3730 26th Street
As we wrote a year ago March:

3730 26th Street is a single-family home on the edge of Noe Valley that was last touted as a neighborhood sales comp in June of 2004 when purchased for $1,250,000.

Now granted, there are more parking spaces (two) than baths (one a one-half), but the kitchen has been remodeled. And just like its location, none of these things have changed in the past five years. That being said, currently asking $1,148,000.

And while we don’t believe it was listed on the MLS at the time, it’s a plugged-in tipster that notes 3730 26th Street changed hands on July 1, 2010 with a reported contract price of $1,000,000 (20% under its 2004 sale).
If 3730 was presented as a buy-side comp in 2004, adjust expectations accordingly.
Some Will Call It Yet Another Anecdote, We’ll Call It An Apple To Be [SocketSite]

41 thoughts on “Unofficial Inventory, But An Official Sale For An Apple On 26th Street”
  1. Hold the phone, don’t I get blasted on here for saying something may be an apple with a list price vs. sale price. This place is not an apple until it is sold, right.
    [Editor’s Note: We’ll take the blame for a lousy headline (since reworked), but as noted in the body of the post, the sale closed escrow on 7/1/10 with a reported contract price of $1,000,000.]

  2. Hoo boy, that earlier thread on this place is a fun read! So, a Noe SFR closes at 20% below its 2004 sale price (which includes the big run-up to 2007 and down from there). LMRiM’s prediction of 800k five years hence (now, 4 years) which brought the characteristic excoriations from his flujness — that’s 20% off the 2010 sale price — does not seem far-fetched at all anymore. I’d sure bet on it, and even if it comes to pass the 2010 buyers will not do as poorly as the 2004 buyers.
    As somebody noted a couple weeks back, these substantial 2004-2010 price declines are so commonplace for “Real SF” now that it’s no longer newsworthy, but it is nice to get the end of the story SS started following more than a year ago.

  3. A.T. wrote:
    > Hoo boy, that earlier thread on this place is a fun read!
    > LMRiM’s prediction of 800k five years hence (now, 4 years)
    > which brought the characteristic excoriations from
    > his flujness…
    Back before we lost LMRiM and fluj we had great stuff like that almost every day…
    A home would sell at a high price with no connection to the average income in the area (thanks to Wa Mu and others with the no doc neg am loan) and LMRiM would give a logical example of why the price will be lower in the future.
    Then fluj would jump in and remind LMRiM that only a Realtor ® is quailed to discuss the price of homes and that homes always go up in value (since they are not making real estate any more and that rich Asian buyers with cash love SF and the number 8)…

  4. At the end of the day, this house has a bar on the corner, a ghetto next door, and an extremely active and double-parky church across the street. I wouldn’t pay over 500 for it.

  5. Payments plus property taxes (ignoring the opportunity cost of the downpayment) were about parity with renting. Thus, this was a rational decision to buy, and of course, they’d get all of the “upside” when they sold.
    But with the equity loss, they hit $7500 per month, every month for 6 years, to live in a 2/1.5 they could have rented for about half that and wiped out their retirement savings.
    Rent parity isn’t the whole picture.

  6. EH There is no bar on the corner. To the contrary, There is a great organic food market, the 26th and Guerrero Market. In addition, there is no “ghetto” next door.

  7. My apologies, I misviewed that it was on the half-block next to the Albion. Still, that church can be quite annoying. 700.

  8. Wow, so $1M in 2010 is 3.2% nominal annual appreciation and 0.8% real annual appreciation since the 2000 price of $729K. And that doesn’t include the amount actually spend on the minimal work done in 2000 and the larger amount of work done in 2002. Sounds about right.
    What’s also funny is flujanonn the Realtormon telling people that 26th St. is full of crime because of the projects on 26th, even though this place is west of Guerrero. Only 6 months later, whenever someone would point out that something in the Mission was 2.5 blocks away from the same projects, flujanonn would say that crime spillover doesn’t happen in “two-and-a-half rather long city blocks” (see link). Classic!

  9. I live off Sanchez and I have lost track of how many times I’ve called 911 reporting gunshots. On this block I’d look for a brick house 😉

  10. 26th and Bartlett was one block away in 2004 when this place sold for 25% more. I think that was the original point.

  11. Yes, it was then as well, and definitely a totally awesome buy back then too. So kudos all around on buying high and selling right when big positive changes are just beginning to happen.

  12. All those imminent big positive changes were factored into the 2010 selling price. Guess they kept the price from falling even further.

  13. Yeah ? Well when you bid 48 percent over ask and sell in 5 years without improvements you might just be asking for trouble. This site is hilarious.

  14. If the Realtor had put this on the MLS, I would have taken a look. This is pretty much what I am looking for at a price I can afford. It is not the greatest location, but I am sure there is no gunfire within a block. Bartlett is two blocks away and those are two important blocks, it turns out. The TL abuts Nob Hill too.
    I am curious Jeff, what is your cross street? There are no gunshots heard at Sanchez and 30th.
    Noe Valley prices are definitely softening up. This confounds the whole buy vs. build equation even more. I can see how deflation sets in: it is easiest to just sit and wait, rather than make a big expenditure.

  15. “Back before we lost LMRiM and fluj
    I believe only the former is actually gone…”
    Looks like he’s back, although it seems he may have crapped out.
    “Well when you bid 48 percent over ask and sell in 5 years without improvements you might just be asking for trouble.”
    It seems odd to suggest that one would be required to make improvements within 5 years in order to get a good selling price when one already paid a good selling price. This seems like one of those excuses in the line of “the buyer overpaid,” which is used in conjunction with this excuse. The real problem is that a typical 5-7 year old is much more risky than most people think, and transaction costs can overwhelm without undue appreciation.

  16. It seems odd to suggest that one would be required to make improvements within 5 years in order to get a good selling price when one already paid a good selling price
    They paid 400K+ over asking in early 2004. Then they hit the panic button and sold off market in 2010. The end.

  17. Translation:
    “They overpaid, and then they made things worse by cutting their losses after 6 years and before inflation could mask them.
    It happens.”

  18. I doubt there’s many more 400K+ overbids to be found for that sort of property. So “it happens” ? No, not really. It happened. Then they got seller’s fatigue and didn’t hold out for that 1.15M sale that other recent sales would seem to support.

  19. As for that $1.15M figure, from March 2009: “That being said, currently asking $1,148,000.”
    Somehow being on the market for 16 months can be quickly dismissed as unwillingness to hold out.

  20. fluj, I’ll make this easy for you. Everyone (with rare exceptions) who bought in SF from 2004-2008 “overpaid . . . it happens.” Translation: “there was a bubble and it is deflating.”

  21. It’s really odd that you and others like you gloss over the near 50 percent overbid like it was run of the mill. Trying to say “it happens” and “translation” and all this stuff instead of looking at glaring oddities of the transations.

  22. fluj, what was the next bid? 44% over? Asking? Was it an outlier or just barely above the next offer?
    What I know is that big overbids, bidding wars, and really high prices for Noe Valley were de rigueur in 2004-08. Today . . . not as much. Can’t discard apples that happen not to support your argument and maintain any credibility.

  23. Usually overbids were 5 to at most 20% over. This one again wound up with a 900+ dollars per square feet price in early 2004. So an outlier? Sure. A comp? Yes. Discarded? No. Shedding light on an aspect of something generally isn’t thought of as discarding that thing.

  24. A friend alerted me to this posting since I live on the block. A few things…
    It’s a perfectly safe block with no need for a “brick house” to avoid gunshots.
    The church double parks on Sunday’s only. If you ask them to not park opposite your driveway, they will respect your wishes. They have a great choir that can be heard several houses away.
    This neighborhood provides easy access to the highway so I believe it would be very attractive to a commuter heading south (like me).
    It’s a single family home that is in move in condition.
    Clearly the 2004 buyer overpaid. Only time will tell if the current buyer got a fair price.

  25. Just a few comments –
    1) this was deliberately underpriced in 2004 in the hope of finding a sucker who would bid high (successful strategy)
    2) this house was marketed on the mls for a year+, so no need to place much emphasis on the “off market” aspect of the latest sale
    3) it’s nice to see these sellers took a bath on a 6 year hold
    and
    4) “no dice” and “anon” are both fluj.
    – el bombero

  26. glad to see fluj still has the good old fire running in 2008-2009 fashion. Containment excuses, talking down the opponent, “nothing to see there” non-sequiturs. What’s still missing is the insults.
    Sign of a double dip? Is this “fall” 2008 all over again?

  27. So you say. From here it looks like the four or five posters who dominate the site calling everybody who disagrees with them fluj.

  28. Oh please, this is farcical. Fluj storms off, then continues to post frequently under about a 1/2 dozen different names, all of which are transparently recognizable as ol’ flujie (variations of “you’re wrong” or “you’re an idiot” with little or nothing more). Then he complains that 4 or 5 posters call him out on it — describing himself as “everybody who disagrees” no less. I guess that since it is so laughable the best thing to do is just laugh at it.

  29. Love the way the predator isolates one poster and circles him trying to wear him off.
    Definitely fluj.
    Seeing him trying to veer himself to the high road is highly entertaining.

  30. @ el bombero
    1. sorta. it was about 10 % underpriced, looking back at ’04 Noe ytd to that point.
    2. wrong. 90 days only, in the horrid spring ’09 market
    3. not cool. hate the game not the player.
    4. keep guessing. not impressed with your acumen or that of your pal, the individual poster known as LOLATSFRENEGADE, but I’m not that guy either

  31. Sure lolATsfrenegade, sure. I’ve been watching you three shills say the same things about the same things in the same way for a while now. Three of you, all doing the same thing constantly? All popping up in threads getting each others’ backs? Answering for one another all the time? It’s pretty obvious.
    [Editor’s Note: They’re not, but it would appear that you are, and we’re about to cut your two dozen or so personas off unless you pick one and stick with it.]

  32. I looked at this house in 2009, and I still have it saved on CleanOffer. NoeValleyJim, I think you would have found it small–– you have kids, right? I remember thinking that it felt more like 1100 sq ft than 1365 sq ft. I also remember the outdoor shower, an odd touch for a home in San Francisco.
    It would be a nice place for a couple. I’ve learned not to be surprised by what people will pay in SF, but $1M seems a bit steep for this place in 2010.

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