Charming. Cozy. Inexplicably expensive. Some of the words that could describe the San Francisco housing market. And a million-dollar listing caught the internet’s attention for the wrong reasons.
A fixer-upper listed on real estate platform Zillow for $1,000,000 in the geographical center of San Francisco looks decent from the outside — but parts of the home are remarkably dilapidated.
Climb Real Estate Sales Agent Michelle Stephens, who put out the listing last week, told Yahoo Finance that the reason why she didn’t “dress the place up” was because she wanted to be “more transparent — they need to know what they’re buying.”
Stephens added: “There’s only so much lipstick you can put on the pig. And it just didn’t make sense. It’s visceral too, because you get to the property and there’s an actual aroma as well. Years of not cleaning up kitchen grease has really impacted the property.”
The tenants had moved out a year ago and insisted on the million-dollar price tag. Stephens said she would’ve preferred a lower price — but added that “it’s definitely a desirable neighborhood.” She had not received any calls about the house as of Saturday afternoon.
IPOs have a ‘significant impact’ on SF real estate
Real estate and rent prices in San Francisco have skyrocketed over the last 10 years, leaving million-dollar homes like these on the market.
The median home sale price in San Francisco was $787,200 in March 2008, according to additional data from Zillow. In January this year, it was $1,304,200.
And as the markets brace for a massive wave of public listings by San Francisco-based companies, Compass Realtor Deniz Kahramaner told Yahoo Finance that “$150 billion to $250 billion are going to be unlocked in market capitalization over the next two years … [and] All those newly rich tech employees are going to have a significant impact on the real estate market.”
Aspiring San Francisco residents are turning to offbeat locations for their homes — including a house beside a former nuclear-testing site which may or may not be radioactive.
San Francisco is not completely alone
New Yorkers are another group of renters who often complain about high rent, so it may come as no surprise to them when they hear of landlords becoming increasingly creative with their apartment offerings.
But a listing on StreetEasy shows how far the landlords take it — proving that there are people that would settle for just about anything to live in Manhattan.
The Little Italy apartment — which is no longer available on the website — was available for a monthly rent of $1,950. The 300-square-foot apartment offered a bedroom, a toilet, and a living room that included a kitchen and a bathtub.
Aarthi is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.
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