Having been rebuilt, remodeled and expanded to 3,500 square feet, the modernized Mission District Victorian at 948 Hampshire Street traded hands for $3.8 million in December of 2015.

The new kitchen is outfitted with a marble waterfall island, dual Thermador ovens and an operable wall of glass, perfect for preparing a Thanksgiving feast.

Listed for $3.8 million, or roughly $1,085 per square foot, this past March, 948 Hampshire Street withdrawn from the MLS and listed anew for $3.9 million in June. And having been reduced to $3.495 million early last month, the five-bedroom home remains on the market priced at $998 per foot.

On this day of thanks, here’s to hoping your stoves are warm, your pantry is plentiful and your table is overflowing with family and friends. Safe travels if you are, we’ll see you next week.

20 thoughts on “Food for Thought”
  1. Facadism of the most unappealing sort. $3.5 million for the most modest house, given white box treatment, and on a most modest street, just a block from SF General Hospital, offering sounds of the city ambulances all day and night. The interior walls have been removed from the main floor and expensive appliances installed. Two bedrooms behind the garage, and more on what was the attic floor.

    However, I and others on SocketSite have made these criticisms before. Flippers will not stop doing this until the market forces them to stop, so we are stuck with this aesthetically bankrupt business model for the foreseeable future.

    1. The proof is in the pudding. While you may not like it, the majority of people do. That’s why it sells. People like a bright, clean feeling of white. They like the ability to see each other across the room or to host cohesive parties in one room, not fragmented into four small ones. They like whizbang appliances. They like lots of small bedrooms, which do the job with an efficient use of space.

      1. “The proof is in the pudding. While you may not like it, the majority of people do. That’s why it sells.”

        Except it’s NOT selling. It’s been on the market for 10 months in a very hot market.

        “People like a bright, clean feeling of white.”

        Until they get tired of it as they did after the 1980’s. Maybe people are tired of it again.

        1. If you review every recent sale in SF, as I do, there is an obvious difference in the price per square foot of a new, modern, white, open floor plan space like this vs say a 1905 Victorian, or a 1965 condo. Places like this will routinely be $1000-1500 per square foot. 1905 Victorians will be closer to $750-$900.

          1. I agree with you, PP. While I appreciate the detail and street savvy of Victorian facades, I have little interest in living in Great Aunt Maribella’s collection of windowless, dark, and gaudy museum display for 1895.

      2. You must have a financial or other interest in this property to say such silly things. What studies prove that “the majority of people” like this?

        Over history, including the history of Modernism, what you call the “bright clean feeling of white” has never been a predominant taste for houses. If you have ever been in a good large house, say in the northern part of the city, you would not feel any lack of “ability to see each other across the room.”

        I have never met anyone in any country who prefers “lots of small bedrooms” instead of lots of large bedrooms.

        1. I personally do not like the style, but the proof is that this has neo-modern style has been the trend for the last few years, and generally these sort of homes have sold for very high prices–there is the proof right there. Also, you must be smart enough to realize that “flippers,” developers, etc. have no vested interest in designing a home according to their tastes, they design according to whatever is the latest trend in an attempt to appeal to it and sell at the highest price. It is just business, not an artistic ideology.

          Finally, let’s not be tin-foil hat conspiracists. Just because someone posts an opinion that you may disagree with, it does not mean they have some concealed interest or hidden agenda. Whoever owns this home has better things to do (like, you know, actually selling it) rather than coming on this site to argue with a handful of strangers whose minds they would not be able to change even if they wanted to.

          1. Flippers have an interest in designing what will bring the largest net profit. It is cheaper to use the white-box model than a more sophisticated and expensive (and perhaps more contemporary) model which might sell for an even higher price but the net profit might be less. This is euphemistically called “value engineering” and is the bane of serious architects concerned with beauty and permanence.

            I agree with you that flippers are in it for the money and the money alone. In Los Angeles, we have been told by posters on socketsite, there is a preference for conservation and so flippers there conserve. The question is why is so-called sophisticated San Francisco burdened with white boxes.

    2. When I read your post Conifer I read your first word as “fadism”. I wish they would stop calling these houses “Victorians”. They have a Victorian facade but that is where the Victorian style ends. The rest of it is sheetrock walls and ceilings with cookie cutter generic kitchens and bathrooms and a bland design that appeals to the new San Franciscan.

      I remember the “Richmond specials” of the 70’s – houses and apartment boxes that were cheaply built and said ticky tacky all over them. Now those are selling in the $1million range despite the derision heaped upon them when they were new.

        1. The facade was preserved. The entire rest of the house is not Victorian. My point was that even calling it a “modernized” Victorian mislabels it.

          1. OK. Yeah, I take your point. You’re right. The planning department won’t sign off on facade alteration without taking years off sponsors’ lives, so that’s why that is. The marketing language is pretty subjective stuff to critique, for me, ymmv.

  2. Interesting – very average properties in the Richmond District are now getting $1000+ regularly. I am torn on this one, as if I am disgusted by the gutting of the Victorian but I think they did an ok job with it, considering (but still find that in such bad taste). Could it be that people finally realized the Mission was not going to pick up it’s game and become fully gentry?

  3. Something wrong with the staging here. Should be white chairs. And no fruit, should be marshmallows.

    House reminds me of the video game Unfinished Swan. Makes me think I need to throw some paint around to figure out where I am.

  4. Are you sure the island counter top is marble? And the rest of the counters? If so, I would hate to even walk in or use the kitchen. Not much of a cook here but practicality would dictate my hands would leave smudge prints all over those cabinets.

    I put in new new white quartz w/ marble-like veining counter tops in my kitchen and they do not hide a tiny drop of tea/coffee stain. Fortunately they are very easy to wipe off and clean.

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