69 Waller
Could it have been some strange migratory pattern? Or that it got spooked by all the attention? Regardless, the “red-bellied” Tudorbethan (69 Waller) we first spotted last month is back. Only this time it’s listed at $1,149,000 (an increase of $100,000). Go figure (and we’re sure you will).
∙ Listing: 69 Waller Street (3/2) – $1,149,000 [MLS]
Honey, Is That A Red Bellied Tudorbethan Behind That Tree? [SocketSite]

32 thoughts on “The Return Of The Red-Bellied Tudorbethan! (69 Waller)”
  1. They got tired of the lowball offers coming in at 100K off. So they raise the price and hope the lowballers will keep it up.

  2. Obviously they are in no hurry to sell– interesting tactic: RAISE the price if you don’t get your asking price within 90 days??
    No wonder I’m not an RE investor!! I would never have thought of that…

  3. My best guess is that they’re trying to appeal to the current zeitgeist in San Francisco: overpay for everything, from food to clothes to real estate.

  4. I’d be willing to bet that they first priced this property well below the seller’s expectations thinking that it would generate multiple offers like it would have last year. Times have changed and most likely a high offer failed to materialize – a real danger in this market.

  5. Hard to speculate why they raised it, but my guess is that after they get no offers, they can reduce it by $100k and then state “price reduced!”
    Thereby, possibly getting an offer for their original $1.05M

  6. I’ve seen this going on with several properties — the place does not sell, gets pulled from the MLS for a bit, then reappears with a 10-15% higher price. I think Tipster and others have it right. Ask 20% too much, and the strategy is that maybe a buyer will only pay you 5% too much because he thinks he got a great deal. That might have worked 6 months ago, but this is a buyers’ market and I think this will only result in an even slower sale. If you want to sell a place, price it realistically and stop the games.

  7. I find it interesting that people are taking it for granted that this is a buyer’s market. How, exactly, is this a buyer’s market? My current buyers are getting outbid at every turn.

  8. Fluj, if it does not appear to be one now, you will just have to wait and see. I feel sorry for anyone stupid enough to be bidding in this market.

  9. Why would you feel sorry for someone who has the money, and wants to buy a house? What you armchair economists fail to take into consideration is the fact that outside all of the doom and gloom most of us tend to focus on in regards to the current mortgage meltdown/subprime crisis/housing crash, is that there are still plenty of people out there with money who are going to continue to buy houses. The world is not going to stop turning because of what you read on a real estate blog!

  10. o. I see. So it isn’t a buyer’s market now. But it will be. sometime. ok. wait and see. thanks!
    How long should my “stupid” clients wait?
    Whatever.

  11. i have read your site once in a while, and everytime I read it, I get angry, becaue your site advertises houses for super rich people.
    Evertime you post a house for sale, it is at least 1.1 million dollar. Are you trying to find buyers for them?

  12. movingback-Just because you have the money and want to buy a house doesn’t mean you should over-spend if you don’t have to. If you want to, go right ahead.

  13. I’ve read that historically, the spending patterns of the truly wealthy are correlated to broader equity market performance. I think the Robb Report has an index that tracks this. That would at least help to explain the continued bifurcation in the local market, as the Dow and S&P are defying gravity lately despite more fundamentals pointing towards recession. Also explains the “let them eat cake” attitude of some of the posters here. But prices in southern parts of the city are definitely coming down.

  14. I count 25 700K or more sales in areas 10 since August 1st. I just don’t see a market change anywhere, really. I wish there was one.

  15. fluj – so there isn’t a single property, anywhere in San Francisco, on the market for less than it previously sold for?

  16. Did I say that? That was sort of an absurd logical reduction. Why so combative always? Gee whillickers
    You know where I think the good deals are? I think they are on older lofts and on smaller homes with issues of some sort. That’s the sort of property that’s languishing and taking hits right now.
    Luckily, one of my clients is going to be trying for a loft pretty soon. I think he’s gonna be able to get something good, for a whole lot less than he could have two years ago.
    And here is an example of the sort of property that sits and gets greatly reduced in price:
    http://sfarmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Sanfrancisco&PRGNAME=MLSLogin&ARGUMENT=Ok7KmNi58nbInAxeCH8GTZvW391Vj%2B%2B9cbGuwYuo34I%3D&KeyRid=1
    It had issues. It wasn’t remodeled to code. It looked it. No heat downstairs, and it has an atrium that’s neither indoor nor outdoor space, yet they treat it as indoor space. But at 749K it starts getting close to being a good deal. Still, nobody bought it.

  17. Not being combative, but you said you “don’t see a market change anywhere, really.” There’s clearly been a big one in the under $1MM category or outside of the northeastern quadrant of the city. Prices are indeed falling.

  18. fluj,
    i think you know better than most on this board that if your clients like a place, they should buy it. stop hoping for the worst, it ain’t gonna happen here. too many people with money on too few pieces of property. not to say that their aren’t still folks sitting on hugely unrealistic expectations about what their place is worth, but it’s your client that wants to buy, so help them.

  19. I don’t know about that. From my own personal experience, which is obviously as anecdotal as you can get, my clients have been getting outbid in competitive situations in areas 5. From my view, areas 7,5, and parts of 9 (parts of Bernal and Potrero Hill) are sailing along, oblivious to any sort of bubble.
    I was surprised to see how many areas 10 sales there have been, too. Now, you might be right. I tried to sell a two unit in Bayview this summer for 599K, and nobody wanted it. It had some issues tho. I sort of think flawless properties, regardless of location, are doing OK by and large. Why did Exelsior get run up to 800K in the first place, you know?

  20. I’m just saying that it’s frustrating. If you talk to the average person, they’ll tell you the market is bad. Then you get out in the field and write an offer for somebody who has their hopes up because supposedly the market has changed, and guess what? they get outbid by a significant margin.

  21. Why is it so difficult to get any realtor to acknowledge that real estate can indeed lose value?
    Did a search for SFRs under $700K in the city. Found a ton. Then cross-checked them against PropertyShark to see recent selling prices. Here’s what my 5 minute search found:
    176 Ramsell, listed at $559K, last sold for $591K in 4/07. Short sale listed at $32K below last sale.
    38 Sadowa, listed at $548K, last sold for $670K in 12/06. $122K below last sale.
    550 Head, listed at $599K, last sold for $681K in 2/06. $82K below last sale.
    41 Gladstone, on the market for $554K, last sold for $594K. $40K lower.
    There’s more, I’m sure, but I ran out of PropertyShark freebies for the day.
    “Why did Exelsior get run up to 800K in the first place, you know?” Yes – there was a real estate bubble. Now it’s deflating.

  22. I fully acknowledge that. Areas 10 got run up too high and have lost value. It’s particularly true of smaller homes with some sort of issue. Frankly, that is the only BUBBLE I’ve seen in SF.
    Why isn’t say, Parkside, tanking, tho? That neighborhood sucks. But if something is priced right out there, it goes. ‘Splain me that, Dude!

  23. Too foggy for me out there. But that property’s sale price was set by a bank. It’s a short sale.
    At the current price, 630 a foot, it seems about right to me.
    Is that what the vaunted BUBBLE is in SF? Resetting to ’05 type price points in more blue collar type neighborhoods? Good.

  24. Some say it started going down after the spring of ’06, surely? Or are you dating this cycle to around August 10th or so, when the mortgage news and stock market hits happened?
    And again, some areas in SF are still climbing.

  25. Just go ahead and buy advice from someone who can’t or doesn’t use capital letters! Here is some better advice: Perfect your use of capital letters and also spreadsheets in order to see what and awful deal most of these purchases will be in terms of price performance. You may find the results of cogent analysis to be worthy even of ALL CAPITALS!

  26. There is no doubt that the market has slowed down in San Francisco — and prices have changed, overall. It’s no longer a ‘seller’s market’ in each and every single neighborhood and/or district in the city, like it has been in years past. Some neighborhoods and price ranges, however, are still doing very well, and still seeing multiple offers, and escrows that close ABOVE asking price. Just ask anyone who has been out looking at properties in these area over the past few months. Some neighborhoods and/or districts are lagging behind. As a whole, however, San Francisco has not taken the same turn that the inland and outlying areas have taken, for instance. Sacramento is completely in the toilet. Brentwood, Tracy, Vallejo, Sonoma, Napa, etc. The list goes on and on. People are still going to buy houses, people still need places to live. Markets are very local.

  27. My friend moved into the upper unit when her family bought the building around 1985. She said they occasionally got late-night doorbell rings from men in search of action at the (gay) whorehouse it used to be.

  28. The market is definitely interesting. While the market is not superhot as it once was, it is certainly not gloom and doom if you have the things people really want. A cool market in SF seems to mean that things like unpermitted construction are now an issue with buyers, lack of parking can be an issue, subpar location can be an issue whereas when things are really hot all that matters less. So people who paid to much for problem properties during the really hot times are going to suffer (unless they can hold on until times are hot again). And let’s face it, sooner or later this whole mortgage mess is going to get sorted out, though it will probably take until after the election.

  29. My 2 cents would be that apprecation over the next 10 years probably won’t be what it was over the past 10 years in SF. But whether that’s right or wrong, it just feels like the local market’s expectations are still too high. why?
    1) cap rates are much lower and GRM’s are much higher on investment property than they are in most other areas of the country. Buyers of multiunit buildings have been conditioned to accept these valuations becuase apprecation has always made up for them.
    2) people are still buying for much more $$ than they could rent the same thing for – compared to other geographies. i think there was a recent study on “P/E” ratios in different markets comparing the P of buying with the E of renting.
    btw, again does anyone think prop 98 will pass? doubt it, but if rent control is abolished that will probably also lower overall property values over time as more supply of market-rate units come on the market.
    [Editor’s Note: With regard to your second point: Bay Area Rents Surge, But Housing P/E Ratio Remains Out Of Line. And with regard to your first: bingo.]

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