Real Estate

Foodie Wanted: Space Opening Up in 331 Cortland Marketplace

/ Todd_Lappin / 19 Comments

Neighbor Paul, of Paulie’s Pickle fame, tips Bernalwood that there’s a space opening up soon inside the fabulous 331 Cortland Marketplace. He passed along this email from 331 manager Debra Resnik:

Our retail culinary incubator (located at 331 Cortland, Bernal Heights, SF) is looking for an artisan food vendor to complement and enhance our current line-up. The ideal candidate is looking for a storefront location to grow their business, has never had a bricks and mortar presence, although experience producing and selling their product and a following is a must. They can be from the farmers market world, have done pop-ups, sold out of mobile kitchens and carts or catered events.

Please forward this announcement to any interested parties.
Thank you for any help you can provide,
Debra Resnik @
415.699.9059

Paulie adds, “Pickle vendors need not apply.” Fair enough, but what other flavor of gourmet yumminess should move into 331 to round out the foodie mix in Cortlandia?

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Three Properties for Rent Right Now in Bernal Heights

/ Todd_Lappin / 11 Comments

Our real estate-obsessed friends at CurbedSF have taken a close look at three residential units currently available for rent in our fabulous neighborhood. They invite readers to “Join the Bikini Jogger and Bigfoot on the Hills of Bernal Heights:”

It’s quite clear that the San Francisco rental market is hot, hot, hot right now, so here at Curbed we’re going to bring you a bevy of rental properties each week for your perusal — one in each price range for budget, middle-of-the-road, and luxury. Today we look at the Bernal Heights, which is full of whimsy and was embroiled in such controversies as last winters’s bikini jogger phenomenon and this summer’s Bigfoot sighting.

There’s a “budget” apartment on Park Street, a mid-range apartment on Mission near Valencia, and a 3 bedroom house on Manchester. Complete details at CurbedSF.

PHOTO: Apartment for rent at 3207 Mission

Paging Reverend Lovejoy: 1960s Church For Sale on Norwich

/ Todd_Lappin / 10 Comments

There’s a church for sale at 30 Norwich, just south of Precita Park:

6,213 square feet on two floors. 7,425 square foot parcel. 4,300 square foot parking lot. Dining Hall, kitchen, deck, study room, child care room, seats over 200 in Church area, heavy power, spinklered.

Built in 1967, the building was most recently home to the Grace Korean Presbyterian Church. It’s now offered at $2.4 million. Start passing the collections tray.

PHOTO: San Francisco Multiple Listing Service

Occupy Bernal Is Perhaps the Only Part of the #Occupy Movement That Wasn’t Completely Useless

/ Todd_Lappin / 43 Comments

bernal will fight

In hindsight, the Occupy movement was a big disappointment. When the movement first took hold last autumn, Occupy’s clever framing of economic issues as a contrast between the uber-affluent 1% of America’s population and the remaining 99% was a masterful piece of sloganeering that generated widespread public sympathy. Over time, however, Occupy devolved into a self-indulgent spectacle of pointless grandstanding and ineffective wankery, punctuated by occasional bouts of anarchic violence.  As Occupy sank into self-parody, public opinion plummeted and the movement became largely irrelevant.

On the bright side, our homegrown branch of the movement, Occupy Bernal Heights, has managed to avoid the ignominy of the rest of #occupy. Occupy Bernal’s secret: a tight focus on tangible goals and tried-and-true protest tactics.  As the SFWeekly writes:

Back in December we told readers about the newer, much more civilized arm of the local Occupy movement, dubbed Occupy Bernal Heights. The goal of this new Occupy group was not to pitch tents on public property, but to stop foreclosures and help troubled homeowners get affordable refinancing.

So how successful has Occupy Bernal been over the last five months? We checked back with the group’s leaders, who tell us they’ve been able to stop one foreclosure and helped postpone plenty of others.

That may not sound like much, but it’s more than what some other Occupy groups have accomplished.

PHOTO: Lily Rothrock

Average Rents In Bernal Heights Climb 65% In One Year

/ Todd_Lappin / 15 Comments

Bernal Heights is famous and glamorous, and that’s generally a good thing; With our so-hot-right-now reputation comes new amenities, new accolades, and VIP invitations to all the right parties. But there are also downsides to our celebrity status, and increased housing costs are one of them. Specifically, the rents are too damn high — and they’re getting higher.

Our real estate-obsessed friends at CurbedSF bring the jaw-dropping news that the average price of rental housing in Bernal Heights increased by 65 percent during the last year:

Now, there’s room to quibble with this analysis, which was conducted by LiveLovely, an apartment-hunting website. As one sharp commenter on CurbedSF points out: “The people who did this survey need a basic course in statistics. You cannot compare without taking into account the size, the area (of the unit), etc. A new construction with a dozen apartments on the high end can quickly skew the stats.”

Quite true. On the other hand, Bernal’s housing stock has remained largely unchanged, and as a basic benchmark, the +65% figure probably feels anecdotally right to anyone who has looked for rental housing in Bernalwood recently. Ouch, indeed.

IMAGES: via CurbedSF

Last Vestiges of Infamous Nasser Market Disappear

/ Todd_Lappin / 13 Comments

Neighbor Lessley brings us this update on the evolution of the former Nasser Market space on the corner of Crescent and Anderson:

Nasser Market, the infamous Crescent Ave. liquor store that inspired a 2008 murder and served as a drug dealing front, is now gone for good. Vacant for the past several years, the owners finally decided to turn it into an apartment building. As you can see from the picture, the sign came down last Saturday, erasing what had been a shameful blot on South Bernal’s reputation.

For those not familiar with the sordid tale, here are the lowlights: Four years ago owner Tong Van Le was held up at gun point at the seedy market, then tracked down and shot on the doorstep of his house in Novato by six accomplices who didn’t want him to testify in court about the hold up. Next, the market was taken over by drug dealers, who used Nasser as a front for their marijuana operation.

There had been hopes among some neighbors that Nasser might be turned into a small produce market for overflow from the Alemany Farmer’s Market, but these rumored inquiries apparently went nowhere. Instead, a ground level apartment has been carved out if the former storefront, with a familiar Lowes-style vinyl window in front. It’s not particularly pretty, but for the moment it’s a big improvement.

PHOTO: Neighbor Lessley

Occupy Bernal Heights and Supervisor David Campos Rally at City Hall

/ Todd_Lappin / 5 Comments

Occupy Bernal Heights was joined by several City Supervisors — including David Campos — for a rally on the steps of City Hall to combat home foreclosures. Fog City Journal was there:

The rally on City Hall steps, organized by Occupy Bernal Heights and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE, formerly known as ACORN) featured several “foreclosure fighters,” residents who are on the verge of losing their homes.

“We are not asking for a handout, we’re just asking for modifications of our loans,” said Ernesto Viscaro, a struggling homeowner and member of Occupy Bernal.

The article also details a legislative effort by Supervisors John Avalos and David Campos to halt further foreclosures:

Following the rally, Supervisor Avalos introduced a resolution – co-sponsored by Supervisors David Campos, Christina Olague, Jane Kim, Eric Mar and David Chiu, “Urging city and county officials and departments to protect homeowners from unlawful foreclosures.” The measure also urges mortgage and banking institutions, “especially San Francisco-based Wells Fargo,” to “suspend foreclosure activities and related auctions and evictions.” […]

“A postponement is not enough,” said District 9 Supervisor Campos. “We need a moratorium on foreclosures in San Francisco. We are asking all city agencies to not play any role” in administering foreclosures, he said.

PHOTO: Bernal resident Ernesto Viscaro, by Christpher D. Cook for Fog City Journal

Coming Soon: More Gourmet Auto Parts

/ Todd_Lappin / 19 Comments

When the Hollywood Video store on the corner of Cesar Chavez and South Van Ness closed down, I had a little fantasy: The store occupied a high-profile location with above-average square-footage and even a few parking spaces, so in my heart of hearts I hoped the location might become a gourmet deli or Asian mini-supermarket of some sort. I envisioned a business perched somewhere between a Bi-Rite and a Trader Joe’s that would further increase the gastro-retail diversity of Bernal’s north slope, in a convenient location that’s both eminently walkable and yet still car-friendly.

But alas, it’s not to be. Instead, over the last few weeks its become clear that the former Hollywood Video will soon become an Auto Zone. So instead of getting a convenient place to buy exotic and tasty food for dinner, we’re getting another purveyor of artisanal auto parts. Indeed, the building had been home to an auto parts store before it was occupied by Hollywood Video, so perhaps it’s just reverting to type.

I suppose I’m lucky, in a Bernal Dads sort of way; From my house, I will soon be able to walk to not one, but TWO auto partsmongers — the other, of course, being the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store that’s in the former Mission Chevrolet dealership on Mission at Precita. Somewhat less lucky, however, is Neighbor Rachel, who wrote to Bernalwood to share this view out the rear window of her Precita Avenue home:

PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics and Neighbor Rachel

“Occupy Bernal” Takes Fight to Wells Fargo

/ Todd_Lappin / 7 Comments

bernal will fight

Occupy Bernal has taken their fight beyond Bernal Heights by carrying their protest against home foreclosures directly to executives at Wells Fargo. The SF Bay Guardian catches us up:

Yesterday, three top Wells Fargo executives flew to San Francisco to meet with Alberto Del Rio, a Bernal Heights resident facing foreclosure.

Del Rio’s parents purchased their home in 1973. The home was refinanced multiple times, he says “for a better life” for his family. The most recent refinance, in 2007, was a result of lenders convincing Del Rio’s mother that refinancing would be an easy to pay for some of her retirement.

“It sounded really great because my mother had no monies for retirement. The loan officers told her pull out some cash and reinvest it so she could have a better retirement. They told her, ‘after two years, you’ll be able to refinance out of this,’” said Del Rio.

The loan she got was a pick-a-pay loan, one of the most notoriously predatory loans that banks offered in the years leading up to the 2008 crash.

After continued requests from Bernal resident Alberto Del Rio and support from that neighborhood’s foreclosure-focused branch of the Occupy movement, Del Rio was finally given the time of day- by top executives in the Wells Fargo home preservation department.

The executives, including Sharon Zuniga and Shawn Woods, who flew in from Wells Fargo’s headquarters in Texas, met with Del Rio Feb. 22 at the San Francisco offices of Consumer Credit Counseling Services for about an hour and a half.

Del Rio says they gave him three options: to move out of his home and convert it into rental units, allow a short sale on the house and accept $3,000 to move, or let foreclosure proceedings continue as planned.

“They flew a guy here all the way from Houston to try to bully him into giving up,” said Buck Bagot, an organizer with Occupy Bernal.

But the fact that they took the time to do that was a result of continued pressure from Del Rio and his supporters.

“It was a good thing,” said Del Rio.

PHOTO: Lily Rothrock

Star Sighting: “Curb Appeal” Filming on Bocana

/ Todd_Lappin / 14 Comments

Neighbor Jon contacted us via the Twitter yesterday with this hot news flash:

http://twitter.com/jmooallem/statuses/170213703818547200

O-M-G! HGTV’s “Curb Appeal!”  Fliming on Bocana! So where are the photographs of glamourous celebrity hosts and tasty Craft Services food trucks? We asked Neighbor Jon to zap his paparazzi photos to us. He sent us this bizarre reply:

“I was phone-less!”

The Bernalwood Newsroom was stunned. Whuuuuuuut? Phoneless? In the twenty-first century? How sad. How befuddling.

Instead, Neighbor Jon sent us a “before” photo of the house that’s getting the Curb Appeal makeover. So watch that space, to see how the makeover goes down.

PHOTO: Neighbor Jon

Surprising Facts About Bernal Foreclosures and Home Values

/ Todd_Lappin / 8 Comments

Bernal Heights architect Mason Kirby was playing with Zillow this morning, and after doing a manual tally of the listed properties, he  had a surprising epiphany:

A VERY SCIENTIFIC observation– on Zillow, in Bernal Heights, there are 55 foreclosures and 42 homes for sale. This is like, Wow! — Wow that the number of foreclosures is greater than the number of homes offered for sale, but also wow, because it seems like the average price of homes that are for sale has been uninfluenced by the quantity of neighboring foreclosures.

On the map above, for example, the properties without price tags next to them are foreclosures.

Obviously, Bernal Heights is not like, say, Modesto. Still, this does seem like a paradox: Bernal home sale values are not being dragged down by the large number of foreclosed properties in the same area.  But every one of those foreclosures is traumatic. (CUE: Occupy Bernal).

Your November 2011 Single Family Home Sales Report

/ Todd_Lappin / 11 Comments

Realtor John Downing from Downing and Company has pulled together some interesting numbers on November 2011 single-family home sales in Bernal Heights. The average sales price last month was $655,000, which as John points out, is down from $682,000 in October. Looking at the charts, it seems the general trend in average home sales prices has been downward over the last year.

Why? What does that mean? I have no idea. Any of our realtor readers care to chime in? Is this a trend? Or just a function of fickle sales inventory?

In the meantime, here’s the November sales data, via Downing & Company:

IMAGES: Downing & Company