This week’s top overbid takes us out of the Sunset for once, and also notches another testimonial in our ongoing debate about whether it’s even possible to sell a house in San Francisco for less than $1 million anymore.
The answer in this case is that you can certainly try, with a perhaps pointedly lowball asking of $799K for the two bed, one bath Portola house at 269 Madison Street. But it ended up taking in $1.2 million anyway, because of course it did.
This house last sold in 1991 for the price of $219,000, a figure that makes us feel like we’re whispering “Rosebud” on our deathbeds while dropping a snow globe. BTW, we’re getting lots of chatter and prognostication these days about when the stock market slump will start affecting home prices in places like San Francisco–but it sure hasn’t happened yet.
As long as we’re on the subject though, an update on last week’s Maximum Overbid: An observant reader pointed out that there was seemingly an even bigger buy that week over at 340 Lombard, a tremendous and incredibly 90s-ish property that not only went for $15.5 million, but also for $2.6 million more than it was asking.
Shouldn’t THAT have been the top overbid of the week? Well, yes…from a certain point of view. But while that $2.6 million largesse was a lot of money, it was only about 120 percent of the original asking price; homes that top our weekly charts here usually break 150 percent of asking, even if the difference in these cases ends up being “only” a few hundred thousand dollars.
We could define top overbids as those that bring in the highest dollar value over asking, and that might be fun to try.
But one of the most important things about our overbid obsession is that it’s a rare chance to highlight seemingly everyday properties that might otherwise not get singled out for coverage–despite the fact that these are the kinds of homes most people buying in SF are in the market for.
| Address | BR/BA/Units | DOM | List Price | Sold Price | Overbid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 269 Madison Street | 2/1/N/A | 7 | $799,000 | $1,200,000 | 50.19% |
| 3633 Clement Street | 5/4/N/A | 10 | $2,395,000 | $3,553,000 | 48.35% |
| 3280 Folsom Street | 3/2/N/A | 9 | $1,225,000 | $1,805,000 | 47.35% |
| 621 Shields Street | 3/2/N/A | 12 | $1,095,000 | $1,590,000 | 45.21% |
| 2554 Great Highway | 3/2/N/A | 11 | $1,595,000 | $2,307,000 | 44.64% |
| 2536 22nd Avenue | 4/4/N/A | 15 | $1,495,000 | $2,150,000 | 43.81% |
| 2694 19th Avenue | 2/1/N/A | 11 | $998,000 | $1,425,000 | 42.79% |
| 125 Ordway Street | 4/2/N/A | 12 | $995,000 | $1,400,000 | 40.70% |
| 38 Mars Street | 2/1/N/A | 6 | $1,695,000 | $2,338,000 | 37.94% |
| 163 Colby Street | 4/3/N/A | 7 | $1,299,000 | $1,753,000 | 34.95% |
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