Our friends at the real estate-obsessed Curbed SF have pulled together a greatest-hits collection of three Bernal Heights homes currently listed for sale. They’ve got one on Winfield, one on Prospect, and one on Moultrie, with prices starting at a cool $749K. You can visit the houses this weekend, or tour them online from the safety and comfort of your computer.
PHOTO:5 Winfield via Redfin
Danielle Lazier is a realtor with Zephyr Real Estate, the author of SFHotlist, and Bernalwood’s unofficial real estate analyst. Here’s her latest update on the residential real estate market in Bernal Heights:
Maybe, just maybe, the worst is behind us for the local San Francisco real estate market. Since January here in Bernal Heights, real estate sales have picked up speed with no sign of a slowdown. On the other hand, the housing market is cyclical so just like other markets, it’ll continue to go “up and down” and “up and down” and “up” again.
Most of my “evidence” of an improvement in the Bernal Heights real estate market is anecdotal. Along with being cyclical, markets are also driven by psychology — what we believe will be, will be. Home buyers are feeling more optimistic with a greater sense of urgency this year than I’ve seen since pre-2008. They tell me they are motivated to buy while interest rates are still low, and they believe that prices are starting to slowly head up. They are frustrated by the lack of inventory, meaning there are not enough homes on the market to satisfy the number of qualified buyers ready to buy.
All this sounds like realtor BS, doesn’t it? Believe me or don’t, but realtors are seeing strong demand for the nice, quality homes. (More on that in a moment.)
Here’s a little bit of analysis: We’ve had 28 single family home sales in Bernal since January, with a median sales price of $761,818.00 and the average listing selling for 2.14% over the asking price. Last year, January through March 2010, there were 32 sales, but the median price was $719,000.00 and sales averaged 0.83% over the list price.
The market remains “Darwinian,” with the nicest (fittest) homes selling super quickly while homes “in need of a make-over” take longer. Plus, buyers remain price-sensitive, so it’s important to price your home based on today’s market and recent, relevant homes sales. The property needs to feel like good value for the money for buyers to go for it. (Crazy! Wouldn’t you want value for your money too?) I, for one, hope this very rational behavior continues through the next “up” cycle.
But I do think the worst is behind us. so it’s a good time to look back and assess. Just how much did the Great Recession affect Bernal home values?
(Quick refresher: Lehman Brothers “fell” in the Fall of 2008. Many use this as the apex of when the bleep hit the fan although the real estate downturn began earlier.)
Using the San Francisco Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for the data, I charted the median sales price of a single family house listing in Bernal Heights from the beginning of 2008 to the beginning of 2011.
Q1 2008 = $785,000
Q1 2011 = $760,000
% Change = -3.2%Granted, this data is for all single family homes, and we know that there is a huge variation of property in Bernal. Yet this is pretty interesting, isn’t it? I would say that a 3.2% decline over the course of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression is pretty freaking good. (For context, using the same scope of data, our neighbors in the Excelsior had a 25.3% drop in their median home sales price.)
When was the “bottom” of the market, you ask? My opinion is that San Francisco-wide, the bottom of this housing downturn too place during 2009. Here in Bernal, it was the first half of ’09:
Q1 2009 = $730,000
Q2 2009 = $715,000So where does this leave us? On the one hand, Spring is the air and the mood is dramatically better than last year. On the other hand, the economic recovery is tenuous, and banks remain a bureaucratic mess. Maybe it’s too soon to pop the bubbly, but believe me when I say that what you believe will be. See you next month!
PHOTO: sftajan
California Home and Design takes a look at a new home that was recently completed in Bernalwood at 3119 Harrison Street, between Precita Park and Cesar Chavez:
The Basics: A two-unit building, offering a total of six bedrooms, more or less, six baths, plus a lot of parking, for $3.49M, sort of in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, barely, and almost in the Mission.
Not So Basic: New construction in a very current design, it’s now offered as a single property with “Luxury Compound can be modified by builders to meet your every need!” prominent in the listing text. It had originally appeared on the market in 2009 as two units for $2.37M each, then as two units at $1.695M and $1.895M respectively (one is a tad larger) and now again as one for a total of $1.25M less. Their rationale is probably that more expensive properties have sold well in San Francisco, and so the developers are offering to rework it as one luxury property for someone who’s rich, young and relatively fearless.
Lots more pictures here.
Bernalwood wants to know, so we can avoid that place at all costs.
Here’s a handsome opportunity for wannabe Bernalwoodians. (Bernalwooders? Bernalwoodistas?) CurbedSF tells us this spiffy house at 137 Faith Street on Bernal’s east slope is for sale, and now at a lower price:
A few months ago we brought your attention to this cute little place in Bernal Heights. It’s a 2-bed, 1-bath house with a charming shack, er, bonus structure out back. We are suckers for anything painted yellow, so we know we’re biased, but why all the hate on this petite abode? A decently-renovated single-family home is rare in the city for under $600,000, certainly in neighborhoods to the East. The seller is clearly motivated, already taking a hit to the last sale price of $650,000 back in 2005.
As if we needed any further validation of Bernalwood’s glam and panache, two of our own have a newly published House Tour that’s now up on the decor-obsessed website Apartment Therapy:
Name: Laura and Zev
Location: Bernal Heights — San Francisco, California
Size: 1,000 square feet
Years lived in: 2 — ownedBecoming a homeowner changes your perspective on the space you call home — at least it has for Laura and Zev. When they moved into their new home in Bernal Heights from the Mission two years ago they began to see their home as a true reflection of themselves. They strayed from the loud, flashy colors they painted on the walls of their previous rental and opted for a simpler, cozier way to express their love for color.
Read the entire House Tour here.
The remains of 1540 York after a gas explosion in 1969
KPIX Eyewitness News report from October 23rd 1969 by Ben Williams in San Francisco featuring the explosion of a residential house, caused by a gas leak. Includes interviews with witnesses, the fire service and views of property wreckage.
Sad to say, we can’t embed the video with the raw footage, but you can watch it here.
Local TV news coverage of this mundane 1969 disaster in Bernal Heights comes to us today by way of the excellent San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive, hosted by San Francisco State. This segment is a story about a bad day in the neighborhood, but one which has since been largely forgotten.
The house in the story was on the on 1500 block of York, just up from Cesar Chavez (Army) Street. On October 23rd 1969, it blew up. An occupant — they were “a Spanish family,” a neighbor says — was taken away unconscious.
The neighbor is freaked out.
The neighbor was visibly rattled by the experience. But a street-savvy fire chief restored order, matter-of-factly, because a house blowing up due to a gas leak is just one of those things he deals with sometimes in the city. How bad was the damage? “At least $30,000,” he estimates.
The SFFD battalion chief discusses the explosion
The location of the blast, at 1540 York, is now occupied by a two unit apartment building built in 1985. The neighborhood has moved on.
The new home at 1540 York
Yet that’s also the reason why you should check the original video footage from that day in 1969.
Then explore more of the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive. But clicking the link may lead to hours of viewing locally produced video from the collections of KQED, KPIX, KRON, KTVU as well as topics such as the San Francisco State Students Strike and the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz. Addictive stuff.
Bernalwood 