Purchased as a 1,300-square-foot house, with two bedrooms and two baths, for $760,000 in October of 2007, the Sunnyside home at 643 Mangels Avenue, just below Miraloma and to the west of Glen Park, resold for $527,000 in November of 2011.

Since completely rebuilt and expanded to 2,300 square feet, the now four-bedroom home, with three and one-half baths, designer finishes, newly framed views and a terraced yard with a built-in outdoor kitchen, seating and fire pit returned to the market listed for “$1.995 million,” or roughly $870 per square foot, last month.

And the sale of 643 Mangels has now closed escrow with a contract price of $2.75 million or roughly $1,190 per square foot, which would have made it the most expensive home in Sunnyside had the newly renovated 2,580-square-foot home at 110 Mangels, a few block closer to Glen Park BART, not quietly traded hands for $2.85 million this past February.

67 thoughts on “A near Record-Setting Sunnyside Sale”
  1. I thought Socketsite just cherry-picked the bad news, at least according to the cheerleaders, every time it accurately reports a sale that doesn’t match the narrative. This doesn’t seem like cherry-picking bad news.

  2. It should read “just below Miraloma Park and” – it’s a bit confusing as there is a Miraloma Drive on the other side of pneumonia gulch.

    1. It’s even more confusing when you look at the photos under “Neighborhood” on the listing web page. There are scenes from Ocean Avenue as well as Glen Park.

  3. $2.75 million and you enter the house in the middle of the kitchen? I am sure the architect who drew up the plans on orders from someone with no training said “don’t bother to put my name on this.”

    1. I actually think this is very practical, and am surprised more houses don’t do this now. In this kind of flow, the living room avoids street noise. But I would have closed off the porch by the front door so that it acts a natural place to put a shoe cupboard and hang jackets.

      1. I’m with anon – kitchens are prime socializing space these days. Putting the kitchen up front and center makes good sense. Omitting a coat closet doesn’t.

      2. A professional architect, one with design training, would have created a transition from public space to entertaining/private space.

        This looks like someone with no sense of space or foe said “I want it all open” and the engineer waved his wand of structural steel and made it happen.

        Just because the kitchen is the center of the modern home doesn’t mean you have a front door simply open into it with no sense of drama. It’s a warehouse with an island.

  4. Should make the other homeowners on the block happy. Geeze my parents are spinning right now….where ever they are.

      1. Sheesh. You’d think we lived in one of the many, many cities in America where it actually gets cold.

        People in Chicago and Minneapolis and Seattle have yards and would love to experience them in our 45 degree “winter”.

        1. In Chicago they would enjoy the hell out of that yard in summer

          In SF maybe a few weeks in October and sometimes in spring and summer for a few hours before the wind and fog

          1. Do you have a backyard in SF? I don’t, but many friends do, and we enjoy them year round.

          2. I have a backyard that I use year round. I’m originally from N.Y. so I find the complaints about SF being cold amusing. I do think in climates like Chicago and N.Y where there are seasons you’re cooped up all winter so you make a point of spending more time outdoors in the summer though.

          3. SFRealist

            I live on the Peninsula now but lived in SF for a long time and both sides of my extended family are from SF

            In general I did use a backyard and deck when I lived in the Mission and Noe Valley and not much when I lived in the Inner Sunset.

            In the old school folks hardly used yards in these foggy neighborhoods although this was a generational thing too.

          4. My grandfather was actually able to grow fog tomatoes and zucchini in the Excelsior but he was a determined sort of guy.

          5. Basically, the difference here is that with the micro-climates there is usually a better alternative to cold and foggy.

            In a Chicago or a Seattle, if it’s freezing or rainy that’s just the way things are. But here, if you have a cold and foggy back yard and you’re trying to get together with a group, someone probably has a yard somewhere with better weather. Or there’s a bar/restaurant somewhere with better weather.

            There’s just little reason to hang out in the cold and fog where there are nearly always better options.

        1. Me too.

          We are all such delicate creatures here, unable to function when it gets below 50 degrees. Lol

      1. I never heard of this term and I have lived here all my life. Seems like something you made up.

        1. Yes, other than Dave posting on this site I’ve never heard of it either.
          Dave is there a link to some historical reference for this term for this part of town?

          1. I have lived in Miraloma Park 24 years — heard the pneumonia gulch name early on (and it’s totally true, as I’ve had it 4 times).

          2. As some mentioned below, it is a real term used perhaps in older days – my retired 84 year old neighbor has lived here since the 60s and she often uses the term during summer when the fog is low and the winds are high.

          1. What is the exact area the term is intended to refer to? Miraloma is cold/windy because it is on top of a hill, not really a gulch.

          2. @Brisket – technically I assume it refers to the area on the southern flank of Mt. Davidson and the “gulch” across to Monterey and Ocean Avenues. It’s used more generally to refer to the Mt. Davidson area.

            My dentist a number of years ago, upon learning I lived on Mt. Davidson, said “eh, pneumonia gulch”. He was a lifelong San Franciscan. The finger of fog as some call rolls in from Ocean Beach and above Ocean Ave/ towards City College probably meteorologically/geograpically defines it. I live near the top of Mt. Davidson facing south and it’s quite a sight to see the fog roll in below and slowly rise to engulf the whole area.

          3. @Dave – Thanks, I’ll ask some old timers in the neighborhood about it. Definitely some radical microclimates above/below Mt. Davidson. As I say I’m down on Joost and some days I see the fog roll in below Monterey but doesn’t hit our block until later in the day as we’re at the bottom of the mountain essentially. I’m in West Portal once a week and quite often it will be sunny in Sunnyside but foggy/windy over there. We do get the strong West breeze off the ocean in the evenings though.

          4. @Brisket – yes exactly. We see it roll in then “fold” up the hill by first enveloping Joost and surrounding streets then slowly over a few hours working it’s way to the streets on the upper flank of Mt. Davidson. It can be 70 degrees, after one of those 3 day heat waves, in our backyard with the fog rolling in over Monterey. Two hours later it’s 55 degrees in the backyard.

          5. I always thought between Monterey and anything O’Shaughnessy adjacent.

    1. Not great. The fog line usually cuts off closer to Glen Park. It’s also in a wind tunnel that comes up over the hill from St Francis Wood. That backyard won’t be very enjoyable during the summer months.

      I walk by this house often and just commented the other day that I couldn’t believe it was listed at 2 million. I’m shocked it sold for as much as it did.

  5. This is a good example of what’s happening on the Southern end of the city. Most of the appreciation in the last 2-3 years happened at the lower end of the market and neighborhoods like Sunnyside, Excelsior, Portola, Crooker-Amazon boast several houses going for $1.5-2M in 2018.

    1. The lower end and middle end. Sunnyside may be the lower third tier, but Miraloma Park is middle third and it has seen a huge run-up in prices these past few years – especially if one is lucky enough to have a view.

      1. Miraloma got the spill-over demand from Glen Park and prices have been appreciating nicely. However, in terms of appreciation in percentage points, the Bayview, Excelsior and similar neighborhoods lead the city since about 2015. Before 2015, it was the Mission, Potrero etc. who lead the way.

      2. I think many care more about BART access than views. At least when I was looking I prefered Sunnyside for this reason

        1. It’s a personal choice. I couldn’t live without a view. The 36 bus is a quick ride to Glen Park BART or, going the other way, to Forest Hill Station.

        2. At this price point I think it is probably proximity to 280 that matters more than BART. I reckon 280 access is driving a lot of price appreciation in these hoods and others like Bernal.

          1. It’s the combination of BART and 280 access. I couldn’t tell you if I will be working in the city or down in the Peninsula 2-3 years from now. Same goes for my spouse. When you get real estate, you need to cover all your bases. Few spots offer better commuting options across the Bay Area than the Southern neighborhoods of SF.

          2. Agree on transportation. I think most people want quick access to downtown and the peninsula – where the jobs are.

  6. I know that I am kinda old (over 35) and sorta weird, but why does everyone want to live in a white sheetrock void without any walls these days? Also, I’ve been in a few of these Sunnyside specials, and they usually have nice Craftsman built-ins, brick fireplaces, and redwood wainscoting. I guess it all went into the dumpster.

  7. Not bad not great. I live on Joost a stones throw from this place and you see the fog roll in South of Monterey while it remains sunnier on the North side. The weather is no different in Glen Park.

    650 Joost recently sold for about 1200 per sf.

  8. These sale prices are bonkers. $1190/ft. and we are saying well it’s Glen Park spill-over.

      1. Sales this year in Glen Park have been pretty consistently over $1200/ft, so this make sense.

  9. Rates are higher and write offs are lower. Drip drop… Thousands of singles getting married and need to grow our of their rent controlled apartments or sell their tiny condo. This is a good neighborhood for kids and plenty of space. People are waiting and finding these neighborhoods. Prices will remain strong as the singles get married and need a house and not a tiny condo.

  10. This is simply a joke. Wake up people. I can’t wait till the market crumbles. It will all be thanks to the cult better known as Google. This time around I’ll be watching with a big bag af popcorn. We just went through this ten years ago. Shame on the greedy banks, the agents and the uneducated buyers. Come on man!

    I’m on the verge of selling all my property and leaving this state…

  11. Here we have another example of a modest house for a modest family being turned into a tasteless and disorganized white shoebox, this time without an architect at all. Now it sells for close to $3 million dollars, which will still buy a nice apartment in NYC or the better arrondissements in Paris.

    I am increasingly pessimistic. This cannot continue for much longer, but it is not clear what the outcome will be.

    1. Echoing Conifer’s comment….I am one of those who finally looked outside the Bay Area bubble and cashed out of almost all my San Francisco real estate to achieve an early retirement.

      I was just talking to a friend who still owns in the city and is considering an early retirement option, and I mentioned to him that he could sell his Cow Hollow home and purchase places in Maui (Kapalua), Indian Wells (The Reserve) and up at Mammoth Lakes and still have money left over from the sale of his home.

      Its a big beautiful world out there when you finally decide to look outside the 7 x 7.

      1. That’s how the market is supposed to work!

        I say this without intending offense: Please leave if the prices don’t make sense. A new arrival will gladly take your place! The city needs your space.

      2. Exactly. Aside from my pneumonia gulch “estate” I’ve sold all my BA investment properties. A number of years ago. Don’t regret it for a minute. More and more people are looking to greener pastures. Some for financial reasons. It’s easy to be house rich and cash poor in SF and folks retiring now with no defined benefit plan are often forced to leave to free up a large chunk of cash to supplement their SS and/or IRA monies.

        As to the Joost sale, what is happening to push prices up in Sunnyside, Miraloma Park and other areas are techy couples, mostly, who are unable to afford Noe or Cow Hollow or other more popular neighborhoods – having to “settle” for the SE hoods. Settle in quotes as a year ago a techy couple who paid way too much for a home not far from me said, during their open house/introduction to the neighborhood party, that they had to settle for Miraloma Park as prices in most of the better SF neighborhoods are crazy. Actually those prices are crazy here too – the Joost sale as a case in point.

        1. This will keep happening. Demand is there and flippers can make money by building out the bottom floors and adding square footage. A rundown 1400 square foot house goes for 1000/SQ foot. Flippers buys it and adds more square footage in the basement. And there is your profit. This will keep happening in these extended neighborhoods.

      3. Another typical cycle dynamic. Mirroring how as rising prices and the promise of profits bring buyers like moths to a flame in the upswing of the RE cycle, existing home owners see paper profits surge merely by staying pat. When things flatten out the though of selling out starts to creep in and when the down slope begins it brings the issue of ‘sell now or wait for the top of the next cycle’. Essentially supply gets pent up through the early part of the cycle and released towards the end.

        And consider that things such as a job relocation or early retirement are major lifestyle changes. And the time-frame that people take to make those moves are going to be much longer than a professional investor deciding to take some gains off the table.

  12. These type of remodels might maximize living space/bathrooms but don’t seem functional to me. Open concept kitchens where all your dirty dishes are on display.The garage is so small that it can only fit a car and nothing else. What about bikes, tools, etc? The entry way lacks closets for coats, vacuum cleaner, etc. The back yard is only accessible through interior rooms. How are you going to garden the backyard? You would have to push the lawn mower, compost container, etc through rooms.

  13. I’ll second all the comments above. No entry closet?? And to get to the backyard you have to walk down two flights from the living area?? Pass.

  14. I remember looking at our home’s value over history, sold for 6K in 1940 when first built and I noted that it had, despite pretty serious ups and down, on average, doubled in price every 10 years. But the thought of a simple Sunset rowhouse being worth 1.5 mil in 2020 seemed silly, and 3 mil in 2030 seemed utterly insane. But here we are (acknowledging Sunnyside is more desirable than Sunset, thus hitting that 3 mil mark quite a ways earlier).

    Got to say, 2011 was the perfect time to buy a house in SF. At some point, we’ll be able to look back and see when the perfect time to sell a house was…

    1. Keep in mind that 6K in 1940 $’s is about $107k today. Which probably makes your doubling about every 20 something years in real terms or about 3-ish% real appreciation. Which puts the double digit nominal gains in times of rock bottom inflation quite out of the norm. And as you note with serious ups and downs.

      Some people here would have you focus on the serious ups and ignore the serious downs.

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