realtor disagreeing with a recession call? Who would have expected that!?
    But attacking the credibility of some guy who has been right for 15 years? Kind of tough to do, even though we all understand that he could be wrong.
    Just for the heck of it, lets compare his 15 year perfect record with that of a realtor, in a single posting 7 months ago on the prior thread. Let’s see how the advice he gave on that posting would have helped the buyer of this place:
    – 2009 was the bottom of the market – it wasn’t.
    – The asking price for this place was too low – it wasn’t.
    – The bank was unlikely to approve the price – it did.
    I realize that ECRI could be wrong, and as I mentioned from the outset, everyone is lambasting him (he held steady on his prediction a day ago), but I’ll take his however imperfect prediction over that of a realtor who seems to put use his own self interest as the only input into his “predictions”.

  34. “- 2009 was the bottom of the market – it wasn’t”
    How would you know enough to say otherwise? Cite something when you say things like this, or keep your groundless opines to yourself.

  35. Thanks, but I prefer to be referred to as “socketsite’s own mad prophet of doom™”
    I’m gonna sing the doom song now.
    Goin’ cold turkey is hard. I keep getting the shakes.

  36. 50 percent down guy speaks! but hey you said that you would go away?
    You said you would go away, too fluj, but you just changed your screen name and came back. Multiple times.
    And this, after the “San francisco never took a hit and won’t either,” from you sort of makes his end of 2012 prediction better than yours in my book. Anyone who believed your prediction lost a lot of money. Anyone who believed his hasn’t lost one dime.
    I’d say you’re the one who should leave, but I’m getting tired of keeping track of all of your former screen names…

  37. This place is off 18% from “the bottom”, making the total loss much greater. Only a real estate agent could see “10-15” in those figures.

  38. tipster, there you go with your lies again. It’s not 18% off from “the bottom.” It’s 18% plus the cost of the new kitchen off from “the bottom.” Obviously anoned is the only one here who is “literate” in all things real estate with his spot-on “won’t take a hit” call and his mastery of elementary math.

  39. right, anoned, and NO other property in SF has seen a price decline. Just this one. Scare tactics are dead.

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