Modernized without being “white-boxed” or stripped of its period details and charm, the Grand Tudor on a elevated corner Piedmont lot at 35 Muir Avenue hit the market priced at $5,985,000 in June of 2022. Withdrawn from the market after a couple of months on the MLS, the five-bedroom, 5,900-square-foot home returned to the market listed for $5,150,000 in April of 2023.
Despite being tagged a “Hot Home” by the Redfin algorithm, meaning it was “Expected to sell soon – Tour it…before it’s gone!,” the list price for 35 Muir Avenue was reduced to $4,765,000 that May and the “Hot Home” was then withdrawn from the MLS for a second time last June.
Listed anew for $4,595,000 this past March, the list price for 35 Muir Avenue has just been dropped to $4,295,000, a sale at which would be consider to be “at asking!” with only 73 days on the market according to all industry stats, aggregate reports and algorithms which rely on such data.
If you think you know the market for hot Piedmont and/or East Bay homes and neighborhoods, now’s the time to tell.
We saw a number of these types of listings in Marin late in the Covid low-interest rate cycle. Sellers and realtors wanted to top-tick the market, missed the window, and have subsequently grudgingly lowered prices. Some realtors still haven’t adjusted expectations but the market, eventually, brings buyers and sellers back into equilibrium.
It was a nice house before, it’s still a nice house, though more traditional than what many buyers seek. You don’t have flow between the kitchen and really anywhere. One could consider opening up the breakfast nook to the dining room, but there isn’t the casual kitchen + family room that a lot of people want. Laundry is on the ground floor, far from bedrooms, near the pantry, (which is called an office on the floorplan). And no, I don’t believe that people buying a 4.5mm house in Piedmont have domestic help who are going to stay in the kitchen and serve the owners a la Downton Abbey.
Tax records say date of design/construction was 1932. With a mindset from 1892, I am afraid. Hopefully it will find a happy traditionalist buyer. $4.0mm
The entertaining level of this home is not proportioned in a way for modern families. It’s oversized in some places (16×21 dining room is too big) yet has a cramped and tucked away kitchen. The living room is similarly oversized (no complaints on this one) but subsequent living spaces (wow!) are one by one attached to each other with no hallway. Upstairs is solid, attic is great, there’s a lot to work with here but the main level feels unsatisfying somehow. I’ve seen other East Bay grand homes struggle like this, the proportions are out of whack. A moment frame needs to be installed and the kitchen + dining room merged into a bigger room.
I don’t think the ground floor layout is that bad. The oversized dining room would probably be reserved for entertaining while family meals would happen in the “breakfast room”. My main issue with the layout is having the laundry not be on the same level as the bedrooms. That could be fixed for a small fraction of the listing price.
Formal dining rooms are already a poor use of space that modern families shy away from, they feel stuffy. A giant formal dining room like this is extra stuffy.
There must be structural issues or some very big cost item here beyond the need for aesthetic updates, as (at least based on my loose recollection of the Redfin updates I never turned off after we bought our house 10-ish years ago) homes in Piedmont are generally still selling pretty quickly and $1000/sf is pretty standard for something in this aesthetic shape, particularly with a big flat lot and in this very quiet location.
I know of older couples who bought their houses 40 years ago when large living and dining rooms were in style. Now they’re having trouble selling unless the house can be reconfigured into a less formal layout. People seem to want kitchens where the family can hang out, a family room nearby and ideally a deck off the kitchen leading down to the yard. Even people who entertain a lot want a more informal layout.
I get this point, but there have been plenty of houses sold in Piedmont recently with all these same issues for $1000/sq ft (and plenty of houses sold in Piedmont without those issues — but in worse locations and with smaller yards — for more). If someone came in and spent ~$1.5M to do a design update on this, that would be pretty par for the course, and not a bad deal over all. So I suspect there is a deeper and far more expensive issue here (e.g., the foundation needs to be replaced, the electrical redone, there are drainage issues and rot, etc. — the non-sexy stuff).
Lovely house! I don’t know how people who can afford these houses entertain, but I do know that in our circle of friends, nobody has a home big enough to entertain everyone comfortably anymore. There was one couple, bought their house in the 70’s, that had a huge home, and all the gatherings were held there (20-30+ people), but they have since passed away / moved to assisted living, and everyone else, Gen X and younger, although we are in tech and medicine and law and whatnot, two income, just can’t afford these kind of homes, and the gatherings have gotten smaller and less comfortable. After all, SF/Peninsula is where a 1500 sq ft house is $2 mil. Would love to be able to have a home like this, outdated floorplan and all. I see the potluck stuff in that dining room and everybody hanging out in the living room, patio, and bonus room. Would totally work for us. But, heck, even at a “discount” $4 mil? That’s not us. That’s lucky lotto stock options, and we’re mainly just W2 grind folks. Sell it to me for $2mil and I promise not to resell for 30 years and to throw a ton of parties. Heck, a Socketsite one would be fun, would love to see everybody argue IRL.
My childhood (up until young adulthood) opthamologist lived in what was reportedly the largest house in Piedmont (one of those $20Kgsf “cottages” up on Glen Alpine.) I believe he came into it from an inheritance on his wife’s side. Needless to say, I doubt he could afford such now…altho, of course he couldn’t then, either, given how he came to own it.
make that ~20Kgsf