theFrontSteps – San Francisco

Today I got this email from a friendly neighborhood Realtor: Hello everyone, I wanted to send out a friendly reminder about the deadline to take advantage of the first time home buyer tax credit.  The tax credit expires on Novemeber 30th, 2009.  However, assuming a 45 day escrow period from the time you buy to the time you close and get the keys, [...]

So Alex is leaving town for awhile, chasing the big waves instead of the big buyers, and I’m standing, inadequately and ill fittingly, in his shoes. You may — or just as likely, may not– recall I used to guest write here on these Front Steps some time ago. Alex was nice enough to invite [...]

I have to admit, watching the banks, AIG, the automakers, and finally, homeowners get a bail out, I did more than once cry out piteously: “But who the f— will bail out me?” Answer: Chris Daly. I didn’t really ask for this kind of bailout, but Daly’s constituents are largely renters; and hey, so is [...]

  I used to look at houses in Portland, OR like this 2/2 SFH in one of the most gorgeous neighborhoods, Sellwood, listed at $440K. And then I would look for somthing similar in SF. And then I would need a very large martini. We all know, even after the martini, that a comparable home [...]

    The Where Blog, dedicated to intelligent discourse on urban life, recently posed the following question: How do people stay sane in crowded cities? Quoting E.M. Cioran, Whenever I happen to be in a city of any size, I marvel that riots do not break out every day: massacres, unspeakable carnage, a doomsday chaos. [...]

So, one hell of an ugly year is coming to a close. As usual, this event cues panels of “leaders” in various fields to opine about the coming 365 days. What will become of Tom and Katie? Will Cher remove another rib? Will the Celtics top the NBA again? These days the doings of celebrities [...]

Condo complexes aren’t really selling condos these days. Instead, they sell a feeling, an image of the lifestyle that would too become yours if you buy in. And by “buy in” I mean in both senses, because first you’d have to buy that owning a condo at, say, the Hayes, would make you instantly urban-chic-hip; [...]

Some time ago, I noted the construction in West Portal and asked around the Front Steps for the scoop. Those folks on the steps always know a lot, and more importantly, they like to argue. We had ideas that the construction would yield five- no, six- no, seven- no,  eight homes. They were to be made of [...]

When I was working at C__________, my boss was a big coke-head. As a result, the atmosphere was, to understate, lax. Everyone drank and ate copiously (never paying for it), sat down and/or danced randomly in the middle of the restaurant, swore, and slept with one another. All of the aforementioned took place during open-for-business [...]

Many of us have been strolling down a pleasant street, enjoying the twilight settling over Victorian facades in our charming city– only to turn a corner and suddenly feel in need of a Tazer. San Francisco is a changeling: Even in the same zip code, we can experience radically different neighborhoods, each with unique, and [...]