86 Stanton
Behind the little gate and down the flagstone steps at 86 Stanton, a 435 square foot cottage originally constructed in 1918 but recently remodeled lies on two lots.
86 Stanton Floor Plan
And while its surrounding grounds (or at least the yard) could use some care, we’re totally crushing on what’s now inside, from the Pedini kitchen to the sleek bath (or shower).
86%20Stanton%20Living.jpg
Just listed for $1,150,000, the cottage is also being offered for rent at $3,000 a month. We’ll let you run the numbers.
UPDATE: As a number of plugged-in readers have quickly and correctly noted, while the permit to remodel 86 Stanton was pulled in 2006, in 2008 a permit was filed to build a new three-story house on the font half of the double lot but has yet to be approved.
∙ Listing: 86 Stanton (1/1) 435 sqft – $1,150,000 [86stanton.com] [MLS]

59 thoughts on “Living Large In 435 Square Feet: Inside 86 Stanton”
  1. I cry foul on the “neighborhood” shots of Noe valley.
    That’s nowhere near Noe valley Linda. That’s upper market.

  2. Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when he read 435 sqft for 1.15 Mil?
    The place is cute, the location is okay, but the lot is big but the yard lacks a lot of privacy, especially with that glass brick shower wall that lets your neighbors see you “giving the undercarriage a how’s your father.”
    While I see the value of having a yard within SF you better really love to garden when you only have 435 sqft of living space.
    The only people I see paying close to the asking price is a developer looking to do a tear down and rebuild.

  3. Oh and um, no parking? 1.15 mil or 3k in rent in upper market (Noe Valley this is not closer to Casto) and I don’t get a parking spot and the washer/dryer is in the kitchen?
    How about 500k Linda?

  4. Cute little cottage… This definetly Upper Martket/Castro; not Noe Valley… and “Endless Summer” is a funny tag considering it’s tuck on the heavlily wooded north slope of Kite Hill wedge between taller buildings, I think this actually gets sun about 1 month of the year. I laughed so hard at the price that coffee shot out my nose…. who are you kidding?
    You’d be lucky to get 1.5 mil for the horrendous NEW building they put up after they tear this jewlbox out.

  5. You’re not the only one badlydrawnbear. The MLS listing indicates that the price was recently raised. I think this is a marketing ploy and no-one expects this to sell near asking. “Its small but I got it for a half million discount!”
    If google maps is accurate the lot seems to be roughly the standard 25×100, not exactly a large lot.
    Nice interior remodel though.

  6. I like the place, but 1.15 million seems like a typo.
    This place is closer to Noe than it is to realistically priced.

  7. Maybe they’re pricing it high because they want to be found by someone who’s searching for homes on redfin between 1-1.25 million?

  8. thanks for the laugh.
    tiny, no parking, unattractive (to many)kitchen, more spent on staging than it would’ve cost to fix up the yard, purchased for 800K in ’05 with 90% debt, an abandoned plan to build a new 3 story SFH on the lot, at least $57K of remodeling cost
    100% sure this will sell for under the $900K they need to “break even”.
    conclusion: rent it for $3K

  9. >>”Oh and um, no parking? 1.15 mil or 3k in rent in upper market (Noe Valley this is not closer to Casto) and I don’t get a parking spot and the washer/dryer is in the kitchen?
    How about 500k Linda?”
    Ditto to THAT. Although, despite the almost-offensive price, this place is utterly adorable. I have to say that if i had a million dollars i’d ALMOST be torn.

  10. That Romain house you found looks like a good deal at the price, lyqwyd. Romain is a little bit into the fog though still a nice location.
    There are only four photos indicating that it likely needs some updating. But it is large.

  11. Bold move…
    Adding nice finishes to a tiny place is suspicious. If the lot can be reasonably developed, why spend money on throw-away high-end stuff?
    Remember the TH earthquake shack? They couldn’t spend money to expand and instead channeled it inside.
    I’d buy it for 350K. Lot value minus tear down costs. No-one in the upper 500K range would want to live in a garden shack.

  12. I spit out my coffee when I saw that tile on the bathroom wall. I haven’t seen those tiles used on a floor in ten years and NEVER a bathroom wall. Gross. The facade is cute though, for like 450,000.

  13. the value is likely being pegged to the fantasy of building “…a new 3-story residence at the front of the lot”; according to the permit on file since June 2008 which indicates they at least sent out the trial balloon on the idea.

  14. Asking price aside, this is one of the best utilization of less than 500 sqft I’ve ever seen and the designer should be commended.
    They should have murphy’d the bed and came up with a slick office setting to really maximize the space.

  15. Didn’t know they still made leopard spot carpet, and with a hot tub, gotta love it.
    and footie is right, they should have either cut the slate tiles down from floor squares or put up larger sheets of slate.

  16. The monthly cost of ownership (assuming 20% down, 5% loan, etc.) is $4,664. To qualify, one would have to make over $225,000 a year and come up with $230,000 down.
    I find it hard to believe that someone pulling in nearly a quarter of a million dollars is going to live in a 435 square foot one bedroom garden apartment. This is the type of place that should rent for $1,500 or something and house a family making about median income or just under.
    It’s hard not to get angry at these greedy bastards. It’s a nice place, but c’mon.

  17. Ahhhhhh…..yet another listing with “Carrera” marble countertops…..When will agents learn?
    “Carrara Marble”: It gets its name from Carrara, Italy, the city in which this marble is most commonly quarried.
    “Carrera Marble”: A San Rafael based company which specializes in marble and stone work.
    Maybe the countertops are Carrera Marble…

  18. “Carrera Marble” in San Rafael is named after its owner, Frank Carrera.
    It’s like a baker whose last name is Baker or a plumber whose last name is Plummer. There is a judge named Gavel and a dentist named Chu. I wonder why this happens so often…..

  19. Wow! I am going to change my last name to Clampagne or Chanpagne and start carbonating 2-buck-Chucks Chardonnay.

  20. Zero privacy for that hot tub!
    Would there be heavy traffic noise from Market Street?
    Gotta love the plethora of neighborhood photos. I guess this place is in Noe Valle, the Castro, and Cole Valley. No time for photos of Glen Park?

  21. I remember putting an offer in on a house on Stanton way back in 1995.
    it is an interesting location with some surprise nice views towards the finiancial district. This property seems to miss out on the views though.
    Stanton is not an “official” street and appears only as a dashed line on many maps. In reality, rough pavement meanders about 100m to a trail down Kite Hill. It is a narrow flat shelf that backs up on the south to a hill/cliff and Kite Hill to the north. Does anyone know the history?
    With all these scenes on the television of hillsides sliding in the east bay and along the coast with the rains, I wonder who is responsible for the geotech engineering at Stanton Street?

  22. Just cashed in my Google options. Also my new employer (Twitter) just upped my salary due to some recent windfall they encountered (too complicated for me to understand). So, I’m submitting my offer for the place on Friday. I plan to low ball them with a circa 2005 bid. Life is soooo easy in this post-industrial,-union, -government regulation, -middle class, -prosperity, – TARP bailout, -social security era!

  23. @VancouverJones ROFL! Or perhaps ROF weeping. These economic and political times lead to rapid mood swings.
    Agree with all comments above about the asking price. The rent seems silly too––the benefits of yard and hot tub are greatly reduced when all your neighbors can see you.

  24. Glad I’m not the only one who thought the price was a typo. Beautiful design, no doubt, but there is no way that place is worth that price tag.

  25. How about 500k Linda?

    How about not even.
    Cute place and all, but a grand a foot isn’t as easy to get as it once was, even accounting for smaller places getting more psf.
    That’s some medical, if not weapons-grade delusion in that there pipe the seller’s smoking.

  26. Alright already! Enough with the tour of San Francisco! How about a little attention on the property. And hey, Linda at Sothby’s, no budget to remove those powerlines from the photos like all the other agents in town?

  27. what is with that cantilevered toilet. Is that a new design concept? Maybe I have been out of the loop, but structurally, that requires a lot of work

  28. I saw a cottage of a similar size for sale in the Castro last year. The price was in the high 500s.
    It also came with a garden.
    And a 1000sf+ first floor TIC unit!
    I think it ended up selling for 570 or something.

  29. The price is too crazy for just that tiny cottage.
    MLS states “Renovated Romantic Cottage on Two Buildable Lots w/plans!” so maybe the justification for the list price is for the other buildable lot with permits?

  30. geekgrrl — careful there. “Plans,” not “permits.” As the editor stated: “in 2008 a permit was filed to build a new three-story house on the lot which has yet to be approved.”
    There is a huge difference. Having plans is worth something, but not very much, and certainly not worth the ridiculous premium being charged on this tiny cottage. That’s especially true since it’s someone else’s customized design instead of yours. Being fully permitted is something else, but still wouldn’t be worth what’s being charged here.

  31. A million dollar dump. No privacy, no security, no views, no real million dollar value. Even the land it’s on is not worth a million. Either the buyer went around looking for an agent that would actually take the listing for his or her rediculous asking price, or the first one he or she found pulled this number out of a hat. There is no pricing logic to be found here. Simply a random number. Good luck! Should we start taking bets on when the FIRST 20% reduction will be?

  32. The second lot is huge. It runs all the way from Stanton Street.
    http://maps.google.com/maps?q=86+stanton+san+francisco,+ca&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=86+Stanton+St,+San+Francisco,+California+94114&gl=us&ll=37.756869,-122.442073&spn=0.000912,0.002064&t=h&z=20
    The diagram above is only for half the lot. They aren’t selling this for the cottage alone. It’s a cottage and a lot. The ppsft is meaningless.
    Put up a 2400 square foot home on the lot for a cost of something like 350 psft and sell it for 700psft. That makes the front of the lot worth about $800K. The cottage in that condition with the yard is probably worth $350K. 1.150, which happens to be their asking price. Will the neighbors and the city allow a second home? Probably.
    I don’t think I’d pay for unapproved plans. The owner obviously doesn’t want to take the risk of being shot down. So the price will have to compensate for the risk.

  33. tipster – Are you saying that this property includes two lots ? That could explain the higher asking price. Odd then that the listing doesn’t mention the lot size if that is its main selling point.

  34. The wall mounted toilet is by Duravit, a German company; very high quality fixtures. They have been in use in Europe for probably 15 years. Becoming more popular here.
    No special structural required. The toilet comes with a steel hanging system that is attached to the studs. The tank is also concealed in the wall; you need access from the other side to service it. They are very minimal looking and super easy to clean since they don’t touch the floor. They are (sort of) expensive: about $1500, but well worth it.

  35. Noearch – So if soemone would remove the full length mirror on the wall in the living room between the bathroom door and bedroom door, one one find a Duravit access panel….

  36. “Becoming more popular here.”
    I assume you mean in residential applications. They’ve been used in institutional applications for decades. The advantage being that the janitor can mop the lavatory much quicker without the need to maneuver around the toilet base.

  37. The two lots are 86 Stanton, which is 2347 sqft (per assessor), and 181 Yukon, which is 1245 sqft (per assessor).
    I believe the prior sale included both lots as well and that sale was for $795K. You’re saying now that lot alone is worth $800K, tipster?
    Btw, the sale price was $1.050M yesterday and got raised today by $100K.
    The current seller of 86 Stanton sold 26-28 Vandewater last year. The 2 units sold for $730K (2/2 910 sqft) and $1.25M (3/2.5, 2000 sqft), so almost a cool $2M. She bought them for what appears to be $562K in 1997:
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/26-Vandewater-St-94133/home/538051
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/28-Vandewater-St-94133/home/1161053

  38. Hilarious price aside, it is just extraordinarily unlivable. The only closet space is the two wardrobes on either side of the bed. There is nowhere to place a dresser, or hang a coat, or put a vacuum, or stash a mop. Where does one store sheets or towels? The only kitchen sink is the bar sink in the island, so where would one wash a roasting pan, or a cookie sheet? It would be an adorable hotel room, but it really can’t serve as a functioning home.

  39. “where does the cats litterbox go?”
    You teach the cat to use the toilet.
    “It would be an adorable hotel room, but it really can’t serve as a functioning home.”
    Have you seen some of the micro-properties people have detailed on the interwebs? Generally in downtown highrise areas of foreign countries, there are some people who have come up with innovative ways to live in tiny spaces. This house doesn’t seem to have very many of those innovative methods, but I’d wonder if our building codes would even allow them.

  40. Very cute place. Would make a good home for a single guy or gal, but I can’t even imagine two adults living here, much less a family. And while we had 11 in a space not much larger than this when I was growing up, that was due to necessity. Someone able to afford this place is not going to pack them like that.
    Is The City going to let you build a place on a 1245 sq ft lot? Seems unlikely.
    And the photographer has done a great job of making the large seem like it goes on forever, 1245 plus 2347 is only 3592 sq ft, which is not really that big a lot. I wonder if there is more land here than the assessor thinks. If there are actually two build-able lots, the price makes more sense.

  41. I just did the research on this for a client. There was a past dispute on the property line between the back of the cottage and the neighbor behind. This may still not be resolved. A driveway coming in from the rear neighbor yard had also been researched but the neighbor in dispute would not cooperate. This house used to belong to one of the Grateful Dead’s fabric designers. There is also a note about some hillside slippage in the front garden and the pylons for a new build in front will need to go deep.

  42. Situations like this must be frustrating for the listing agent. I wonder how often an agent fires their client for being unrealistic.

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