This "original" 3 BR, 2 BA home in Mill Valley at 5 Hillcrest, is still on the market for $1.46 million. (Maybe it's the enormous redwood that lists uneasily at the corner of the lot.) We're starting to collect examples of laudable marketing prose.
From the Sotheby's flyer: "There is so much untapped potential in this 1952 home. It is a perfect canvas for those wanting to remodel..." A perfect canvas: Great title for a novel.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Best Language in a Flyer: Open Houses today
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
What $1,000 Bought You In Marin In The 1800s
Don't feel bad. We're sure that if you index for inflation, it all comes out even.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Marin foreclosures at a glance
Not a pretty sight, but a really pretty site. Real estate startup Hotpads scrapes national housing data (for sale, rental and foreclosure) and displays it on a map for your browsing pleasure. The foreclosure data comes from RealtyTrac; rentals and for sale data comes from homeowners and real estate agents' sites.
[Story via TechCrunch]
Market still brisk in Marin?
Houses that cost more than $1 million don't last two weeks on the market in Marin says Redfin.
Price Choppers: More Tales of Marin's Most Motivated Sellers
With one of last week's price choppers already in contract (we're referring to 171 Stanford in Mill Valley, where the seller cut the price from $849,000 to $795,000), we figured it was time to toss some fresh meat into the water. Here are some sellers who've reduced their asking prices:
Stinson Beach: There are only 325 lots in the Seadrift neighborhood, an exclusive enclave we've always thought exhibited great optimism, built on that spit of land that juts so trustingly out into the ocean at the end of Stinson Beach. The price of one older oceanfront property on the market since October, at 234 Seadrift Rd., has been cut from $3.6 million to $3.3 million. Depending on whom you ask, it either has ocean views or partial ocean views. Either way, they're better than our views. To give you some perspective, the seller of the house down the road at 296 Seadrift Rd., listed at $6.2 million last July, is sitting firm.
Mill Valley: A block or so over from the Stanford listing we discussed earlier, on another of those streets named after colleges, 222 Princeton has Bay views, 3BR, 2BA and a price cut, from $1.275m to $1.175m.
Read More......
Saturday, April 5, 2008
WEEKEND READING: A guide to Eichler homes
Many of the urban hipsters we know in San Francisco (and a few friends in NY) want to quit their cramped city apartments and buy retro, mid-century Eichlers. Especially now that prices are starting to drop in Northern Marin.
What is an Eichler home? Joseph Eichler was a prolific builder who had a dream of California living that integrated the outdoors with the indoors. This was very forward thinking in the 1950s when people didn't have houses with big walls of sliding doors that opened onto sunny atria, where they could eat in the garden. But it made perfect sense for California's crisper-drawer climate.
Eichler teamed up with a number of architects to build 11,000, mostly low-cost homes in developments throughout the state. He also built some custom homes. Marin County has an especially high concentration of Eichlers—about 1,600 of them—in six neighborhoods, from Strawberry Point to upper Lucas Valley.
To see what all the fuss was about, we spent an afternoon with David Shapiro, a real estate agent with Frank Howard Allen who's been selling Eichlers for 30 years, and lives in one. Here's what we found out.
We met David at 1075 Las Ovejas Avenue in Terra Linda, one of his latest listings—a three-bedroom, two-bathroom Eichler which is on the market for $769,000. It sits in the middle of an Eichler neighborhood, on the kind of sunny, winding street where you'd expect to see a boy with a fresh buzz cut pedalling his new Sting-Ray. David, an athletically trim man with neat, gray hair and a quick smile, knows this neighborhood better than anyone. "I started in business in the late 1970s and I built it up by doing a lot of door knocking," he said. "There are approximately 750 Eichlers in Terra Linda and I've been to most of them."
In those days Eichlers were "kind of looked down upon by the real estate community and public in general" as out-of-style tract homes, he added. "But about 10 years ago they experienced a renaissance and now they've really come into vogue and sell for as much—or even more than—houses of other builders."
At 1075 Las Ovejas, David pointed out some of the tell-tale details that make an Eichler a hipster's dream: an open floor plan; a kitchen with two walls of windows that flow into sunny courtyards; beamed ceilings; and a long hall, lined with bedrooms and bathrooms as efficiently as a ship.
Over the years, certain architectural details have disappeared. Most original Eichlers have Philippine mahogany paneling that, in this home, has been replaced with more traditional wallboard. While real connoisseurs prize the paneling, "rarely wold you find it in impeccable condition," David said. "It was pretty flimsy and you have to remember that people raised kids in these houses."
This house is one of three Eichlers for sale in a three-block area. At 1020 Las Ovejas, for instance, another three-bedroom, two-bath Eichler is on the market for $799,000. And around the corner, at 794 Las Colindas Road, the same sized home is $759,000.
You can probably buy any of these houses for less than it would have cost you a few years ago, now that the Northern Marin real estate market has weakened. But you'll face competition from savvy Eichlerphiles. Just last month, one of David's listings, an $810,000 Terra Linda house, sold after getting three offers. Two came in at $775,000; the winner was $785,000.
David offers these tips for would-be Eichler buyers:
1. Thoroughly check out the original radiant heating system (the pipes below the floor) to be sure it's still functioning.
2. Inspect the flat roof to make sure it doesn't leak. ("The beams you see inside are both the interior ceiling AND the roof support. So a hole in the tar and gravel above will leak right in.")
3. Check out the Eichler Network for info on maintenance and atrium gardening.
More on Eichler: "Old Modern Houses With Futurist Ideas"
More Eichlers for sale in Marin.
Last week's Weekend Reading: Buying foreclosed houses with The Flipper
Friday, April 4, 2008
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