722 Steiner Street

Originally built for Matthew Kavanaugh, the developer of San Francisco’s Postcard Row, the 4,700-square-foot Victorian at 722 Steiner Street had been slated for demolition in the 1970’s prior to being rescued and restored.

Listed for sale in early 2010 asking $3,999,999, the Postcard Row home at the corner of Steiner and Grove was withdrawn from the market at the end of 2010 asking $2,950,000.

In default since early 2011 on a $1,740,000 mortgage from 2007, the owner of 722 Steiner survived three scheduled foreclosure auctions over the past three years, either by way of mutual agreement or bankruptcy filings.

Returned to the market this past March listed for $4,000,000, the asking price for 722 Steiner was reduced to $3,500,000 in April. And yesterday, the sale of 722 Steiner Street closed escrow with a reported contract price of $3,100,000.

9 thoughts on “Postcard Row Home Sells For $3.1 Million”
  1. Not my style at all and I could never live in a house with that level of Victorian frou-frou, but this strikes me as an extremely low price. $660/psf. I wonder if it’s got big structural/foundation issues (unclear from the posts what was involved in the 70s restoration).

  2. this place needs a lot of love. glad to see someone is going to put the effort into it.

    @shza: the projects are only a block away, and you constantly have people staring in your window from the park… i’m surprised it went for this much.

  3. @wyatt: i toured the place when it was on the market, and i don’t recall it needing a lot of love. i live a block away and walk past this place multiple times a day. great home, with functional gas lamps and an inlaw to boot.

  4. Congratulations to the owner, who I see in Alamo Square regularly.

    The neighborhood has been having tremendous appreciation and this home has downtown views. As to tourists “staring in your window from the park,” unless you are having sex in the window you’ll have plenty of privacy. 🙂

  5. Beautiful house at good price. Some of the reasons for the discount:

    – Typical $3.5-4m+ buyer is overwhelmingly looking at Pac Heights/Russian Hill/Cow Hollow with a few in SoMa and a few in Noe
    – Probably quite a bit of deferred maintenance behind the plaster (pipes/electrical/structural)
    – I’m betting a good chunk of that square footage is in the roofline and in the inlaw unit. Minus that you are probably at 2800sqft in the two middle floors
    – Does the inlaw come with (someone else’s) inlaw?

  6. It’s silly to say this house “needs a lot of love”. It has been well cared for for decades. If you want modern thoroughly modern electrical, thoroughly modern plumbing (plastic), sure you could spend a lot of money on it. It’s an old house, a well-maintained, somewhat modernized old house.

    And “the projects” are two blocks away and vastly improved since the police moved the drug trade out of the area.

  7. Sorry, “a lot of love” might not have been the best way to articulate what I was trying to say. It’s a well-maintained, BUT 30+ year old renovation in a great historic house. However, it’s probably not a place that someone willing to part with 3mm is going to want to move right in to without doing a fair amount of work. Carpets will probably go, windows will probably be replaced, bathrooms will be updated, kitchen will be expanded, access from the garage will probably change… etc.

    Mix that with the safety concerns of living this close to the projects (last time I walked by the house I heard someone get shot – no joke), add in the visibility in the public eye, and you can imagine that a buyer is going to want to pay less than the 1000 p/sf that this property would easily command in a different location.

  8. * should have noted the last time I walked by AT NIGHT.

    I love Alamo Square and the neighborhood… it just would be hard for me to buy a house on this side of it.

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