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Another Bit of Palo Alto For You
Well, it's been awhile since I've made you aware of a real estate offering in my fair city, so I present you now with 221 Santa Rita Avenue here in Palo Alto. For the low price of $3.4 million (well, that's the ask - - it'll surely go for a lot more with many offers) you can call this place your own personal palace:
Need space? How does 994 square feet strike you? That's nearly 1,000 whole square feet for whatever parties, soirees, or other entertainment ideas you may have.
Of course, if you glance at Zillow, which I've found to be pretty reflective of market values, you may scratch your head over the 50% premium being asked for the place......
Meh. Don't worry about it................it's Palo Alto! Jump on it! (And please take note that whatever price you pay will be the basis for your annual property taxes for as long as you own this stunning dwelling).
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Someone from Asia or Eastern Europe will buy it.
I don't get it at all. Such premiums on real estate in a crowded island nation like Britain would make some sense, but whenever I visit the States I notice that there's one thing the Americans don't lack: Space. Their sprawling cities are a testament to the amount of space they have and when you travel a few minutes out, it's a flipping wilderness. Why crowd into shithole neighbourhoods when you can stretch out? It may have been convenient when everything in the way of municipal services were working, but now, surely the taxes, crimes, hobos and corrupt police in cities are more of a lifestyle hindrance than benefits?
On the surface, it appears as though Americans have a tendency to abandon whole towns and sections of cities after they have been turned into uninhabitable jungles, only to build McMansions, industrial estates and malls in previously beautiful pristine natural landscapes that eventually turn into shitholes. Or is that too simplistic?
That's about the size of it. I don't get it either. It's just the way they operate.
If that classic vintage TV antenna is included ya got yourself a deal.
My brother-in-law grew up in Detroit in a 964 sq. foot ranch house just like this one (not including the basement). That was in the 1950's and 1960's. His family had 7 children. Girls shared the bedrooms, the boys all slept in bunk beds in the basement.
I think he told me their Dad paid $8000 for it.
Is it possible to run a Brazilian man waxing operation targeting metrosexual geeks from that location?
I mourn the loss of a great community. I remember coming back from college in the late 90s to the Palo Alto area and finding out my fellow natives had all been driven out by the cost of living. They had been replaced by people from out of state who's only means of existing in my community were the monthly cash calls to their parents. It was one of the most disgusting examples of Greenspan's evil I have seen.
You need to drop the right number of LSD tabs before doing the valuation, man.
Give the owner credit for selling now..he is wisely using "the greater fool" theory for unloading this piece of trash...
There must be thousands of similarly overprice houses in Palo Alto. Who buys them, and with what? Does everyone in town earn $1000 an hour at some computer foundry? Seriously, where is the money coming from?
Ignorant investors.
OK I'll go you one better.....it gets even crazyer in nutsville SF...
Teensy Tiny Mid-Market Loft Gets $95K Over Its Asking Pricehttp://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/08/27/teensy_tiny_midmarket_loft_gets...
Your going to love the view of the GG bridge from your double size window...Lol
The other problem is the traffic.....I've noticed that in the last year and a half it has gotten terrible even during the off commute times. Even over on the Santa Cruz side, Hwy 1 turns into a parking lot at 2:30 if you are headed south.
I heard rumor there's a Nazi Gold train buried under that property.
Just sayin'.
1oz Silver American Eagle €13 @ EurGold
https://www.eurgold.eu/silver/silver-coins/american-eagle-1oz-silver-coi...
redflag 1: Selling at spot
redflag 2: flat shipping worldwide
redflag 3: estonia (wtf?)
To use an old Bette Davis line, "What a dump!"
"I want to know the name of the picture. Don't you know anything?"
NIRP bitchez and it's all yours.
That's a Hedge you Zero :--{
That lawn looks awful green to be California...
Pretty much a standard Cali lawn, mine looks like that. 30-40% reduction in water use means a 50% hit on watering. Landscape dwarfs household usage. Just enough to keep some of the plants alive and maybe if it ever rains the lawn will green up. Of course if we let the lawns completely turn to dust we'd save even more but the trees would die. Shade is important when you live in a desert.
There better be an air-conditioned, ore-rich gold mine with nuggets the size of chicken eggs under this house and with an elevator going up to the basement...
No, but the late Steve Jobs used to live about four blocks away, so maybe you'll see his ghost or something.
It covers the entire Indian graveyard, they weren't very large either.
I think we're close to the price point where it's cheaper to live in Chico and commute by your own private jet.
The lot must be enormous. That's teardown value.
The lot is 7500 square feet (a tiny fraction of an acre). If you're an ant, that's enormous, but otherwise - nope.
Or zoned for high-density occupation. Or, on the other hand, it's Palo Alto. I recollect over 50 years ago having a fine second floor apartment in a two story house two blocks from University and only three blocks from the Stanford campus. My rent was $50 a month. Those were the days my friends.
The author is making the point that the largest property bubble in all recorded history is from SFO down to San Jose and around the Bay. It is total insanity and was based upon the tech bubble of the past forty years. H-P led us into it and they are now leading us out of it. There is no f***ing way a laid-off H-P employee who gets a new job at the Depot can afford $10K-$13K /mo payments with about $2k in property taxes thrown in. You lose your job, you lose your house, your wife, and probably your life. It is time to put one to the temple. To owe $2.5 mil on a house that deflates down to $650,000 or less, would leave few choices...all bad. Mail the keys in and try to get away before the repo man graps the Tesla and Lexus.
Greed is so powerful, it completely removes all common sense with people fully believing the bubble can expand indefinitely. That s*** house at $5 mil, then $10 mil; all perfectly normal, nothing to worry about. After the bubble burst the lemmings look for someone to blame and the banks demand bailouts. Rinse-repeat. The bursting will send a tsunami across the whole U.S.
Except the buyer will pay cash, a fraction of what they have stashed away from their "work" in tech.....maybe the house will do better than the stock market when it all crashes, who knows.
The reality is that this house will go over asking then will be dozed and the new owner will put a 6K sqft mansion there... then sell for huge gains... we are the idiots!
Should we expect anything less ridiculous from the former Soviet Republik of California?
Someone needs to put that antenna on a little taller mast, those structures on both sides gotta play havoc on their reception.
At that price, I'd want to be able to raise chickens in the back yard and put in a loading dock for all the meth I'd cook and ship to Oakland.
What, no rail head?
Until sum ting wong and yer meth lab headlines ZH as the fourth chemical plant explosion, counting the Chinques' three.
It's heartening to know that entrepreneurship is not dead in America.
LOL Hilarious!
NAR: "Buy a home now before the price drops!"
With all the stockmarket losses, people living off investment incomes are going to be shifting into low gear, selling their overpriced homes and moving to mobile home parks in Oklahoma
And forget about "Rich Asian Investors" propping up this bullshit.
I don't know about that, all those criminal short sellers got have someplace to run.
#41
Ah the days of a young Hewlett/Packard...
after you drive down from san francisco the housing market in palo alto looks absolutely cheap
clearly ... and, i for one
need not have it spelled out.
and one will surely be taxed
for the "improvements",
as well.
so, have you heard about
the drought ... ?
Meh - that's pretty dishonest reporting. Clearly that price is for the lot, not the pile of drywall and 2x4s sitting on it. I'd never pay that much for a 50x150 lot, which is how the ACTUAL AD describes this property (not as a house to live in, except while you get ready to build), but at least don't make the implication that the house sitting on the lot has anything to do with this price.
I disagree this is dishonest reporting.
I know every nook and cranny of this town. I know Old Palo Alto (the portion of Palo Alto where the above place is) stone cold, and I can tell you, as nice a neighborhood as it is, being TWO BLOCKS from the roaring Central Expressway on a teeny little lot is not a good deal.
There's no place in Palo Alto that represents true value right now. If you're lucky - very lucky - the price will stay steady at present levels. If there was any way I could short residential real estate around here, I could, because having lived here a quarter century, and following the trends very closely, things have gone insane.
I recognize they are selling the lot, not the house, but the lot is still a rip-off.
I've been Apt hunting in the area for 3 months now, and I can tell you this, for 2200 a month you get the privilege of living in a 650 SqFt piece of run down shit, with a homeless guy sleeping in the shade outside your bedroom window, and that's in San Jose. In PA your looking at 3300 for that privilege .
#41
Cry me a river. Try 4500 pm for 1000 sq ft in an unfashionable part of Hong Kong.
Well, if you choose to live here, count yourself smart to rent. At least you won't be facing big capital losses like the new homeowners around here.
Upside down on 3.4 million when the real value of the place is 95 grand. Sounds like an investment for me!
After doing some research, I've found something you've overlooked. This property has an artesian spring fed by a large aquifer,
which is confined to the perimeter of the lot and extends straight down for 1.897 miles; thus the exorbitant price.