Archive for the ‘Haight Ashbury’ Category
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Realtor Kevin Gueco writes a very sunny review for the coming soon Mosiaica 601 condo project (pictured above) in his SFNewDevelopments blog. There’s definitely some room for pleasant surprise in the announced price (pleasant to me, anyway, since I selfishly find all condos I cannot afford to be unpleasant):
“Mosaica 601 announced last week that it plans to start pricing of its 3 bedroom / 2 bath condos in the low $600s! This is an incredible value considering each home is around 1400 square feet.”
Of course, putting aside Gueco’s near-by restaurant list, the area (where Mission meets Potrero) is a little rough, but the price still seems all right to me. Perhaps the developers see the price cuts so many other condo developers have had to make recently, and are starting lower to begin with?
Also coming soon (but not as soon) are a more mysterious set of housing units. Just off West Portal and 16th Ave., in front of Arden Wood, you can see the pushed-up dirt, huge bulldozers, and thin wood skeletons that signal housing to come, and their sectioning looks multi-unit. Thus I suspect these are the long awaited condos that were subject of news and speculation in 2006. In fact, that’s still the only information I can find on this construction: 2 years old, via SFHomeBlog and J.K. Dineen. Someone has to have a more updated scoop here. Anyone?
Meanwhile, still a pipe-dream (ha ha! Really, Haight Street, how many pipe stores can one street support?), but with the supervisorial green light is the Whole Foods/condo complex, slated to replace long-dead Cala Foods at the corner of Stanyan and Haight. The Chronicle outlines the plan here:
”The large, four-story project, which also includes some 60 high-end, market-rate housing units, was expected to be controversial, but the commission voted 6-0 to approve the conditional use permit – a result supporters think had a lot to do with their organized turnout.”
Right, agreed: Haight could use a face-lift and perhaps a gentle reminder that THE 60′S ARE OVER. Also, I like Whole Foods, but I’m saving for one of those condos, so I’ll stick to Trader Joe’s (with a new one also coming soon!). I’m curious what “market rate” will be when those units go up, since so many new developments are struggling to sell out units already. The Frontstep’s own banker/blogger, aptly known as “The Banker,” says: “We are overbuilt. . .and it is next to near impossible to get financing!”
What do you say?
—-
Construction photo via SFNewDevelopments
Tags: Arden Wood, Condominium, condos, Haight Ashbury, Mosaica 601, New Construction, Reduced Prices
Posted in Below Market Rate, Condominium, Economy, General Info, Haight Ashbury, Insider Information, Marketing, New Construction, New Developments, Potrero Hill, SOMA, Updates, West Portal, coming soon | 14 Comments »
Friday, October 24th, 2008

Hello out there, theFrontStep Readers! You may (or just as likely, may not) know my name from my blogs for Redfin. I’ve kindly been invited to write also for theFrontSteps, so here I am, on the steps, with my first blog.
So here’s the setting: last night, 2:00am, sultry night, people walking up from the bars, falling down, giggling. That noise doesn’t bother me much. I’d have to be a hypocrite if I tried to pretend I’ve never, after closing time, made too much noise under someone’s window as I staggered home. But another noise does bother me: some a-hole flooring his car and slamming on the breaks as he reaches the stop sign in front of my house. Then, from fully stationary, he floods the car again, tyring to go from zero to sixty instantaneously. Then he screeches off, circles the block, and comes back to do it again.
But we all live in a city. We can’t really expect quiet, can we? We can hope for it, and maybe in some areas, get it most of the time. But in the end, we’re sharing with a lot of people, some of them loud and possibly crazy. That’s why this new law aiming to curb SF noise interests me. (more…)
Tags: legislation, neighborhood news, noise pollution, san francisco, San Francisco Real Estate, sound ordinance
Posted in About, Bernal Heights, Diamond Heights, General Info, Glen Park, Haight Ashbury, Inner Mission, Inner Sunset, Just Interesting, Outer Parkside, Outer Sunset, Pacific Heights, Parnassus/Ashbury Heights, Sunset, The Mission, Twin Peaks, legislation | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
Has Realtor to Realtor marketing (spam) reached a new low in order to get fellow Realtors to open their property emails? Just yesterday, we (and likely all of San Francisco Association of Realtors members) received an email with the subject, “Price reduced 1,000,000″ on the property located at 1919 Page (“now” asking $1,095,000) in the Haight Ashbury district.

Upon further research (in MLS) we found 1919 Page to have a DOM of 0 and no “property history”, 1921 Page to have recently (Nov ‘07) sold for $1,075,000 (asking $949,000), and no record whatsoever of the entire building being for sale at the moment (the only thing we could think of to explain a $1M price reduction on a condo worth only ~$1M in the first place.)
So what gives? Did one of the most productive agents in San Francisco just stoop to a new low, or can we chalk it up to a typo?
What do you think, because we sure as hell can’t figure it out?
-1919 Page [detail page]
Tags: real estate, san francisco, San Francisco Real Estate, theFrontSteps
Posted in Condominium, Haight Ashbury, Marketing, San Francisco Real Estate, real estate, san francisco, theFrontSteps | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Had you been reading theFrontSteps a while ago, June 11th to be exact, you’d have had an opportunity to pick up this developer special at 235 Broderick long before the rest.

Now the cat is out of the bag, the chatter has begun, it’s on MLS (listed for exactly the same price the seller’s paid in March of 2008, $2M…makes price per square foot a cool $500), and we’re left pondering the future of this (potentially) awesome house.
One thing is for certain, these sellers will likely take a huge hit and that can’t feel good. You know what they say, “One man’s loss, is another man’s gain.”
…and we almost forgot the before shots. Can’t wait to see the after!
-Developer Special not on market in Haight Ashbury [theFrontSteps]
-235 Broderick [listing detail]
-235 Broderick (before) [listing detail]
Tags: Luxury Homes, real estate, san francisco, San Francisco Real Estate, theFrontSteps
Posted in Fixers, Haight Ashbury, Luxury Homes, Remodeling, San Francisco Real Estate, Single Family, market info, real estate, san francisco, theFrontSteps | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
We hesitate to provide the address of this property (as always to preserve privacy), but at the same time we feel it our obligation to put out to a larger audience some potential deals that might be right up your alley. Should you, or your friends, be interested in taking this property off the hands of the current owner (around $1.8-2M) feel free to contact us.

(We can see you MapJack O’holics cruising now.)
It’s got some potential for the right person, and “permits and plans for redoing the entire house and expanding the garage to a two car garage. [The owners] have gotten as far as completing a total demolition of the interior space. The house is about 4000 square feet, 6bd/4ba”, it’s located in a great area of the Haight Ashbury district, and we want you to have it.
If you recognize this kitchen, you know the home.

…and of course that facade will let you know if it’s something you desire. We also tend to think this better for an owner-occupier rather than developer, so if you’re looking to remodel a home, need this kind of space, and don’t plan on flipping, opportunity knocks.
Tags: Architecture, Luxury Homes, real estate, san francisco, theFrontSteps
Posted in Alexander Clark, Architecture, Fixers, Haight Ashbury, Insider Information, Luxury Homes, Neighborhoods, Off Market, Remodeling, Single Family, market info, pocket listings, real estate, san francisco, theFrontSteps | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Before you haul off and shoot the messenger, this is one of many emails we receive on a daily basis. We’ve tried to tone the cheerleading down a bit, but when it keeps on coming from other sources (not Realtors) it’s kind of hard to pass up. So…
Awesome places that are priced right continue to sell at competitive prices all over the city.
19 Delmar St. [3 bed, 3 bath, $1,795,000] just went into Escrow as did two condos on Sacramento in the $2.1 range.
Lots of buyers out there! Wow.
No, this is not from MarinaPrime, ResortAtSquawCreek, Later, BoomTime, or any of the other people that sound oddly like the same person. It’s from someone entirely too well connected to not know the difference.
-19 Delmar [sfnewsletter listing detail page]
Tags: theFrontSteps
Posted in Haight Ashbury, It is Brisk Out, Single Family, Victorian, market info, theFrontSteps | 5 Comments »
Monday, September 17th, 2007
I truly love when readers (thanks Shelley) send in links to other sites that truly make me laugh, and have a good grasp of the sf market, so I can quote them and not have to say it myself.
Lest anyone think the sub-prime lending crisis and mortgage meltdown is having a huge affect on the real estate market in the urban yet genteel streets of San Francisco, listen up. Mister Bratt’s investment property was listed in mid July, 2007 at $1,595,000. The property was sold and closed by the end of August for $1,858,000. So what does that tell the children about the still electric San Francisco marketplace?
Now babies, we know that it is standard practice in San Francisco to price a property low and sell it for higher than asking. This is widely considered “normal” in the City by the Bay. However, in this era of near fiscal implosion of the mortgage industry, one might think we’d see a slowing of the market and San Francisco properties would not be selling extremely quickly and for 10, 12 and 15 percent OVER the asking price. But they are children, they are. Ev-er-ee day.–The Real Estalker
Who cares about Benjamin Bratt! Your Mama nailed it! Nice!!!!
-1832 Page, Mr. Bratt’s Investment [MLS]
-Benjamin Bratt Sells SF Investment Property [The Real Estalker]
Tags: real estate, san francisco
Posted in 2-4 Units, Alexander Clark, Haight Ashbury, Readers’ Reports, market info, real estate, san francisco | 4 Comments »
Monday, August 27th, 2007
We’ve been having lots of fun with the other Battles: Outer Richmond v. Outer Sunset and Pacific Heights v. Marina, so today we give you Hayes Valley or Haight Ashbury. The choice is yours. As always, we provide the data, and hope you provide the insight. Have fun. Sorry for the tech difficulties, it’s not us.
Correction on the Outer Richmond/Outer Sunset post. The charts we posted from Altos research were actually median prices for condos, not sfr’s. It is now fixed.

Hayes Valley Stats (source: SFAR MLS)

Haight Ashbury Stats (source: SFAR MLS)

Haight Ashbury zip 94117 (Median: source Altos Research)
Single Family

condo

Hayes Valley zip 94102
Single Family

condo

When looking at these charts, keep in mind that they are based off of zip code, not property type and exact street delineations as in the San Francisco Association of Realtors District Map.
Tags: Battle Royale, Parkside, real estate, san francisco, Sunset, theFrontSteps
Posted in Alexander Clark, Battle Royale, Haight Ashbury, Hayes Valley, Parkside, Sunset, real estate, san francisco, theFrontSteps | 9 Comments »