Purchased for $1,615,000 in early 2004 having already been renovated, the single-family home at 1738 Lake Street returned to the market last March listed for $2,100,000.
Reduced to $1,950,000 last April, to $1,890,000 last May, and then $1,780,000 last July, the four-bedroom Lake Street home was withdrawn from the market last August.
Back on the market today and listed for “$1,499,000” as a short sale.
∙ Listing: 1738 Lake (4/3) 2,977 sqft – “$1,499,000” [MLS]

29 thoughts on “Selling Short In 2011 Having Gone Long On Lake In 2004”
  1. they will be lucky to get $1.5 considering how cheesy the remodel is.
    [Editor’s Note: Just to be clear, it would appear the remodeling of 1728 Lake Street occurred prior to its sale for $1,615,000 in early 2004, not after.]

  2. C’mon how can you “destroy value” with such a minor remodel? It needed a redo when they moved in and now it needs a redo again.
    Take out the columns and the chandelier. What’s that going to cost, five cents?
    Kitchen is very functional, but not eat in, and the bedrooms are likely very small, with one attic-ey master.
    http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1738+lake+street+san+francisco,+ca&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=1738+Lake+St,+San+Francisco,+California+94121&gl=us&ll=37.786301,-122.478369&spn=0.000644,0.000948&t=h&z=20
    That’s the real problem and it was there when they bought for 1.6 in 2004. They are going to suck down a $100K+ loss on a 7 year hold because the market is continuing to sink. Not because they added some easy-to-remove columns and forgot to remove one light fixture.

  3. having actually visited the property i can tell you that it is cheesy. i think they paid too much and i still think $1.5m is too much.
    as for the remodel destroying value-well, some prefer the hundred year old front door to the new homer depot replacement, some prefer the original wood floors to the cheesy travertine. imo they very definitely destroyed value with their choices. ymmv, stalker dude.

  4. i am not claiming that the market has not come down here and everywhere. i am saying that better taste in remodeling would have added value rather than subtracted it.

  5. …I take back what I said, I looked up the address on Google street view and it came up with a different house than the one advertised. This is not a “Sunset Special” but rather an attractive, simple Victorian.

  6. The other interesting thing about this house is that they tried to demolish it in 2001 and build a new house. That apparently didn’t work, so that’s why there was the 2002 permit to add square footage which was closed about 6 weeks before the 2004 sale.

  7. excuses?
    sure, take your pick
    cheesy remodel
    sub-par location (not one of the choice blocks in ph)
    short hold
    overpaid
    distressed sale
    selling in the teeth of bad market
    sales strategy (ht ricky)

  8. Walking by this regularly, I think the “home depot” comments are apt. It is almost willfully suburban looking.
    It is, however, a perfectly nice block.

  9. sub-par location (not one of the choice blocks in ph)
    What do you mean by “sub-par”? By your standards, would the choice blocks in pac heights be “par,” or “above-par”?
    As kthnxybe said, this is a perfectly nice block. It’s also in a pretty good school district.

  10. Can’t say I know the hood well, but being steps away from the Presidio and near Sea Cliff doesn’t spell “sub-par” for me, except perhaps in the commute time if you are going anywhere except the North Bay. Also not seeing the ‘cheese’ factor; this place looks nice.

  11. Let’s be clear that this is nowhere near PAC heights. The cross is like 19th or something. I’ve been there , and it’s indeed cheesy. Lake is a busy street until you get way out to seacliff.

  12. excuses? yes, in the heat of the run-up people did not mind paying $1.6+ even if they got a house on a busy street that had a cheesy remodel.
    now, however, people do mind.
    i am not quite sure what my stalker is after.
    just to be sure i have a question i’ll put to the board; is short hold=long hold?, cheesy remodel=good remodel?,distress sale=conventional sale?, noisy and dark=quiet and sunny?, selling when the market is going up=when it is crashing?
    its like the twilight zone around here sometimes…

  13. 1738 Lake is a very anomalous example of someone who overpaid. It happens. Hopefully, they were smart enough to cash out refi a few times. Missing the opportunity to turn a lemon into lemonade is arguably worse than being suckered into overpaying in the first place.

  14. just to be sure i have a question i’ll put to the board; is short hold=long hold?
    most assuredly not. but I’ll put the question back to you. If this place was purchased in 2004, that was 7 years ago. In your opinion is 7 years a short or long hold?
    I believe I’ve heard people on Socketsite say several times that a buyer would be fine if they buy and hold for a while, and then use the 5-10 year time frame as the “You’ll be fine” time range.
    this place was held for 5+ years.
    Clearly, if you hold 30 years (like Noearch) inflation will lead to a nominal home price appreciation. but how many people do that these days? (yes, I know some do… but last I checked the average hold time of an owner-occupied home was 7 years).
    as for the house: I haven’t been there. the pics don’t look too bad to me. Except for the tile flooring, there is nothing a few weekends of DIY projects couldn’t undo.
    is it a meticulously restored Vic? Heck no.
    But 3,000 sq ft home in that part of the city is nothing to sneeze at.
    Obviously it suffers due to its location right on Lake. But last I checked Lake has been Lake for quite a while. It certainly is no worse than it was in 2004.

  15. ninny, here’s a thread from December about another Lake home where the sellers had there ass handed to them (down 12% from 2005 and 22% from 2008) and you made many of these “arguments”. And talked some nonsense about tax deductions and leverage investments. And mocked a bunch of people to boot.
    Down “Only” 12 Percent (Ignoring That Data Point In 2008)
    Apparently, when I make the same arguments, it’s stalking. Twilight zone indeed.

  16. Ah! I merely mock.
    While you, being in the trenches and all, have explained away every single apple.
    You have explained how it’s a deflationary world and we have to worry about our money losing value.
    You mock renters, but who wouldn’t? Not if they understand tax deductions, leveraged investments etc.
    I’m waiting with bated breath when you will reveal your shrewd investments in the last couple of years.

  17. I feel I have a good knowledge of that section of Lake Street as my brothers rented the house right next door for many years in the mid 80’s. Lake Street is not particularly noisy or trafficky (everyone uses California instead) and it was a nice (but foggy) area close to GG Park with brutal street parking. It was surprisingly easy to shoot through the Presidio to get over to the Marina/North Beach so it’s not as remote as it appears. They will get a kick out of the idea that someone would have paid $1.8M to buy next to their old 3 bedroom /2 bath rental which used to cost them about $2k for the whole house.

  18. ex-sfer,
    you wrote,” “just to be sure i have a question i’ll put to the board; is short hold=long hold?
    most assuredly not. but I’ll put the question back to you. If this place was purchased in 2004, that was 7 years ago. In your opinion is 7 years a short or long hold?”
    seven years is not a short hold.
    i was asking my stalker dude if he had a problem with the different reasons i gave for why different properties have fared so poorly while trying to sell into this down market. the gist of it is sellers get away with most everything in a rising market with shrinking inventory, and they get away with nothing in a falling market with rising inventory.
    ergo, lake street is ‘not that busy’ when inventory is slim. but we all know lake street in not north of lake. 8th ave by california street
    is not north of lake. and in this market, with falling prices and rising inventory, buyer’s are in the driver’s seat. what do you think they’ll do? i think they’ll tend to drive a much harder bargain.

  19. stalker dude,
    i do not mock renters. there are as many reasons to rent property as there are to own property.
    “You have explained how it’s a deflationary world and we have to worry about our money losing value.”
    i believe that to be true (at least, of our fiat money). do you believe differently?
    will we hear your argument against that?
    “I’m waiting with bated breath when you will reveal your shrewd investments in the last couple of years.”
    why don’t we stick to the subject at hand? i’m just some anon on the internet so some personal story that is unverifiable is not worth shit. what is worth debating however, are the finer points of the buying,selling,fixing,renting,holding of sfre.
    maybe you have all the answers as you seem to be sitting in the ivory control tower rather than in the trenches?

  20. Don’t blame short term holds, busy streets, bad remodels or any other of anonee’s red herrings for all these examples of losses, blame the only thing anonee got right: “when the market…is crashing”

  21. ok ch, thanks for that thoughtful answer.
    i think i get it now: short term=long term, busy=quiet,bad remodel=good remodel, reason=red herring…
    so does crashing market=40-50% off?

  22. Having been in escrow for the past month, and most recently “Firm,” today 1738 Lake Street fell out of contract and is once again active with a short sale “approved” at $1.5 million.

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