Originally listed at $4.2M in 2003, 2801 Lake was hacked to $3.6M and just recently hacked again to the current price of $2,995,000. That is a MAJOR reduction that may or may not indicate something about the market, but it sure as hell indicates something about staging and getting your home ready to sell.
There were so many of these rooms, it was hard to pick just one, so I went with the picture medley. Now I’ll go bandage my bleeding lips, as I had to bite them so hard to refrain from commenting. Maybe we should see who can come up with the best caption for each photo. Photos 1-4, starting on the top.
[Update: Sold for $2,580,000 on 12/18/2007]
this is what happens when you own too much square footage. an obnoxious and compelling need to fill it with crap!
boy do i not miss owning a house.
Looks like a collector’s mentality has taken over. It’s a sort of sickness. I suffer from it myself. Thankfully my problem is not Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.
I think this might be a good buy now, tho. What would that place looked like cleaned up, painted, and kitchen and bath remodeled. I bet it would look like $3.5M.
This would be the perfect house for “Designed to Sell” on HGTV… It would be hilarious to hear what that real estate lady have to say about this house when she takes a peek…
I would describe it as “Jeff Koons’ Rococo” but that would only describe entrance way…
So I would borrow a quote from the grateful dead for the whole house: “Too Much of Everything is Just Enough”
I am truly speechless.
With the amount of money it would take to make this property less gaudy it is still WAAAYYYY overpriced.
I wouldnt buy, and certainly not make an offer with 30 days closing .. because there is NO WAY they could remove all that “stuff” in time. I hope it’s not listed by an agent who offers the moving truck for free… The poor truck would die of back and forths…
Also, I’d worry about any compulsiveness of the homeowner.. like she would need to approve the DNA of the potential buyer or something.
What about they make a garage (should I say House?) sale and get 150K back from their stuff? At $1 the item, time 150.000. That’s just about the agent 5% of the deal!
(hope there is no rodents there. Mice LOVE stuffed animal – yuck – and what about dust, dust mites, … )
1. worried about your daughter dating to early? she’ll spend the next 4 years with a baby book name trying to name all her dolls.
2. You will never need more makeup light in the master bathroom brigthened by 1327 “suns”.
3. Home office of a very successful ebay
tradderbuyer.4. if you get dizzy recounting all your 194 relatives names, the triple padded lush wall to wall double wool carpeting will make your landing softer.
What really struck me is that the living floor is beiger as beige – as if someone has sprayed painted EVERYTHING in beige.. While the rooms upstairs are so not beige. Pick a theme – hopefully matching somehow the architecture of the house, and STICK WITH IT.
Also, please appreciate the trick to save money: Put HUGGEEEEEEEEEEE mirrors everywhere to multiply for free the amount of stuff.
Cant believe it -makes me want to visit – but I would need an ankle GPS on each of my kids!
I think the best thing to do with this is to slice everything off at about 4ft. Paint and decorate the top half of every floor however you like and leave the bottom half in place.
This pic from the listing gives you a perfect example how a mirror doesn’t necessarily expand the space…. its Alice and the Looking Glass…
mirror,
mirror
[Editor’s note: I totally saw the same thing and wondered if anyone else would pick up on that. Thanks for the comment.]
update: according to sfnewsletter sold datas, it closed on december 18th at 2.580M – so 86.14% of LP. That makes it the underbid of its week.
Any out of the bay area journalist reading? “all multimillion dollars homes have lost nearly 30% in value” (3.6 reduced then closed at 2.6) . Please some doom and gloom… ;-) it’s much needed in that crazy market where top properties still fly from the shelves.
(note that the link shows only the “nicest” photos. So censure or simple computer trick?)
BTW. Did a realtor visit the place? could you give us a ballpark number of the damage caused by the staging (or lack of it)?
BTW. Did a realtor visit the place? could you give us a ballpark number of the damage caused by the staging (or lack of it)?
So this will be the FINAL answer to the recurring question. what is the value of staging?
lets see how much is sells now.
Sophie, I think you missed something. The staging is in the “after” picture. The one that sold the house…
sf stager, I’m refering to the new post about same property. (aka the remodeliing being THE staging)
BTW – I did a little search. How am I not surprised this property is linked to this business ? Damned. I should have looked it up earlier.