KnifeCatching 1336 Sherman St.
Read This:The following review is just my opinion and only my opinion I am not a professional house appraiser or inspector and I am not a structural engineer. The opinions expressed in this review are based on my own inspection of the property, the publicly available facts from aggregator sites such as Redfin and Zillow and the online permit database for the city of Alameda. I am not responsible for incorrect or missing data that appears in these sources. In fact, its probably best that you just ignore everything you read here as the lunatic ravings of an unbalanced mind.
KnifeCatching 1336 Sherman St.
Up for review today is 1336 Sherman St. which has the official specs of being a 5-2 of 2475 sq ft on a 7500 sq ft lot built in 1883 on sale for the low, low price of 1.275M.
To be honest we where interested in this house because on paper its practically the exact same house as Chez 3.0....and man, does that mean Chez 3.0 is worth 1.275M???? I wish.
Here's the HBR page of the place with super fab photo's and what not.
In keeping with this new 'kindler gentler' thing I'm doing I'll start out with the good.
The Good
The house is gorgeous. The outside looks like its been freshly painted. Its got a turret!! Hurray!!!
The grounds look amazing (what there is of them).
The woodwork on the inside is unpainted! The main floor is really gorgeous with all that unpainted woodwork. There are two fireplaces with original looking tile and very fancy mantles.
The kitchen looks like its been recently redone and it is of a good size.
There is a HUGE 3 car garage in the backyard.
Its in a great neighborhood on a tree lined street. Jealous of the tree-linedness of that block of Sherman.
Its in the Franklin school district two blocks away from Franklin School and Park.
BIG attic for I guess storage...or expansion space.
Decent sized basement area with a full bath.
What The Permit Record Tells Me
Kitchen Remodeled in 95 with permits.
Looks like an elec service upgrade was done in 89 but finaled in 98?
New roof in '06.
Sidewalk work done in '07.
3-car garage built with permits in 07, permits finaled in '10...
Hey, new furnace in '11.
The Odd
That kitchen looks like its waaaaaaay newer than 95. Look at the pictures, does that look like a kitchen that is over 15yrs old?
I love old houses, but the main level of this place is just sooooo cut up into little rooms...I think its actually the most cut up of any old house I've seen. It all looks original, and the house would of always been a grand home so the little tiny rooms on the main floor just seem kinda odd to me. The small room theme is also going on on the second floor. There might be 5 bedrooms but none of them are what you'd call, generous.
No central heat on the 2nd floor? The one with all the bedrooms? The furnace is new but there are no heating ducts to any of the rooms on the 2nd floor. There appears to be just one register in the hallway!?!?!?
No master bedroom-bath?
The place really has no back yard. Its all either driveway or garage. There is a nice little deck off the kitchen but still...no yard. Its all up front.
The Bad
The Realtor showing the house told me that it had a 3/4 foundation replacement? Which she told me meant that 3/4 of the foundation had be replaced. I checked the permit record and this does not show up there anywhere....So....either the Realtor was 'mistaken' (see kinder gentler) or the work was done without permits or somehow a big, huge, expensive, job like this isn't on the permit record.
It would also appear that the basement is finished as living space with a full bath, illegally as I can not find any permit record for that.
This last comment might seem kinda anal to some folks but... Take a look at the picture of the front of the house. That concrete retaining wall looks pretty brand new no? Count how many steps up from the sidewalk. I count 5 yet there is no handrail? That's officially unsafe by the building codes.
I didn't measure the retaining wall but I'd guess that its at least three feet high. There's no fence around it! I saw that and the first thing I thought of is, WOW how unsafe. It's the only decent sized patch of grass on the lot which means kids are going to want to play on it...Your toddler takes a step over that edge and wow, that seems like a long way down, and that its going to end badly.
Conclusion
Not that my opinion matters but...
Don't you think that for basically 1.3M that the place would have a master bedroom and bath?
That there would be central heat up to the bedrooms? That there wouldn't be possible illegal construction issues with the basement and kitchen? That the house could still possibly be on brick?
Someone called this house 'turn-key' in an earlier comment but I honestly don't see it that way. We are not of the socio-economic group that can afford a $1.3M house but we have lots of friends who are. No way the wives aren't going to want their own master bedroom retreat...or not have central heat through out the house.
Now the attic is being billed as having 'expansion potential' and that would probably be the logical place for the master retreat. That's not going to be cheap to do...especially on a house that is already costing almost $1.3M. Beside the costs of finishing the space as a higher end master retreat I'd bet that there are going to be serious hidden costs in retrofitting the structure to carry the new load safely..
Soooo, very pretty house inside and out, not turn-key I'd estimate that it would take at least $200k to convert the attic...so then is the house worth $1.5M? I don't think so, but maybe more like 1304 Morton and price it closer to $800k.
And thats the way I see it.
KnifeCatching 1336 Sherman St.
Up for review today is 1336 Sherman St. which has the official specs of being a 5-2 of 2475 sq ft on a 7500 sq ft lot built in 1883 on sale for the low, low price of 1.275M.
To be honest we where interested in this house because on paper its practically the exact same house as Chez 3.0....and man, does that mean Chez 3.0 is worth 1.275M???? I wish.
Here's the HBR page of the place with super fab photo's and what not.
In keeping with this new 'kindler gentler' thing I'm doing I'll start out with the good.
The Good
The house is gorgeous. The outside looks like its been freshly painted. Its got a turret!! Hurray!!!
The grounds look amazing (what there is of them).
The woodwork on the inside is unpainted! The main floor is really gorgeous with all that unpainted woodwork. There are two fireplaces with original looking tile and very fancy mantles.
The kitchen looks like its been recently redone and it is of a good size.
There is a HUGE 3 car garage in the backyard.
Its in a great neighborhood on a tree lined street. Jealous of the tree-linedness of that block of Sherman.
Its in the Franklin school district two blocks away from Franklin School and Park.
BIG attic for I guess storage...or expansion space.
Decent sized basement area with a full bath.
What The Permit Record Tells Me
Kitchen Remodeled in 95 with permits.
Looks like an elec service upgrade was done in 89 but finaled in 98?
New roof in '06.
Sidewalk work done in '07.
3-car garage built with permits in 07, permits finaled in '10...
Hey, new furnace in '11.
The Odd
That kitchen looks like its waaaaaaay newer than 95. Look at the pictures, does that look like a kitchen that is over 15yrs old?
I love old houses, but the main level of this place is just sooooo cut up into little rooms...I think its actually the most cut up of any old house I've seen. It all looks original, and the house would of always been a grand home so the little tiny rooms on the main floor just seem kinda odd to me. The small room theme is also going on on the second floor. There might be 5 bedrooms but none of them are what you'd call, generous.
No central heat on the 2nd floor? The one with all the bedrooms? The furnace is new but there are no heating ducts to any of the rooms on the 2nd floor. There appears to be just one register in the hallway!?!?!?
No master bedroom-bath?
The place really has no back yard. Its all either driveway or garage. There is a nice little deck off the kitchen but still...no yard. Its all up front.
The Bad
The Realtor showing the house told me that it had a 3/4 foundation replacement? Which she told me meant that 3/4 of the foundation had be replaced. I checked the permit record and this does not show up there anywhere....So....either the Realtor was 'mistaken' (see kinder gentler) or the work was done without permits or somehow a big, huge, expensive, job like this isn't on the permit record.
It would also appear that the basement is finished as living space with a full bath, illegally as I can not find any permit record for that.
This last comment might seem kinda anal to some folks but... Take a look at the picture of the front of the house. That concrete retaining wall looks pretty brand new no? Count how many steps up from the sidewalk. I count 5 yet there is no handrail? That's officially unsafe by the building codes.
I didn't measure the retaining wall but I'd guess that its at least three feet high. There's no fence around it! I saw that and the first thing I thought of is, WOW how unsafe. It's the only decent sized patch of grass on the lot which means kids are going to want to play on it...Your toddler takes a step over that edge and wow, that seems like a long way down, and that its going to end badly.
Conclusion
Not that my opinion matters but...
Don't you think that for basically 1.3M that the place would have a master bedroom and bath?
That there would be central heat up to the bedrooms? That there wouldn't be possible illegal construction issues with the basement and kitchen? That the house could still possibly be on brick?
Someone called this house 'turn-key' in an earlier comment but I honestly don't see it that way. We are not of the socio-economic group that can afford a $1.3M house but we have lots of friends who are. No way the wives aren't going to want their own master bedroom retreat...or not have central heat through out the house.
Now the attic is being billed as having 'expansion potential' and that would probably be the logical place for the master retreat. That's not going to be cheap to do...especially on a house that is already costing almost $1.3M. Beside the costs of finishing the space as a higher end master retreat I'd bet that there are going to be serious hidden costs in retrofitting the structure to carry the new load safely..
Soooo, very pretty house inside and out, not turn-key I'd estimate that it would take at least $200k to convert the attic...so then is the house worth $1.5M? I don't think so, but maybe more like 1304 Morton and price it closer to $800k.
And thats the way I see it.
