Beautiful Grand Edwardian

Yesterday was quite a festive day in San Francisco. If you were out enjoying Fleet Week, the Castro Street Fair, or the music festival in Golden Gate Park, I may have missed you. But if you were one of the many people house hunting in the Inner Richmond, you were probably at 739 12th Ave at one point or another. I had more than seventy groups of people come through yesterday, most were serious buyers, and many were serious about that house particularly.

It is a grand Edwardian in a wonderful neighborhood just blocks from Golden Gate Park. It is also a fixer. Some of you may remember that in my weekly sales report on September 19th, the house with the most offers for the week was another grand Edwardian. It was priced at $799,000 and labeled a "major cosmetic fixer". It received 22 offers, and I can now report that it sold at $950,000.

That is now sounding like a bargain; 739 12th Ave is priced at $999,000 and will no doubt be in a multiple bid situation thus driving the price even higher.
This house is also a heavy cosmetic fixer but will be an amazing house when finished. It has two levels of living space; downstairs is the living room, formal dining room, kitchen, breakfast room, and a half bath. Upstairs you will find the three bedrooms and the only full bathroom in the house. The master suite has a really cute vanity/closet area leading into the bathroom. There are many wonderful details about the house: wood floors, huge windows, wainscoting, and a huge backyard with a wonderful apple tree. There is also a full garage/basement with two car tandem parking. It has approximately 2400 square feet of living space.

The questions people were asking are serious buying questions such as, "How long has it been on the market", "Do you have disclosures", and of course "Is there an offer date". I asked questions myself, and was amazed at the answer I got for one question in particular. I often ask people how long they have been looking and of course get all sorts of responses from, "Oh, I'm not really looking" to "It seems like forever".

I noticed a pattern in that answer yesterday. It seemed that the majority of the buyers I met had been looking for a year to a year and a half! That supports the theory that there are many buyers out there who have been waiting on the sidelines. Some are waiting for the right house. Others are waiting for prices to drop. In either case, it seems like it's time to buy a house and move on so you can enjoy everything else San Francisco has to offer on Sundays. Don't get stuck in the "looking" mode for too long. The perfect house isn't out there, and the Blue Angels are the only ones doing the nose diving, San Francisco home prices are not.