815 Alvarado

With 110 days on the market at $2,595,000, the list price for 815 Alvarado has been reduced to $2,325,000. On the market in 2009 asking $2,965,000, the property went unclaimed as the “$3 Million Dream House” grand prize in last year’s Dream House Raffle.

∙ Listing: 815 Alvarado (4/3.5) 3,800 sqft – $2,325,000 [MLS]

18 thoughts on “Noe’s “$3 Million Dream House” Drops To $2,325,000”
  1. The information the developer left out was the angry neighbors, who were lied to/told about the need for size and light variances for house for a family that had certain needs, and the really high upkeep expenses. And, while it looks OK, the rooms are really small and several are just odd.
    Given that this is narcissistic, young and uber wealthy Noe Valley, I’m sure someone will buy it, then remodel to make a modern interior and ask for more variances to change it to a bigger, monkey poo green monstrosity.
    The “dream house” scam lets developers who can’t get the price they want to write off the overvalue as a donation, then, if the place doesn’t sell, they still get to take losses even if the property sells.

  2. @mcm: great comments. I agree completely. I’ve been in the house and its chopped up, very poor circulation floor plan, odd location of stairs, a kitchen with 4 ovens!
    way over priced, and heavy handed. not from the hand of an experienced designer.

  3. I still laugh at the post from the last thread, re: the “teensy wire removed from the photo.” It was classic.

  4. It is weird and won’t sell at this price (look at the houses next to it – and isn’t that a “school” nearby?) but I don’t see how that ends up generating “young, narcissistic, uber wealthy” Noe Valley comment? You like the bullet traffic in the La Mision better?

  5. I thought there were serious questions about whether this renovation was done with proper permits. Maybe that’s why it won’t sell.

  6. Someone mentioned that there were permit issues in the last thread without detailing what they were. If there were permit issues after 2003, they have not yet been resolved, because there have been no permits filed since 2002, all of which were extensions of prior permits that were finally closed in 2003, if I remember correctly.

  7. “narcissistic, young and uber wealthy Noe Valley”
    Wow MCM, that’s a broad brush! Wonder what insightful three-word generalizations we can come up with for other SF neighborhoods?

  8. According to realtors and the census (Alain Pinel, Zephyr and others):
    The average net worth of Noe Valleyans is nearly $900,000 while the average income/person for Noe Valley is $130,000, with the highest income earners in their mid 30s.
    The average income level rose 23% from 2009 to 2010.
    More than half the households are owned by one person.
    The average age for new home buyers – who tend to pay cash, then almost always remodel – in 2009 was 27 but has risen to to 31.
    The houses are among the largest in SF, with the fewest people per square foot per house. That is to say, people buy homes, enlarge them so that each room has a bathroom, each person has a bedroom with a bathroom, plus there’s a guest room, family room, den and living room and kitchen. Backyards and the centralized green, open spaces they collectively create have, over the last ten years, been reduced by at least a third. (This in a neighborhood that broadcasts itself as “green” and “organic”.)
    Noe Valleyans spend twice as much as the rest of the US on contributions, education, household operations, gifts and furnishings.
    More variances to the building codes have been granted in Noe Valley than any other neighborhood in the city.
    Intense local conflicts have been over control over the kinds of stores appropriate to the neighborhood, demands (which were met) for city funding of beautification projects that took money from other neighborhoods’ libraries, parks and schools, and the vilifying of senior citizens in various blogs and news papers.
    So rather than my comment being called a “broad brush”, I’d prefer “pithy.”

  9. According to realtors? You’re kidding right.
    Who knows how accurate this site is, but it says the median household income is $90K in Noe, up 23% not in the last year but in the last decade, about the rate of inflation since 2000, so there has been no increase in affluence at all.
    Note the differences in average and median, particularly net worth: average is 884K, median is 276K. A couple of billionaires kind of wreck the stats.
    http://homes.point2.com/Neighborhood/US/California/San-Francisco-County/San-Francisco/Noe-Valley-Demographics.aspx

  10. @MCM – In response to this thread
    https://socketsite.com/archives/2010/12/summer_inventory_bears_winter_noe_fruit.html
    About a house that sold for $2.1M in 2007, I looked up some census data on census tract 212 which appeared to have the highest house hold income in Noe.
    http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=14000US06075021200&-qr_name=ACS_2009_5YR_G00_DP5YR3&-context=adp&-ds_name=&-tree_id=5309&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false&-format=
    This shows a Median household income of $139k, Mean of $186k with a per capita income of $92k.
    Since this is the ACS 5-year data, YoY info is not to be found here. I did not find the ACS 1-year data broken out into such a small region.
    Not sure about where point2.com gets their data, but I have not found primary data sources for net worth broken out into small regions.
    Note though that average net worth of $900k, while large on a national scale, hardly makes one uber rich in a land of $2.1M houses (in 2007). In fact it would seem hard to pull off a all cash purchase of a $2.1M house with a $900k net worth.

  11. You actually believe what realtors say? Seriously?
    they tend to pump up every possible financial and demographic statistic available to raise the price of a property, and this applies to Noe V as well.
    Realtors want the highest sales price and income possible, cause that’s how they make their money.
    Get real.

  12. “Realtors want the highest sales price and income possible…”
    not really
    “…cause that’s how they make their money.”
    Real estate agents make nothing unless a sale is transacted. Excessively high prices inhibit sales, reducing volume and commissions.
    High sales volume and short listing periods are what RE agents want. The current stalemate in the market due to a mismatch in buyer-seller perceptions is a bigger concern than milking another 5-10% via a higher sales price.
    If anything RE agents would be motivated to convince buyers that a property’s value is higher while convincing sellers that a property’s value is lower to bridge the gap and break the stalemate.

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