Purchased for $3.4 million in June of 2017, having been remodeled in 2015, the “meticulously re-designed” Victorian at 2385 Bush Street, a three bedroom, three and one half bath Lower Pacific Heights, two blocks from Fillmore Street, returned to the market listed for $3.595 million last month.
The home’s main floor features 12 foot ceilings, with a Sub-Zero fridge, Wolf range and a Thermador oven and microwave in the open kitchen. The master suite includes a private balcony and marble-tiled bathroom with dual sinks.
And this past Friday, the re-sale of 2385 Bush Street closed escrow with a contract price of $3.637 million, representing total appreciation of 7.0 percent for the single-family home since the second quarter of 2017, not accounting for the re-decorating budget.
What’s the point of these posts?
The point of these posts is to point out that although flipping condos in The City is an iffy business proposition at this point in time, you can still always make money, and lots of it, by buying a good-condition Victorian, destroy the interior by painting the woodwork white and otherwise making it look very close to that of an Apple store, take short cuts on all the systems and elements that are important but not obvious to a layman during an open house, and add in pricey appliances in the kitchen and finishes in the bathroom.
And that’s why so many greedy, ignorant flippers from all over the country and indeed the world are attracted to the S.F. real estate market.
What is your take on Victorians and Edwardians that are utterly run down, with only partial original details remaining? Perhaps some wainscoting here, a medallion around an era-incorrect light fixture there, ceiling cracked, floors uneven due to settling, all deeply worn?
Do you think the thing to do in these instances is to strive to restore, even though it’s never going to really be accurate?
All too frequently we see snap commentary about how the poor interior was ruined, etc. Even though there really wasn’t anything to keep. I’m not saying that this always is the case. Of course sometimes people white out and ruin perfectly nice Victorian or Edwardian design. But it’s also true that Prop 13 sees house rich, income less so, families hold onto properties long past an ability to fix major problems. There’s generally a couple on every block in town.
OMG that abomination next door though!
Based on the “re-designed” interior, I first thought it was the corner building we were discussing.
It’s an abomination alright, but also a fascinating relic of when this neighborhood was briefly African American. It’s a “church.” In order to avoid income taxes and for other upsides there are many of these “churches” still floating empty around those parts.
Well at least it hasn’t gotten worse looking over the years.
Don’t laugh – they’re conjoined. The house to the left, this house and the church share the same roof. Which means they likely share common walls and foundations too.
Your argument seems plausible: the 1905 map shows they had a common rear wall line (as now) w/ similar exterior elements (a shallow bay on Pierce and a rounded one on the corner)…not that the latter are very distinctive. of course.
That link is fascinating!
As can be seen in the overheads, the buildings are directly across from St. Dominic’s: one might think that in the 3/4 of a century that they shared an intersection – and the corner building was in its original condition – they might have shared a photo as well…but no luck in finding one. I guess we’ll have to use our imagination from the Sanborn schematic.
Now if only the buyer would see fit to replace those godawful street-facing window frames with something like the originals – which were presumably trashed when the place was gutted.
Funny the way the bay window is curtained off and obscured.
The floorplan indicates it’s the house on the right, not the one (on the left) w/ the “curtained off” bay.
Ugh. I am so glad my house has walls. Doesn’t anyone want to be alone anymore?
P.S., Vandals wrecking Victorian interiors.
Open floor plans for the main floor are the best. Walls and doors can be left for bedrooms and offices. Wall after wall, door after door, in the kitchen/living/dining areas of most SF homes is an abomination from a era gone by that we left behind with good riddance. Sorry to hear your house is stuck in that terrible design past [shrugs]
Nothing says low rent like a front door that opens directly into the living room.
Indeed it does. And for $3.6+ we have another prime example of crazy. This is a modest house built for modest people, and remodeled with appalling destructive taste (expensive appliances aside), and it is fetches a price beyond 99.999 percent of the country. I know one could do better in Paris, and probably New York, and perhaps even in areas of London.
Flipping with razor thin margins in an oversaturated, mania-type market is a fool’s errand. 7.0% appreciation? Are they trying to say that’s even close to the gain they made? Try again. Let’s do the most basic math. 5% goes to commissions. Then there’s other closing costs, city transfer taxes, maybe staging, so all in you’re probably at 6% of the purchase price for closing costs. We haven’t looked at the HUD so let’s assume there were no other seller concessions. That leaves you with, what, a 1% gross margin not even yet deducting your renovation budget and carrying costs like property taxes, insurance, and god forbid you had high interest rate bridge financing. To assume that level of risk for what is essentially no return on your capital and even more importantly little to no return on your time is asinine.
“they” aren’t saying that was the gain the house made, the editor is noting the appreciation. The person who just sold this house didn’t do any of the work. That was mostly done by the 2/2014 buyer ($1.5mm) who sold in 3/2016 for $2.83mm. That buyer did a bit of work and sold it in 6/17 for 3.4mm.
Not just this house. Markets turning everywhere and flippers are starting to bite it.
“Sean Pan wanted to be rich, and his day job as an aeronautical engineer wasn’t cutting it. So at 27 he started a side gig flipping houses in the booming San Francisco Bay Area. He was hooked after making $300,000 on his first deal. That was two years ago. Now home sales are plunging. One property in Sunnyvale, near Apple Inc.’s headquarters, left Pan and his partners with a $400,000 loss. “I ate it so hard,” he says.”
Huge slodown in SF. But then Seattle doing even worse (Dave?). SJ collapse
“not just this house”?? again, NO, this house was not worked on by the recent seller. They were not a “flipper” They lived there and sold for $237k more than they bought it for.
Huge slow down is SF??? For remodeled properties I don’t see that. There have been some new top dollar neighborhood sales in SF very recently.
To be clear, the “meticulous re-design” (which mainly consisted of fixture, wallpaper and other such changes) was championed by the recent seller who acquired the home in mid-2017. The major remodel was completed in late 2015.
Yes those were both championed, but the new fixtures and wallpaper could have been done in early 2017. The 9/2015 permit includes refinishing the hallway and new pantry cabinets at kitchen, so maybe the last owner did those items.
“…but the new fixtures and wallpaper could have been done in early 2017.”
Except they weren’t. Here’s an idea of how the home looked when purchased in 2017, versus when it sold this year, which extends to the kitchen (before, after) and beyond.
Oh, okay. So they replaced wall paper with wall paper, glass tile backsplash with glass tile backsplash, and painted it a boring gray.
It looked better before.