22 Coleridge
After three weeks on the market the list price for 22 Coleridge on the edge of Bernal has been dropped from $599,000 to $587,000. Purchased in April of 2005 for $607,000.
22 Coleridge: New Kitchen
Unfortunately it’s not a perfectly clean “apple” as the kitchen was completely renovated in 2006 (new cabinets, appliances, flooring, etc.), but you’ll get the gist. And as a plugged-in reader notes, “seller is a licensed real estate agent.” You know, in the trenches and all.
∙ Listing: 22 Coleridge (1/1) – $587,000 [MLS]

41 thoughts on “Not A Perfectly Clean Apple In Bernal, But You’ll Get The Gist”
  1. An Apple in Bernal Heights
    First the irony: “Seller is a licensed real estate agent.” Price just dropped $12,000 to $587,000. Last sold 4/2005 for $607,000…now for sale at $587,000.
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/22-Coleridge-St-94107/home/848513
    I find it instructive that she has cut the price quickly. I would have said, “Just put it for rent and let the bitter renters build your equity.” And what wouldn’t I give to hear our old friend spin it.
    🙂
    [Editor’s Note: Moved from the discussion of 1604 Castro and Noe Valley.]

  2. i got an email last week from the listing agent telling me that i had 1 more week to sell it before she put a renter in. not sure what happened to that plan, but i guess we have a “motivated seller”

  3. This place looks small and maybe that’s why they don’t give the square footage. But I like Bernal and for houses it seems like a better value than Noe.

  4. As a renter, I really do hope all these jilted sellers follow through with their threats to rent their places.
    Many of them are good housing stock and adding more of them will push rents down.

  5. Bought w/10% down… mortgage of $546,300 (ARM).
    3% commission on $587k, if it sells for that, is $17,500.
    $587k – $17.5k = $569.5k
    This seller is almost looking at short sale territory… not to mention that 10% down payment that’s disappearing fast.

  6. Yes chuckie I too wish our friend was still here to comment.
    From property shark, it looks like there are 2 loans on this property in a 90/10/10 structure, meaning that the realtor-owners placed $60,700 of real dead presidents into the first loss position. And, of course, however much they spent on the new kitchen.
    So, the people who are “in the trenches” and “know the market” chased the market down right into the biggest credit collapse since the 1930s. I second Foolio’s hope that they do rent it out. More subsidization of the smart by the foolish.

  7. In 2005, the average list price of a Bernal Home was $738,195 and the average sales price was $821,455. Went in contract in an average of 33 days.
    In 2008, the average list price is $814,006 and the average sales price is $838,468. Went in contract witin 37 days.
    199 homes were sold in 2005. In 2008, with three months to go, only 88 homes have sold.
    Information pulled direct from MLS.

  8. Katy, thanks. Do you have the same info using medians? Averages are not too useful (neither are medians, but averages are even less so).

  9. That MLS data makes sense, and are evidence (not conclusive of course) of what I always refer to as the “beauty pageant effect”.
    Many houses are pulled off because the sellers can’t take the loss of perceived wealth. That’s why the volume of transactions is down, it’s not hard to find apples that have clearly gone down, but the average and median are roughly the same. It’s been happening in many parts of SF, so no surprise here.

  10. Your “old friend” owns Bernal units that are all bigger than this that he rents out. I’m sure putting a renter into this place in today’s rental market pricing would suit him just fine. Plus, if it sells for $500K it’s still a great comp for him if he ever sells.
    As far as spinning, I think he would say it’s not a SFH

  11. Here are some additional Bernal stats (Dist 9A) for single-family home sales:
    2005: 199 sales, $799.0K median, $662 mean/sf
    2006: 175 sales, $810.0K median, $616 mean/sf
    2007: 153 sales, $850.0K median, $663 mean/sf
    2008: 88 sales, $790.5K median, $634 mean/sf
    So the median price is back at the pre-2005 levels.

  12. Woah. So now 2005 sellers will pay you at least $20K and throw in a nearly new kitchen (another $30K and 3 months of hassle) just to take the property off of their hands.
    Fantastic!
    How can anyone complain about that!
    Our former friend might also try to say the seller overpaid when he or she bought. As the seller is an agent, I can definitely see them telling themselves to overpay. There was no rational person (usually played by the buyer – if that) who was part of the deal telling them otherwise.

  13. Again, your former friend bought himself something better for less nearby. So, I think he would be justified in saying they overpaid.

  14. A North Beach Apple and a South Beach Apple
    I was on my way out the door this morning when I put this post up on the Noe Valley thread… I can’t say I am not pleased to see it promoted, but now I wish I hadn’t put in a dig at our friend who loves us no more. (Come back, amigo! We do miss you.)
    Anyways, what I really wanted to point out this morning were two apples in this expanding orchard… A 2bed/2bath in North Beach. Bought in 4/2007 for $904,000 and now on sale for $969,000. A solid 6.7% in a little over a year. Not bad at all if it sells at that price.
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/520-Chestnut-94108/unit-404/home/12402110?utm_source=myredfin&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=listings_update&utm_nooverride=1
    A South Beach 1/1 bought in 11/2007 for $670,000 and now on sale for $660,000. Instant equity of $10,000. This one may be near the ball park, but far from being a “good seat” in d9. 🙂
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/88-Townsend-St-94107/unit-409/home/12401580?utm_source=myredfin&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=listings_update&utm_nooverride=1
    (Put away that keyboard, paco. I’m just kidding)

  15. There are a bunch of these apples all over Soma and South Beach, sometimes multiples bad apples in a single building. Example: 69 Clementina.
    #202 was purchased in 3/06 for $554K, currently on market for $438K.
    #301 was purchased for $709K in 5/06, currently on market for $664K.

  16. tipster,
    Instead of being an apple that’s showing appreciation, North Beach may be a flip gone bad 🙂
    Dude, I am sure Soma is not in SF anymore. I was still kinda wondering about South Beach.

  17. Katy, I assume you see now that the numbers you posted earlier, using average listing and sales prices, really gave a terribly distorted view of things. The posters on this web site are going to call you on such tactics.

  18. A Real Estate Agent selling his own house? Can’t be!!! What happened to the mantra “House prices will always go up”. I know what happened, cat got your tongue. ATTN: ALL REAL ESTATE AGENTS, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY TO PROSPECTIVE BUYERS, IT’S LIABLE TO BITE YOU BACK WHERE IT REALLY HURTS. YOUR WALLET. NEXT TIME, BE HONEST!!! Millions of home buyers were lured into a false sense of hope.

  19. This seller must be pissed at there agent. I’m sure they are calling there own number to give there agent a piece of there mind, only to be even more infuriated when the call doesn’t go through.

  20. Yes, this seller will take a hit, and it is sort of fun to poke at a real estate agent for taking one, but he is no dummy. I’ve had to cut my losses on market investments and sell at a 20% loss to avoid a much bigger one. That is all he is doing here. He sees the writing on the wall and is cutting his losses. If this place sells for close to asking, he’ll be getting far more (likely $100,000 or more) than the place will fetch one or two years from now. I’m guess that both his purchase and his sale were purely investment decisions, and he is making a very good one by selling now at this price.

  21. The North Beach place is an apple. It was new in 2007, so that’s why the kitchen looks new. No renovation necessary in the year and a half since it was built.

  22. North Beach Apples
    Thanks Dan. Dude mentioned there are many apples in Soma/South Beach. I went back and looked at North Beach again and found 2 more there too.
    This first one, a 1/1 last sold for $700K in 12/2004 and now for sales at $849,000, is very interesting… what are they trying to do? Is North Beach really so hot? That’s better than 5% per year over the last less than 4 years.
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/780-Union-St-94133/home/2017817
    Or you could buy this 2/2 a little cheaper for $829K. Price just reduced $10K, on the market for 44 days. Last sold 8/2005 for $820K.
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/600-Chestnut-St-94133/unit-303/home/1919195
    I’ll appreciate any comments/insights in these 3 North Beach apples, or if they are even clean apples.
    And what’s going on with this 2/1 apple in Lone Mountain. It’s falling off a cliff. Bought in 10/2004 for $870K, now on sale for $750K. I know it’s not real SF, but $120k disappearing? Ouch! Anyone plugged in?
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/662-Arguello-94118/home/1297261

  23. paco: I don’t understand your comment. 69 Clementina is clearly in SoMa – it’s 3 blocks south of Market. If you are referring to the nearby freeway off-ramp affecting the value of the units, I am pretty certain that that same off-ramp was there two years ago at the last sale because I used to take it on a regular basis.

  24. chuckie, that Lone Mt. property looks like a two unit building that was bought, remodeled and is now being pieced out as two TICs.

  25. i hate to be the only one to mention that for every one of these so called apples there exists far more examples of people who bought in the last few years and are now sitting tight on their equity.
    so riddle me this SS bears; if now is a bad time to sell then does it mean that its a good time to buy?
    is it not odd that some of the most frequent posters here are saying that its always better to rent-never to buy? why are they always posting to sf real estate boards if they never intend to buy or sell? i think the answer might just be that they only have interest in grave dancing…and the schadenfreude dreams get old and sad…

  26. “i hate to be the only one to mention that for every one of these so called apples there exists far more examples of people who bought in the last few years and are now sitting tight on their equity.”
    i don’t doubt that the sellers of all these apples had thought they too had built up equity as agents and developers kept telling them the market in the “real san francisco” is up and it’s always a good time to buy!
    it’s funny how people dismisses paper losses but then parade paper gains.

  27. “so riddle me this SS bears; if now is a bad time to sell then does it mean that its a good time to buy?”
    paco I don’t know if it is a bad time to sell, I “think” it’s a bad time to buy. I am interested in the question, has it been a good time to buy in the last few years? One way to tease out the answer is apples. Case Shiller Index is for too broad an area. Medians/Averages in the city have their problems.

  28. Paco, if an owner thinks he may want or need to sell in the next 2-3 years, then it is a very good time to sell now. Not as good as 12 or 18 months ago, but far better than 12-18 months from now. I suspect this is one of the reasons we are seeing a flood of new listings as of late. The flip side of this is that it is still a bad time to buy — better than a year ago (those poor buyers really timed things badly) but bad nevertheless given the clear trend.
    If you don’t think there is any reasonable likelihood you’ll need to sell in the next 5 years, sure, just sit tight.

  29. SF Builder, Paco & all. Are you all under 40? Did none of you own or build in the early 90’s or even late 80’s? I did. We have not even begun to play this cycle out so I would show a little judgement before calling long term builders, investors, and owners “grave dancers”. I remember selling a small three unit project with multiple offers on all three units in ONE DAY in 1988. It took 10 years for those buyers to be able to sell those units for what they paid 10 years before.

  30. nonanon,
    Do you really think the sellers of single family apples and 3 units condos, where they didn’t do any work (or else they wouldn’t be an apple) consulted a developer on there purchase?
    Really, the developer bashing and lopping into these kind of statements is ridiculous. A lot of developers are taking a beating just like the home owners. Plus if they didn’t take a risk and build, and in some places overbuild, then would prices really come down. SF should have built a lot more, now we won’t.

  31. anonarch,
    i was here then and i saw what you are talking about. i am, in fact, a long term builder, investor and owner so i know that it did indeed take people six to eight years just to get back to their high tide prices. i agree that we could see the same thing happen, esp. for new built ‘luxury’ condos in d9.
    imo people overpaid big time in fringe areas b/c they were chasing available inventory wherever they could find it.
    when people pay more to own in bernal or glen park than to rent in pac hts you know that the market is trading on some ill-concieved notion of ‘forward earnings’.
    the funny thing is this; now that the markets are under stress its a better time to find something available in the better areas, its time to look for bargains and distress selling-and yet on this board the editorial slant is on mocking those who paid too much and mocking those who might look for a bargain. and that is easy to do- and easy to get carried away with.
    its important to see how people made bad investment decisions.
    but its far more valuable to locate and exploit good investment
    ideas.
    as far as that goes i’ll put my collective posts to this board up against the posts of anyone else here. you let me know who you think will make or lose more money following my advice or that of another frequent poster who has advised commodity/currency/option trading ideas.

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