3550-3554 24th Street at night
3350-3354 24th Street
3350-3354 24th Street

The three-unit Inner Mission Edwardian on the corner Bartlett and 24th Streets has been renovated from top to bottom in a contemporary aesthetic while maintain its 1900’s façade.

3350 24th Street Kitchen

On the market as three Tenancy in Common (TIC) units with the top floor “in contract,” the 1,656 square foot middle unit (3352 24th Street) has been priced at $1,595,000 and the 1,394 square foot bottom unit (3354 24th Street) is priced at $1,295,000.

From the photographer, Antonio White of AWMAsf, with respect to the headline shot above: “[This] photo may set the benchmark for real estate sales photography in San Francisco, we invite you to judge for yourself.”

We’re extending the invitation.

36 thoughts on “An Invitation To Judge (And Peek Inside)”
  1. Half of the frame in the headline shot is occupied by pedestrian crosswalks. The building itself occupies 12.5% of the frame. If I was the seller I would want the home highlighted, not the surrounding skies. I am being hypercrictical, but it seems like an invitation. Run out into the intersection for the shot next time.

    Looks like a nice place. I would not choose the modern inside/classic outside style, but I am not the intended buyer. Good luck to the sellers – seems reasonable given the market!

    1. I see your point. I do not think you are being too critical. You make a good case.

      We had tons of competition so we wanted something that was different. All the photos these days seem like they’re shot by the same person. Very cookie-cutter. We tried to add a little cinematic drama. “Ed” is as much about the location as it is about the property. We we’re hoping people would be intrigued enough to click the photo and learn more.

      Thank you for your thoughtful comment.

  2. WRT self serving photographer’s quest, give me a break. Seriously. It’s at best an ok photo. Go look at photo books of published urban landscape photographers to see “good.”

    Now on to something more interesting. I wonder how much of a buy out the hang-out-on-the-front-steps tenants got to vacate? Or was it ellised? Anyone in the know?

    1. Hello P.A.M. Thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear you’re not blown away by my photo. 😉 To answer your question, the house was rebuilt from the foundation up, except for the facade, due to a fire that started next door and pretty much devastated the property. Luckily nobody was hurt. The owners did not want to sell, but the cost of the reconstruction and market timing influenced the decision. They owned the property for over 20 years and have been living in the Mission for over 40 years. No one was evicted.

      1. I don’t care about evictions. And I know the place was empty due to fire. I’m interested in knowing approx. how much the tenants got in buy outs, as the new plan was to add the fancy garage and fix the place up to the tits. That’s all.

        1. Thanks for your clarification. I’m sorry I confused your intent. I’m not at liberty to discuss the arrangement with the tenants beyond what I have already offered.

          1. Given the major reconstruction work done on the building, did a new occupancy permit get issued? I realize that these flats are being sold TIC, but if the owner decides to rent out their flat later on would these still be under rent control?

          2. SFcit- yup, still under RC. If they were able to get new occupancy/new constr, they would be selling them as condos, not tic’s.

    2. P.A.M, what do you mean by “hang-out-on-the-front-steps tenants”? If you’re so familiar with the block to know the behavior of the previous tenants, you must have known the building was burned in a fire ~2 years ago.

      If you didn’t [know the previous tenants], then I’m not sure what your implication is here.

      1. Maybe because someone who always had a giant parrot on his shoulder used to hang out On the steps all the time? It’s a natural question really. How about you don’t judge others lest yet be judged. Internet people. Hah.

  3. So he used the Instragram “alien mothership invasion” filter, big whoop…

    The photo basically makes it hard for me to see details on the building, hard to determine its true color, and offers numerous distractions for the eye. It dos indeed set a new standard for real estate sales photography, but not, I think, in the way that the photographer intended.

    (Miss the “Giants” captcha – particularly since they’re doing so well right now. If the season starts tanking as of today, I’m blaming the Socketsite redesign.)

    1. No animals were harmed, nor filters used during the production of this shot. Sorry you disagree with my claim, but very thankful you took the time to comment. We had tons of competition, so we tried to push for something different. Not everyone agrees.

      I’ll have to check out that filter, though, it might have saved me a lot of time. 🙂

  4. If the photographer is asking about the quality of the new, typically boring, too sanitized interior shot then it’s great

    1. Love your comment..but only referring to the “Title Shot”…going for a cinematic look to help contrast from other competing properties. You do have a point though about the interiors. 🙂

  5. The exterior picture is great. There aren’t enough pictures shot and used during the blue hour in my opinion.

    I like the interior picture in that it doesn’t feel like it’s photoshopped and it captures the feel of the room. well

    1. Thanks so much for your kind words. The sky is real and required a lot of patience and a bit of luck to capture what we did. No filters were used on any of the photos. I agree that too many shots relay on photoshop and have a otherworldly look to them that’s unattractive to me.

      HDR shots are pervasive and lack a natural feel. I was originally worried that I should go along with the crowd, but I chose to leverage some great lighting and take my time to get everything “in-camera”. Of course there are little errors or adjustments that I made in photoshop, but people who come to the property will not feel like the photos misrepresented to property.

      Thanks again for your kind words.

  6. I’m an Architect and deal with photographers often. I dont mind the exterior photo, but I would not use to sell property or at the least, be the primary image. I might like it if I were on Facebook and feeling generous, but thats not often. Sunlight and a clear sky are pretty much all you need in my opinion. Less filters/ less artistic attempts and more focus on the property that is being sold. That is after all the intent.

    1. You’re a person after my own heart! 🙂 No filters were used to produce any of my images.

      I very much see your point and spent a great deal of time thinking if I should travel the route you mention. The main promotional plan for this property was/is social media. People see the same types of shots for these properties all day long, and they begin to all look the same. We tried a one-two punch by adding a dramatic twist up front that focused on the mood and vibe of the neighborhood as much as the property’s place within it, then hoped that folks would be intrigued enough to click and explore inside.

      Time will tell if the approach paid off. I’ll keep you posted.

      Many thanks for your consideration.

  7. I’m less interested in the photos than in the property, and what it portends for the TIC market. The renovation is well done, though the plywood walls may be too idiosyncratic for some.

    I figure these units would probably sell for about $1200/sqft as condos. Will the same properties as TICs with no realistic prospect of condo conversion still clear the $1000 mark? If so, the 10 year moratorium on condo conversion isn’t going to put much of a dent in the market for tenant buyouts and/or Ellis-able properties. (But if the courts uphold the recent increase in mandatory “relocation” payments, that might yet make a difference.)

  8. With less and less opportunities to convert TICs into Condos, TICs are becoming the new condos. The sale price will tell us if we’re getting close to that point. TICs were the way to get into the market with a median income. The unintended consequence of TIC conversions restrictions is to make TICs more expensive.

    About the buy-out price, I think it’s clear nobody in the deal will reveal this amount and we’re unlikely to ever know, except if someone was a bit too chatty.

    Personally I like the headline shot. This is a home we are talking about and a picture like this can be a powerful way to show what coming back to your home will be like even on a gloomy day. You’re coming back to the warmth and light of a welcoming place.

    Excellent timing, good seller market. The landlord benefitted from less-punishing conditions. All good conditions that help create these wonderful homes. The new rules that are being created at a steady clip will make everything more expensive while doing nothing to keep current tenants in.

    1. They did their buy out ~3 years ago, so probably paid a modest $10-20k/unit to get all the bare foot hipsters out. I think north of $1000/ft is a bit rich, but we’ll see what happends. At any rate I’m not complaining. I’m done investing in the over priced mission, but I sure is glad to have properties here!

      And yeah, tic = new condo…especially in this “sharing economy”!!!

      1. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information about the buyout, but I assure you that the building owner has been a professional property manager in SF for over 40 years with over 500 units under his management and this was one of his top performing properties on a sq/ft basis, so there was no incentive to sell before the fire.

        Going over the area comps, we could have easily priced this at the very top of the market with all the extra finishes, but you’re right, a TIC is not a Condo, which is why the price may seem comparatively low when compared to a Condo, although fractional ownership financing is now a far easier type of loan to compared to even a few years ago. We will see what happens as the sales discussions progress.

        The good news for the owners is that the marketing work has drove a huge amount of traffic to the Open House on Sunday and there’s definitely a buzz with over a dozen serious discussions underway. Tomorrow’s broker tour and twilight tour will be an even better indication of what to expect moving forward. The home is really top notch and very thoughtfully designed and crafted. A lot of care was put into every detail, which is the big reason why we tried to push some new ideas on the marketing side.

        Thanks for taking time to post your comments.

        1. My comment on the buy outs is based on common sense and has got nothing to do with the LL managing many units or not. There is no correlation.

          As for price, you are at the top end of tics in the mish. And I did say that tics are becoming almost like condos these days due to the ban on new condo conversions as well as the potential changes to the Ellis act, making rental to tic conversions more difficult.

          I’m talking about facts and market knowledge, not some marketing hype and photo BS. Let’s keep it real, bro.

      2. 4 years ago I considered buying a building on Capp with long term tenants. All of them were paying 30 to 40% of the market rent of that time. The “suggested” buy outs were in the range of 40K to 60K per unit. Now they would be closer to 100K. What made me reconsider these deals was when a fat cat colleague of mine started bragging about his own cash out. I felt I was participating into an immoral game. Buy-outs are basically blackmail operations. “if you don’t pay me fatly you’ll have to Ellis me”. Of course now even doing an Ellis will cost you ransom money. This is very seriously f#%ed-up.

        1. Doesn’t eviction (Ellis or not) leave unfavorable notes on the evictee’s credit report? If so, the buy-out vs Ellis choice becomes a stare-down, then? “Either I buy you out for $30k and you leave without a mark on your credit report, or you get Ellis-evicted, get $50k (as an example), but with a bad credit event that will stay on your credit report for the next 7 (?) years.”

          Or am I more worried about credit reports than normal people?

          1. jack – The buyout amounts are taxable to the tenant. Getting a 1099 for 60k or 100k will be a nice impact to the tax return.

        2. Thanks for your anecdotal info lol. But 60k sounds high for 4 years ago…unless they are A-hole tenants that just want to extract max money. Most tenants are cooler than that, if you approach them nicely about it.

          Have you done buy outs before? What’s your or others you know experience been like?

          1. I have never done buy-outs, but have backed off from a deal while trying to do one last year. It was in the range of 100K/unit. This is when I refocused my resources to Europe. I did also start to negociate on a place in 2010 with numbers pretty close to the ones I gave you.

            Buy-outs are completely immoral. A person saves 10000s a year with your rental then you have to pay him off?

            No wonder some TICs are reaching $1000/sf: the people who contributed nothing even get their cut.

    2. The photo challenge was a bit tongue in cheek, or perhaps in my case, foot in mouth. 😉

      I’m very grateful for your kind words about the photos. You nailed it on the head about what I was trying to convey about the experience of coming back from work to a welcoming home. Lots of people think I used filters to achieve the affects, but I did it the old fashioned way, with careful exposure, lots of patience and a bit of good luck.

      Thank again for taking time to post your comments.

  9. While the first photo indeed provides a lot of fantastic color, the building itself is relegated to the far background. I’m a much bigger fan of the third photo for the purposes of selling real estate. It still provides great color and provides much better contrast. The building really pops in that photo. The slight yellow tint of the interior lighting contrasts well against the blue sky. While the photo may have less artistic merit than the first, it makes the place looks really inviting.

    1. Thank you for your comment. You have a very good point (thank you for your nice words as well).

      At smaller sizes, the main exterior shot is harder to read, and in those cases we use the tighter shot that you pointed out. For Social Media Posts, where we can have larger shots, the more cinematic shot, showing of a bit more of the neighborhood has proven effective. I see your point about the yellow tint…fun fact…when I made that shot, I was so focused on the building that I didn’t even realize the moon was just in the top left corner of the building. I literally got “Mooned” while taking the photo. 😉

  10. For the 13 years we have lived in our completely unremodeled VIctorian flat, I have wanted nothing more than a separate dining room. Apparently, I am the only person who feels this way as it seems that were we to move it would be difficult at best to find a flat where the walls had not been torn down to bring the dining room and living room into the kitchen. Guess we’ll stay where we are and pretend to have been trendsetters.

    1. Thanks for your comment. Like you, my home also has the traditional layout and I find it cozy. The only challenge is when we have guests over and don’t get to visit too much with them while I’m cooking. In that vein, an open layout could be fun.

      1. Different times, different needs. I am lucky I like the victorian layout of my place.

        An anecdote: when I bought my Haussmann place in Paris I wanted the “right” floor (3rd), the “right” layout (formal entrance but no corridors), the “right” facade, but it was very hard find the right exposure for the balcony.

        The reason: in the 1800s drapes were expensive and non-colorfast. Direct sunlight would discolor them, even with extra shades. The best apartments on the Boulevards almost all faced North. Yikes. Different times indeed.

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