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 1330 Clinton Ave.

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 1330 Clinton Ave.
Up for review today is 1330 Clinton Ave. which has the official specs of being a 3-2.5 of 1631 sq ft on a 6750 sq ft lot built in 1946 on sale for $815k.

Sorry for the Google street view shot, my camera phone stopped focusing. I've been interested in this house for a while as I pass it on Clinton every day and have been sorta tracking the work done on it.
Lots of pics at the Redfin page for it. At least in the verbiage the listing agent calls the weird quarter bath off the kitchen a quarter bath and not a half bath. The story from the listing agent is that the original owner passed away and his sons have fixed up the house for sale.

The Good
Before the weird conversation with the Realtor I remember thinking...'Wow, they've actually done just about everything I advocate for when trying to sell a house for top dollar.'

They attached a sheet to the glossy handout stating all the work recently done on the house.
The grounds were nice and well groomed.
The house was freshly painted inside and out.
The floors were redone.
They freshened the kitchen by replacing the flooring and cabinet handles and repainting the cabinets. The kitchen was very nice.
Pull-down ladder and storage in the attic.
The house is in a great neighborhood like three blocks from Franklin School/Park.
Great front yard for Halloween and nice street trees!

The house literally gleamed it was super pretty. I wish that I had my camera with me as the shower stall in the master bath had this hilarious nautical theme.

There is a cute little balcony off the master bedroom that I bet is nice to relax at.

Two full baths on the second floor so you don't have to share with the kids.

Large backyard area and good sized garage-workshop. There were a couple of super cool looking old woodworking tools in there that looked like industrial art. Lots of old cracking asphalt in this area that looks fugly to me. What I thought was funny is that they had taped pictures of what the wood shop could look like if it was turned into living space on the walls. I hadn't seen this before except we did it when we where selling Chez 2.0.  It honestly looks like they borrowed that idea from us.

They had a binder of inspections and estimates for work needed.

Overall I was very impressed with the house. It's a completely original vintage 1940's home. The listing agent calling it a jewel box does not seem out of line to me.

What The Permit Record Tells Me
There are only two entries to the permit record!!
One from 1946 which is an electrical permit for adding outlets and switches and fixtures-finaled!
A permit from 1991 for sidewalk and driveway.
It looks like there is no weirdness with the permit record vs. work done.

The Bad
Its a completely original 1940s home..that can either be cute or the kitchen and baths are going to look horribly outdated to some people.

Okay, the house is TINY!!! 1631 sq ft. I'm sure this house was fine for 1940 but now...I don't know. It's sorta like the house is 3/4 scale or something like that. All three of the bedrooms are not what you'd call, generous. The kitchen is teeny by modern standards - definitely not an eat-in thing.

Vintage 1940's wiring-fuses on the upper floor.

The Roof
It looks to me like the house still has its original wood shake roof from the 40s!!! From what I could see it looks like its in pretty rough shape. I pulled down the attic ladder to peep at the underside of it and I could see daylight through cracks in the shakes in several places and what looked like water staining on the underside of the shingles. The listing agent said the roof was water tight so I don't know... The handout said the roof had been cleaned?? So maybe they pressure washed it and forced some water up under the shingles...
There was an estimate from a roofing contractor there for $7500...but I read it twice and I really couldn't figure out what it was for exactly.
The roof needs a complete tear off, sheeting the roof deck and new shingles. My experience with roofing estimates leads me to believe that doing it right is going to cost more than $7500.

Overheards
Just to prove that I'm not the only person who thinks this way I'll report on what I heard other people saying. I eavesdropped on three couples conversations that all went exactly like this.

   Him, 'Man, it sure is small.'
   Her, 'Yes but its soooo cute!'

My fave overheard was from someone who said, 'Wow every time I come here I feel more claustrophobic!!'

Conclusion
I'm really impressed with the house and the preparation that went into it before they put it on the market. I wish more sellers would do that. The house is super pretty, in what looks to be super great shape (except the roof), in a super great neighborhood.

Okay I haven't talked about it yet but now's the time....

I don't understand how they came up with that price?
$815k...for 1631 sq ft???  1304 Morton is almost twice that size on sale for $75k more...
another house sold in that neighborhood for that exact same amount yet it is more than twice the size.
Like, what are the comps they used? Does it have an ice cube's chance in hell of appraising for that amount?

I don't understand who the target market is for this house.
Honestly, the house seems too small for a modern family. A couple parents and one kid, and use the other bedroom as a home office? Even then the place is basically packed. You'll have to use the dining room as a dining room and that just leaves the decent-sized fireplace room as the family, living, do everything else room. It seems like though once the kids hit teenagerdom the place would be too small.

So, is it a $815k starter house? If the new owners don't absolutely love the house as is, any remodeling of the baths-kitchens is going to push the money sunk in vs. what the house will sell for ratio way the wrong way....

Then I thought, well, it could be a good 'retirement home' to somebody who wants to live closer to their grandkids...Older couples don't typically have the acres of crap modern families do...the house could be right sized for that with a room for the grandkids to sleep in when they are visiting. But then there's stairs....old folks and stairs go together like sardines and mint-chip ice cream.

Honestly, it seems like it a great $650k house.....
I suppose the carrying costs of the place are very small so the heirs can afford to let it sit on the market?


I think that this is the most times I've used cute and super in a review.

Had an Odd Conversation With A Realtor Today....

Maybe I should subtitle this post as...

The Great Satan of House Reviews is Back!!!! Muuu-Ha-ha-ha!!!!

Man, did I have the oddest conversation with a Realtor today....I'm still puzzled by it...

Cause honestly, I can't tell if the Realtor was just clueless or if they where very cleverly F'ing with me...

I'll tell the story and let you guys decide.

I went and looked at 1330 Clinton today.  When I was looking through the binder of inspections (good for them) the Realtor was chatting with me off and on as she was greeting people coming in the front door.

I told her that I lived around the corner on Sherman and then she got. I thought, sorta strangely interested in WHICH SPECIFIC HOUSE I lived in.

   I said something like,  'the big ugly white one with the ugly fence.'

   She said, 'The one where all the work is going on?'

  I said, 'No, I'm not that crazy.'

  And then she kinda launched into this odd diatribe.

  'That's the house where the guy lives who writes all those horrible things on his BLOG about houses for sale in Alameda.' She said blog like it was drenched in sewage.

  So now I stop trying to make sense of the roofing estimate and look at her...and say, 'There's somebody who reviews houses? And you think that's a bad thing?' Honestly, I'm looking at her and I can't tell if she's messing with me...

  'Yes, he says horrible, personal things about people.'

  'Does he say untrue things about the houses?'

  'Yes, its all untrue...I don't know why he feels like he needs to write such nasty things about people...but I guess some people just feel the need...you know...'

   'Hmmm....'

   'And that's why no realtor will touch his house.'

   'How do you mean?'

   'No Realtor wants to show his house because of all the horrible things he says on his BLOG.'

Then she went off to talk to someone else and I finished reading the reports and left. She left me with the distinct impression that she thinks that I am some sort of mental defective with a strong nasty streak. Like I should have horns on my head and a tale....

I just can't tell if she was screwing with me or not? If she was screwing with me its a super clever way to do it. Right in front of a crowd of people she basically called me an F'ing A-hole and told me to stop writing reviews in such a way that I couldn't really respond in kind.

First off, it really seems like she's never read any of my house reviews. And that stuff about no Realtor will touch his house...she doesn't know that Chez 2.0 is already sold? Weeks ago? She seems to think that I live in the big white house with the columns (I wish, I could afford that place...its like a palace that sold for $1.1M and the new owners immediately launched into a multi-hundred thousand redo) and that I'm trying to sell it?

It really seems like this particular Realtor got all her info about me from some bizarre game of telephone that went on too long and where all the different messages have been intermixed and reshuffled.  Like all the folks who where pissed off about the 'pink feather ladies' at the 4th of July parade who didn't actually see them!!!

I haven't reread every single review I've written but honestly where does that 'I write horrible nasty personal things about the home owners' come from???

Ruminations On Realtors

This odd exchange got me to thinking about all the other exchanges I've had with Realtors since I've been doing my reviews. There seem to be several common threads to what Realtors think of me.

They just can't seem to understand why in the world I would feel the need to do this.

I mean really, trying to comprehend my motivations seems to cause a lot of mental gears to be stripped. This is going to sound ridiculous I know but...Like I'm completely challenging their world view and their place in it.

Demonization is easier than self introspection.

Most Realtors refuse to admit that there is even a spec of truth in what I write. They prefer to think of me as some 'nasty little man' who has some sort of evil 'hidden agenda' who is quite possibly 'mentally deficient and or unstable.' One of my favorites was the Realtor who asked me why I hated Alameda so much?? Basically, what ever they can do in their minds to be able to discount everything I say. Such as believing that all I do is write nasty personal things about people.

So, here goes, another attempt to explain why I do this.

Why I Review Houses

It's pretty much as simple at this.

I believe that the deck is so completely stacked against house buyers (especially 1st time buyers) that there is hardly any chance that they won't get screwed.

The buyers and sellers agents get paid based on how much the house sells for. C'mon folks do you really think that that simple truth doesn't effect the actions of both agents? That they are not, at least, subconsciously motivated to get the house sold as quickly as possible for as much money as possible? I'm not saying that all Realtors are crooked....just most of them.  

Then you say, 'The buyer has inspectors.' Please...the inspectors are almost always referred by the Realtors. The inspectors know that if they don't 'play the game' they won't get referrals from Realtors and will essentially be out of a job. I'm not saying that there are not good inspectors out there..they just won't be the one the Realtors refer you to and they will cost about twice what the hacks charge.

This situation is not alright to me. I just can't seem to ignore this basically institutionalized theft.

Does it make sense to anyone that there are not independent reviews of houses for sale?

Its the most expensive purchase just about everyone makes..yet there are no independent sources of info.

You want to buy a new car, you read Road and Track reviews or Consumer Reports.

You want to buy a new motorcycle, you read the reviews of the different models in magazines like CycleWorld.

You want to buy a new flat screen TV, you read the reviews at CNET or Consumer Reports and hell, the reviews on Amazon.

Looking for a new Restaurant to try? You check the Yelp reviews.

Hell, just about any kind of service business you can check reviews on Yelp.

Yet nothing like that exists for houses? Why is that exactly?

In this modern world where you can get reviews of anything on the internets, why no reviews of houses??

Why Not?
As one commentor here said, 'Looking at open houses on Sundays is Alamedas Fav pastime.'
It really seems to be a hobby of peoples to looky-loo open houses and then make snarky comments to each other about it. Am I evil cause I choose to share my thoughts?

Honestly, am I not doing what any intelligent potential house buyer would do? Am I evil cause I choose to share a process that other people are most likely already doing? And if they are not already looking at houses the way I do and I save them some grief is that a bad thing?

So Much Real Estate Info Is Online

I can go on Zillow, Movoto, Redfin and see when and how much a house was sold for..what all the price changes are for a house that is still on the market, what the legal definition of the house is, what other similar houses sold for in the same area. Movoto even tells you who the legal owner of the house is. I can go to the cities website and print out the permit history of any house I'm interested in.

Now I know that the average age for Alameda Realtors is like 102 so maybe they are not as Internet savvy as your average person.

Hey Alameda Realtors, you probably don't need to worry about this interwebs thing...I'm sure its just a passing fad. I bet lickety-split that people will be back to relying solely on you for all their information on the house they are interested in and the local housing market....

So, in a first I am dedicating this post to D of Bayside Real Estate....for either being super clever or super clueless.

A Kinder Gentler KnifeCatcher....

Okay so I've started reviewing houses again....already heard through the grape vine that the local Realtor community is super happy about it...

Here's what I will try to do in my reviews from here on out.

I will strive to use language that is uh, as mild as possible but still gets my point across.

I will still comment on the overall condition of the house and its livability.

I will still comment on the work done vs. permits pulled issues.

I will still comment on the work I think the house needs and what the costs are going to look like.

I will still comment on any safety issues I see.

I will still comment on the relative 'safeness' of the neighborhood and the quality of the local school.

I will still comment on things that 'just don't make sense to me' as in, 'what where they thinking' or, 'they want HOW much money for that???'

I'm only going to review houses that are personally interesting to me. So everybody selling ranchers in Bay Farm is 'safe' from one of my reviews unless someone commissions one.

I no longer have a Realtor that I'm working with (so haters stop calling him an F'ing a-hole behind his back) so I'll be touring the houses of interest during their open houses. That also means that I will only review houses that I have personally toured.

I don't have time anymore to do the big picture-riffic reviews I'll probably just snap a pic of the front of the house.

Next Up

I'm working on reviews for;

1336 Sherman St.

1063 San Antonio Ave.

1330 Clinton Ave.

Now, Realtors I know that most of you have set google alerts to alert you when someone posts online about one of your properties. Here's your chance to contact me and get your side of the story included in my review.  Act fast though I'll post my reviews as soon as they're done.

I'll try to give advance notice from now on about properties I am planning on reviewing so the listing agent can contact me to get their side of the story published.

I feel that that's about as fair to the listing agents as I could possibly be and still keep my integrity and provide what I consider to be a valuable community service.

We Have A Home Theater Room!

Mrs. MadMadScientist is Soooooooooooooooo awesome.

This entire home theater thing was her idea! Really!!! Honest!!! She was super worried about our big 'ol tube TV perched precariously on a box in a room where all the kids play....

Now because I'm super we-todd-did I somehow managed to delete all the making of shots...some of them were quite good, of Mrs. MadMadScientist crawling around in the dropped ceiling to fish wires and to drill through the tops plates so we could fish wires through.

First off this post marks the debut of our new rugged camera.

We've managed to kill uh, three other cameras documenting the dusty, dirty work of remodeling a Victorian....we have higher hopes for this Panasonic Lumix which already takes pictures about a million times better than our old supposedly water-dust proof Olympus.

Here's the big old TV.

For the all-important WAF (that's wife approval factor) we had to go with speakers that are hidden.
After some searching we went with these as they were on sale and a fraction of the price of other models.

Actually, I can agree with the hide-the-speakers-in-the-ceiling idea. That would seem to be the most kid-proof option.

We set up a 7.1 surround sound system but I couldn't bare to not use our Klipsch center channel speaker.

Because of the smallness of the room and our desire to keep the expensive toys away from the kids as long as possible, we had to mount the stereo stuff on one wall and the TV on the other. That meant fishing a metric F-ton of wires through the dropped ceiling.

Here's a shot of the four rear speakers and the cool glass shelf wall mounted stereo stand we picked up on Amazon.

Closer-up Shot.

Holy-Moly modern stereos require 37 million cables-wires.
Just look at 'em all!!

Fuuuuuugly...

I was able to hide most of the wires beside the one power cord and signal cord to the sub-woofer.

Check out our cool new antenna!! Does that look atomic age or what?

Here is of course the all-important TV shot.

You can also see the front surround speakers in the ceiling above it. We decided to go with the newest model Vizio 47" 3D TV. The price dropped below $1k so we broke down and bought one. Everything I read said that because of the distance to the TV 47" is as big as we should go....I have to admit the first time we sat down to watch something on it (last season of True Blood on Netflix) I was like, dang, we shoulda gone bigger...I mean its big enough for sure but I wasn't blown away with its bigness like I was expecting to be...

I've looked and looked and looked and I can't seem to find a good solution for mounting a center channel speaker to a LCD TV on an articulating wall mount...so here's my ghetto solution.

Anybody have any good ideas?

Here's a shot of the room now. Look at all that room now! This is a major path here between the kitchen and the kids play room/ the back deck.

The TV is 4' off the ground so we're hoping that that will keep it out of kid range....

Henrietta likes all the space too!

We haven't watched anything in 3D yet so we can't comment on that...but WOW HD pictures are just crazy better than standard def.

Another thing that blows me away...free over the air HD programing! (that's what the crazy antenna is for). I can now watch my 2.5 Men reruns in HD AND 5.1 surround!!! Because you know, that's important.....oh and HD digital radio rules! Almost no commercials and it's CD quality sound AND it's free! Super lame-o corporate radio Live105 has an all 80s channel that we listen to mostly.

So overall, we're super happy with how the system looks, sounds and how hopefully kidproof its going to be.....we'll see I guess.

Hey did y'all notice the new addition in the background in one of the above pictures???

Yay!! Tiny's Back Home!

Yep, we finally got tiny back from Chez 2.0!! We conned some neighbors into helping us move her over to Chez 3.0....man is that a horrible experience...first you have to take out just about all the gravel cause it weighs a metric f-ton.

Then drain the water down enough so tiny isn't very mobile. Then ala the old flipper TV shows you wrap a cloth sling around her and transfer her as fast as possible to a big tub of tank water...Then you drain all the water out of the tank and then you and a couple of other unlucky suckers get to carry it all down and up flights of stairs and do it all over again in reverse! I'm so glad we don't have to do that ever, ever, ever again!!!

Permits Update

This post should be subtitled,

We're Okay, no wait we're super screwed!!!! no wait, we're okay again....

Still Waiting To Hear About The Code Enforcement Permits...

When last we met, we were still waiting to hear back from the cities plan checker on the permits I submitted for the pre-existing code enforcement issues.

We hustled our butts to make their permitting deadline and now we're waiting....still waiting....

We were freaked because it was explained to us that code enforcement cases have a very strict one year deadline...we submitted the permits back on April 11th... and we still haven't heard anything back yet...well it turns out the one year clock doesn't start until after the city issues the permit...so I guess theres no rush???

Remodeling Permits Fall Into Code Enforcement Black Hole....

We also recently submitted permits to combine the two studio apartments into one apartment and to move one of the units into the basement.

When you file a regular permit they give you a due date about 4 weeks out....well it had been over two weeks past the deadline and I still hadn't heard anything from the city..Annnd I'd been calling like every three days...

FINALLY, someone said, 'Oh, this is a code enforcement case. those stay on the bottom of the pile!'...Nothing I could do could convince this person that, that was not the case...Even though the permit number starts with a CB which means Combo Building permit and code enforcement permits start with an X!!

I had to get the code enforcement officer to talk to them and set them straight.

After he did that I got the comments back in the mail like 4 days later!!!! Hurray!!!

We're Screwed

The plan check engineer just had some minor comments mostly about clarifying things that were all just minor edits.

The fire code plan checker on the other hand...Insisted that the existing windows in our pre-1942 house would HAVE to be upgraded to modern egress standards!

That would mean removing all the original double hung windows and replacing them with fully opening out swing casement windows that adhere to the cities design guide...That would of added thousands of dollars to the remodel cost and lots of man hours...maybe effectively blowing us out of the water....

We're Okay

But the cities engineer said the exact opposite! 'Theres Hope!!', I thought.

Going straight to the top I sent the cities building official an email outlining the situation and he sided with the engineer!! Waa-Hoooo!!!!

As I've said before his word is law and that means that nobody else down there should screw with me about keeping the original windows.

One thing that is going to be a kinda PITA is that I have to 1hr fire rate the joist bays where I am venting the two furnaces and tankless water heater.

I've already finished the changes and should be ready to turn in this revised set of plans Monday morning!! Maybe they'll even issue the plans shortly afterword? That is, if they don't find something else super wrong...which is always a possibility...

KnifeCatching 1304 Morton St.......AGAIN!!!!

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.

It's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!! again, and again, and again and again....

KnifeCatching 1304 Morton St. Revisited.

My initial review of 1304 Morton St. can be found here.

Up for review today is 1304 Morton St. which has the official specs of being a 4-0 of 2064sq ft on a nice sized 5513 sq ft lot built in 1895 on sale for.....wait for it.......$899k!!!!!

Holy Mackerel they lowered the price from $1.3M down to $899k!!!

Could it be that a homeowner has actually come down to reality???  Please read my previous review for an in-depth look at the house.

Some Odd Things About The House:

Real Estate Agent Musical Chairs?
Does anybody else think it's super odd that a big ticket fancy house like this has gone through, I think three different realty companies? Intero, Sothebys and now apparently they are using Better Homes and Gardens Realty? What would have to happen to have a place like Sotheby's give up on the commission on a $1.3M house?

Dishonest Description:
The county still has the house as a 4-0 of 2064 sq ft... yet the ad copy from the Realtor clearly states that the house is a 4-2.5 of 3100sq ft... They appear to be counting the illegal work done in the basement and apparently there is now a bedroom down there?

Here's the add copy from the Zip Realty Site.
Rare Painted Lady Victorian - Like a page out of BETTER HOMES & GARDENS MAGAZINE! Was on the market at $1.3M+ now priced 4 quick sale! TURN-KEY condition! Full basemnt & Garage converted to game room/wine cellar & can easily be converted back. Gourmet Remod kitchen with sub zero fridge & viking stove. Stumptous "Eastlake" decor down to the door knobs. Walk 2 shops, park & Franklin School.

Uh, no mention of all that fab stuff being 'unwarrented'???

Still Has Unpermitted Work Issues:
So yes, it appears that someone narc'd on the homeowner for the unpermitted work in what was the basement... (wasn't me honest). Luckily the HO was already talking to the city about getting the work permitted so they dodged the whole code enforcement super expensive bullet but the work still has to be 'normalized'.

A quick check of the building dept records is encouraging. The owner got planning approval to officially convert the house back to a single family and got the planning okay for the work already done in the basement area.

The records show that the HO has entered into the amnesty program and paid the fees to start that. What that gets you is an inspection by a building inspector who will tell you what needs to be done to legalize the space.

The inspector came out and this is what he said.
City of Alameda Inter-office Memorandum Date: April 28, 2011 To: Permit Expeditor From: Building Inspection Subject: Inspection at 1304 Morton St. Permit #B11-0283 A Joint Inspection for the Amnesty Program Inspection at the above address revealed that the basement area was converted to a home theater and a recording studio. Requirements: 1. Have a licensed electrical contractor verify circuit loads for the lighting and recording components of all circuits in the basement area to determine adequate circuit breaker and wiring sizes. Many of the outlet boxes are recessed too deep from the combustible wall finishes. 2. A permit is required for the above work. 3. Drawings are also required for electrical and outlet locations. Inspection time: 1 hour.

That's not too bad actually....well....maybe...

Point 1. could be either no problem our a HUGE PITA...If it's determined that the in-wall wiring is not of the correct gauge then, well, you're going to have to tear it all out and replace it....or more likely just jigger the loads to match the wiring gauge.
The boxes being too deep isn't that big of a deal as it can usually be fixed with a 'mud ring'.

Now remember the HO hasn't done any of the above yet (as of this writing according to the city's online data base). Which means the new owner is going to have to go through and do all that AND pay the permit fees...which since we've recently paid fee's on a similar project I can guestimate that they will be around $8k.

Maybe the HO is not planning on doing any of this work and that's why they are selling it so cheap?

Conclusion:
Yes folks, it had to happen sometime....I actually think that this place is reasonably priced and worth the money.

You probably could not recreate this work for anywhere near the asking price.
If you go through and get the basement legalized you'll have a legal 3100sq ft 4-2.5 which is a good sized house in a great neighborhood for $900kish.

I prognosticate that they will receive multiple offers and that the house will not stay on the market very long. As long as there are enough people who are okay with the house's 'odd' layout.

Next Up:
There are several more houses for sale in the Gold Cost that I'll be reporting on soon....