Our “Romanesque Victorian” apple at 1507 Dolores has retuned to the market with a new listing and a new price. Now asking $1,198,000.
Once again, purchased for $1,310,000 in February of 2006, returned to the market in November of 2008 asking $1,349,000, and was reduced to $1,295,000 before being withdrawn.
∙ Listing: 1507 Dolores Street (3/3) – $1,198,000 [1507Dolores.com] [MLS]
∙ A New Noe Valley Apple Varietal On The Tree: “Romanesque Victorian” [SocketSite]
Fugly?
i think every hour the louvers open in the upper window and a guy in an armored suit pops out.
Trying to compete with all the other cute properties in Noe that aren’t right smack on Dolores? I’d be shocked if this goes for over a mil.
Remember to factor in the 50-100K to replace the horrible siding.
Doesn’t that siding have asbestos in it, making it a f*&^*ing pain to get rid of, or am I wrong on that?
It’s getting cheaper, but it’s not getting any prettier!
Maybe it gets more attractive after a few flagons of grog…
In the “in hindsight” category: spending the money to redo the facade before selling could have moved this house closer to original asking I think. But who could have known?
Good god, that siding is hideous. I would think that would drop it about $50k off its price relative to comps.
LOL that someone actually paid $1.3M for this place! My favorite is the washer dryer stacked next to the toilet (picture 8 on the MLS listing). And the kitchen is much worse than my 50s rancher rental. Any financial loss suffered on this place is well deserved (and it looks to be at least $200K, after standard selling and transaction costs).
In the “in hindsight” category: spending the money to redo the facade before selling could have moved this house closer to original asking I think.
Ya THINK?
I doubt this aesthetic appeals to too many these days. I doubt anyone would purchase this house without the intention of changing the facade at some point. Who knows what the buyer’s backstory is? But they should have gotten ’round to it. This area hasn’t seen much of a price slide, if any. It might have even paid off.
I challenge anyone here to find an uglier home. Sure there are homes that are in much worse shape, or otherwise have bad street appeal — but seriously, this house eats the cake.
[Editor’s Note: As it’s Friday, we’ll let that challenge stand (and note your first entrant).]
perhaps Round Table Pizza needs a new corporate office
I sort of like it. There’s one of these fake-stone-facade houses across the street from me and it makes the whole block feel a bit more festive.
You know, in a Disneyland kind of way.
Then again, mine does not have a red tile roof that you’d ordinarily see on a faux-Spanish-revival-esque stucco building.
So, uhm, yeah, I take it back. This is hideous.
I don’t think it’s that bad. You just need to re-do the facade, re-do the kitchen, and re-locate the w/d out of the bathroom and into the basement or somewhere else. But for ~2000 sq feet, with a little price adjustment, there could be some upside potential for a buyer who doesn’t mind doing some work.
love the round-table pizza comment…
would really suck if the neighbors etc pitch a fit about re-doing the historic facade…
what fun…
Putting a new twist on “One Man’s Home is Another Man’s Castle”.
I challenge anyone here to find an uglier home. Sure there are homes that are in much worse shape, or otherwise have bad street appeal — but seriously, this house eats the cake.
4207 26th St in the middle of Noe comes pretty close on the ugliness factor…
This is pretty bad.
talking about castles..
http://sfarmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Sanfrancisco&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&ARGUMENTS=-N329245137,-N231339,-N,-A,-N17339776
honestly, there are so many offensively ugly houses around the city, that I feel that this “castle” hardly ranks. Unearthly did a great job of showing worse.
then there was this socketsite classic:
https://f82d63.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/Oscar's%20GreenHouse.jpg
guest must be a realtor…
Can there be a raffle so I can take the money instead?
Formstone!?!
Welcome to Baltimore, hon!
Why does this house have three kitchens? There are the two identified, plus one in the basement.
The people living here must *really* have not liked cooking together.
Darn, I hate that fake stone, faux-medieval revival look.
Two of my all time faves:
https://socketsite.com/archives/2008/01/figure_out_how_to_fix_the_facade_and_youll_probably_far.html
https://socketsite.com/archives/2008/01/at_least_it_has_the_requisite_bay_windows_right.html
^ the sad thing about the two examples above is that they are recent facades. Someone actually planned them that way! ( at least the flinstones facade of the castle house was just bad taste from the 50’s).
As for the first link above (the worst offender), I’d just go balls out and center the lower level open balcony, and put two of those darling fisheye windows above 🙂 🙂 🙂
I too, vote for the first link above.
Speaking of the first link, 2008 seems a million years ago now. Check out some of the “Go-Go” comments when some claimed “special” San Francisco could only go “up Up UP”, even on prices of homes of extreme ugliness.
“Speaking of the first link, 2008 seems a million years ago now. Check out some of the “Go-Go” comments when some claimed “special””
I went back and looked at that link. I saw no “up up up” sort of comments. That makes you a complete liar. Discuss.
Fluj, “Go Go”, and “Special” are in quotes because many in the last couple of years claimed that San Francisco had a “unique” and “special” real estate enviroment “immune” from the troubles beginning to develope in the rest of the world.
The point was that going back a year or two on Socketsite can be quite entertaining, especially the threads on One Rincon Hill (where I got “up Up UP” from).
I am surprised YOU would want people to do a search on some of your comments in the last couple of years. You may not have said “up Up Up”, but others had in the past, and although it may be hard for you to believe, this comment was not about YOU. I put some words in quotes because I would never use the phrases myself. Example: Having the nerve to refer to tiny San Francisco as ….”The City”.
Part of San Francisco’s “unique” (I do not think it is any more “unique” than better parts of Chicago, L.A. , Seattle, etc.) charm is its ability to convince itself that it is far more desirable and important as an urban area than it really is. Sand Hill Road is(WAS) far more imporatant than Market Street, and with the number one industry in “the city” being tourism, I think we will see in the coming years that many of the “wealthy” owners of million dollar Noe Valley dumps were really not “wealthy” at all.
Fake quotes suck, “up up up” or otherwise. And nobody was saying “up up up” in 2008 anyway. Sorry for getting up in arms about it. But fake quotes suck.
As for San Francisco’s uniqueness, I think it might be instructive for some of you slaggers to do a drive from say, Half Moon Bay up to like Bolinas on the 1 sometime. This time of year would be great. Just observe. San Francisco is the city in this region. This almost unbelievably beautiful region. That’s the appeal.
You know how to use a search engine, the archives are all there. Or at least the stuff the editor hasn’t deleted in pique.
Show us all the quotes where people claimed that San Francisco had a unique and special real estate environment immune from the troubles in the rest of the world. Because I used to read this site pretty much cover to cover and I never saw anything like that. Or are you just making this stuff up?
It’s always fun to go down memory lane.
I Googled “Unique” in SS Google search. 20 seconds later, voila:
http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2007/11/apparently_theyre_selling_expensive_lemon_trees_at_861.html
SF is unique, sorry you can’t afford it. Go back to the midwest.
Posted by: jimmy at November 22, 2007 8:55 PM
In related arrogant news, has anyone seen the Re/Max knife-catching party invitation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSTdelX3_gU
That has to be the most condescending ad from professionals since the NAR fence-sitting buyer ad of late.
And here’s the NAR fence-sitter campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XRYCBw-hmQ
I’m trying to find a subliminal message there. This ad looks really stupid. Do they really think we’re 8-year olds? Wait… maybe they do.
You found the word “unique” used in a non-snarky way, I will grant you that SFS. I bet it was 20:1 sarcastic unique to authentic, but you did find one.
Now you have to find the rest. You know, the “immune from the troubles of the rest of the world” part.
Good luck!
San Francisco is THE CITY and always will be THE CITY in face I think I’m going to change my username to THE CITY just because it’s so easy to irritate some of you. :-p
Arguments about who may or may not have used the specific words “immune” or “unique” on http://www.socketsite.com are beside the point. The relevant issue is that the vast majority of public information regarding the San Francisco real estate market has consistently shouted these sentiments to make the point implicitly or explicitly that “prices won’t go down here.” Incredibly, they still spout this drivel. Take a look at: http://www.sfpulseofthemarket.com/frame.shtml?http://root.z57.com/filemanager/uploads/d/e/dea36d85-a15b-d336-2b52f1a516b36155.pdf
I use this guy as an example solely because he keeps the archives readily accessible. Dozens of other realtor sites in SF have said the same things. This guy appears to be fairly intelligent, but what a bunch of snake oil. From July 2008 playing with misleading averages: “no prices taking a hit here” [meaning SF]. In October 2008, he claimed that SOMA condo buyers would see their property values get a “shot in the arm” because the financial meltdown means there will be less building in the future — this “bodes well for today’s buyer”! Even in Feb 2009, talking about literally two sales, he makes the ridiculous broad point “For the $1 million+ condominium and $4.5 million single-family home, in their respective neighborhoods and
at their specific price points, those markets have bottomed so far as those buyers are concerned.”
Pure claptrap. You can see similar stuff on realtor web sites all over the place. This was (and still is) the primary source of information about the market. Argue all you want about the particular rose-colored-glasses outlook spouted by the RE industry on this site — and there has been plenty, from foreign buyers will prop up SF, to the internet and smart people wanting to move here will prop up SF, to it’s only 49 square miles and they’re not building any more land, to I’m sensing a lot of pent up demand. And, of course, there have been those at the other extreme screaming the pyramid scheme that is SF real estate has totally collapsed. All in all, this site has been a great counter-balance to the party line and a good source of solid information. Extreme or fraudulent positions get tested and usually fail.
NVJ,
Bulls got everything thrown at them by the containment crowd for a long time. Now it’s the time for “we never said this”. It’s natural, it’s called “bargaining” and is a necessary step towards accepting reality.
The sad thing behind all of this is that some people (not all, I insist, no need for some to flame out of context) bought in 2007-2008 in SF and expected a “move up”. No soup for you.
As long as we’re digging up old youtube — here is one of my fav’s. Suzanne made me do it!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubsd-tWYmZw
Wikipedia on “the city”:
The “City” referenced in speech and in print usually refers to the nearest city. The particular city being referenced is usually obvious from context. Nearly every city of size has this distinction at some time or other.
In general, in a rural or semi-rural environment, “The City” tends to be a nickname used by local residents for the nearest large conurbation. Similarly, in a suburban or inner-city environment, “The City” tends to be used by local residents and municipal agencies to refer to the much smaller area of the central business district, or the part defined by the official city limits. Similarly, in a sprawling urban area composed of several cities, one particular city may carry a name that also characterizes the region, such as San Francisco, which is known throughout the Bay Area as “The City.” (Another example is that of the “Twin Cities” of Saint Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota; local residents often refer to them and the entire urban region as “The Cities.”) Either usage, often with “City” or both “The” and “City” capitalized, sometimes appears in articles in mass-media publications that are targeted to residents of a major metropolitan area, and may reflect longstanding and deep-seated civic pride held by people who live in that region. In one notable instance, such pride manifested itself in “The City” being emblazoned on the uniforms of the San Francisco Warriors professional basketball team, from 1962 to 1971. In the New York metropolitan area, the term “the City” is often used to refer to Manhattan.
A dialect survey done by Bert Vaux, an associate professor of linguistics at Harvard University, indicates that this phenomenon is widespread—nearly all 9965 American participants in the study associated “the City” with a particular city, but the specific city they had in mind varied widely. Specifically, the study found that 46.99 percent identified New York City as “the City,” while 4.57 percent identified Chicago, 2.6 percent identified Boston, 2.25 percent identified Washington, D.C., and 1.88 percent identified Los Angeles. The remaining respondents (41.72 percent) identified another city as “the City.”
Yes, “The City” is used as a common phrase in almost every urban area. I am surprised such a sophisticated and world-traveled person as “oh my” did not already realize that.
SFS, there were lots of people cheerleading during the bubble days, no doubt about that. Anyone who looked at a graph of California housing prices over the last thirty years would quickly be disabused of the notion that “it only goes up” though. But perhaps some were unwilling to even do that slight bit of research. More likely, most flippers thought they would beat the greater fool out the door.
But there was no particular wave of hyper-optimism here, in fact there is quite a bit of extreme hyper-pessimism and FUD by the Usual Suspects these days. I guess we will know soon enough of all the predictions that housing prices will collapse 50% by 2010 will come true or not.
Now dropped to $1.095…but still just as ugly…
So, 1507 Dolores sold for $1,310,000 in 2006. Now it’s asking 16.5% less, and it’s still not sold. And realtors continue to talk on and on about 5-10% price drops from peak. And they also say the market didn’t change until October 2008, meaning the peak happened well after 2006.
The “known short sale” box is not checked on the mls listing – I hope that info is incorrect. Otherwise, this is looking like a capital loss implosion of $250-300K, and it could be worse if it doesn’t sell. Wow. That’s a lot of money to sacrifice at the feet of the credit deflation gods.
I’d guess that might sound a little insulting to people who are trying to sell in this environment. Personally, though, if I had been caught up in the bubble and was suckered in by it, I’d be more insulted with realtors who try to tell me that I simply “overpaid”, and that’s why I am suffering the loss. The macro environment has been exceptionally tricky the past two decades, fraught with all sorts of peril b/c of the insane level of micromanipulation of economic factors by governments and quasi-governmemtal actors. I could understand not getting all that, but not the idea that I simply couldn’t figure out how much to pay based on the comps. Especially when at the time an agent and an appraiser were confirming the price as reasonable.
“And realtors continue to talk on and on about 5-10% price drops from peak. And they also say the market didn’t change until October 2008, meaning the peak happened well after 2006.”
Realtors do, in life, using numerous datapoints to talk to paying clients who hold them accountable. And meanwhile in a pocket of the internets called Socketsite a thing of little consequence is occurring. An anonymous no account sour grapes former priced out malcontent named LMRiM continues to seize upon one flawed property after another while ignoring neighboring sales. Each time projecting it as “the market,” all the while using disparaging language toward realtors. Every. Single. Time.
So, how would someone fix this ugly facade? Can you? Must be more than $100k!
Apparently, this stuff (permastone or formstone) can be removed in a weekend, but the restoration of the facade underneath is what would be the killer. People put this over all kinds of houses, but I would imagine there’s a wood facade underneath. Anyone know what restoration for those average?
Just tear off the ugly stone and slap on some cement board siding.
Then it’ll look like every other POS in the city.
After reading all the “fugly” comments, I had to walk by this place. Frankly, I think it’s a nice house. I could live just fine with the permawhatever on the facade. If the price keeps going down, I may just buy it. ;0)
It looks like 1507 Dolores is in contract.
that must surely indicate the bottom — if this one can sell 😉
wonder how much a new facade costs..
And I wasn’t even the one who bought it! 🙂
It looks like this place has finally closed?
Still no update on property shark. Curious to know what this place went for.
If the sale price was marked confidential, it may take a while for property shark to get the updated tax records.
redfin notes the listing as “having gone off the market”
http://www.aliciatam.com/default.aspx?pp=-1&pg=0&l=276866
Looks like it went for $1,040,000
That would represent a 20% haircut from 2006 and probably a 25-30% decrease from the peak.
Are we going to see livable Noe SFHs for 6 figures in the future?
And in addition to the % numbers, let’s not forget the $350Kish that went to money heaven here. At least these guys can say they lived in a “castle”!
“This area hasn’t seen much of a price slide, if any.” (Posted by: anonn at March 6, 2009 11:06 AM, above)