Selling a home–or anything really–demands a deft approach and a certain way with words; the smallest thing can mean the difference between a sale and a close call, and you have to always put a property in the best possible light.
Sometimes, however, you’ve got no choice but to just plain tell it like it is, as in the case of the total teardown at 320 Day Street, which just listed for a shade under $1 million, branded with the incredible designation of “the worst house on the best block.” Geez, tell us what you really think.
This circa 1900 setup (note that 1900 is often a placeholder date for old homes whose records were lost in the 1906 quake and fire) is somewhat confusingly listed as a zero bedroom home; there are bedrooms, of course, but what this really means is that none are fit for human habitation and it doesn’t pay to go giving people the wrong idea.
Complaints about this crumbling estate go back to 2006, with neighbor gripes that the old house was shedding lead-based paint all over the place, with subsequent reports characterizing it as “blighted,” “unsafe,” and finally, by 2018, “abandoned.”
Unlike with many similar teardowns (we use this word loosely as actually tearing down a property in SF is damn near impossible), this latest listing does venture to provide some interior photography. Technically, we’ve seen worse…but none lately.
In case anyone needed a quick jolt of Monday morning perspective, the modest-by-SF-standards $995k price tag on this place is higher than the average price of a (livable) home in more than 40 California counties last month, including four in the Bay Area.
And despite–or in all likelihood, because of–the grim state of the property, we can expect this one to probably fetch a fair payday down the line, likely well over its current asking.
After all, as the ad notes, there are several multi-million dollar homes nearby; single-family houses for sale in the 94131 ZIP right now range from $1 million to $11 million.
Building in Noe Valley is sure to be a long and annoying process–neighbors will be happy to see this place demolished ($100 says a complete demo will never happen and the future version will still have the same facade), but probably not too pleased with whatever larger home a new owner wants to replace it with–but the plum price that may wait at the end of it is juicy indeed.
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