139 14TH Ave San Mateo, CA 94402

Price: $678,000

Last sale:

Just when I thought the last little cottage was expensive, I stumbled upon this little charmer.  It is in a decent neighborhood of San Mateo, but the owner is asking for over $1000 per square foot for this little hundred year old cottage.  There is an open house this Sunday, and I really wonder if there are gold toilets or flooring in this house to warrant this price?

1532 CAROL Ave Burlingame, CA 94010

Price: $1,339,000

Last sale:

Loss if sold for asking: $12,000 or 0.9%

The interesting thing about Burlingame is that the listing price per square foot is much higher than the sold price per square foot.  Here is the graph:

So it seems that Burlingame sellers are all still holding their prices high, but the ones that sell are much much cheaper.  If this particular home were at the Burlingame average of $620 per square foot, then it would be  at only $1.07 million.  Perhaps that would be a better starting price?

1160 WALNUT St San Carlos, CA 94070

Price: $839,000

Last sale:

Loss if sold for asking: $26,000

This is probably a good example of a delusional seller.  The median price per square foot in San Carlos has dropped to $511 and the owners of this tiny “classic Tudor” is still going for $792 per square foot.  This home isn’t on the hills but it is close to downtown.  Anyway, there is an open house this weekend on Feb 22, from 1 to 4pm.

2106 CORONET Blvd Belmont, CA 94002

Price: $774,500

Last sale:

Loss if sold for asking: $25,500 or 3.2%

This is a decent sized Belmont home with a pool. The sellers took out two loans that covered 100% of 800,000 from the now dead Greenpoint Mortgage.  This means the mortgage alone would have been $4000 to $5000 a month on this puppy.  This would be double the price of renting a home like this.  Anyway,  there is an open house this weekend from 1:00pm to 4:00pm.

1344 BERNAL Ave Burlingame, CA 94010

Price: $1,385,000

Last sale: Aug 17, 2006 Sold $1,425,000
Loss if sold for asking: $40000 or 2.8%

I’m not quite sure what the realtor means when he says “Absolutely Done!!!”  He seems very fond of exclamation marks and I hope he does not talk like that in real life.  Anyway, this property has showings for the next 3 Sundays from 2:00pm to 4:00pm.  I would wait for the owners to reduce the price on this puppy since it is about $130 or about 20%  more per square foot than the median in Burlingame, and Redfin stated that Burlingame is one of the cities   with the most price reductions.     Chances are the owners of this lovely property will realize that they priced their home too high.

1023 HELM Ln Foster City, CA 94404

Price: $715,000

Last sale:

Loss if sold for asking: $34,000

This one’s financing history is pretty interesting.  It was purchased in 2005 with a $509k ARM from Wells Fargo and a $60k fixed loan from Genentech.  I had no idea that Genentech gave out home loans.  It may be an employee benefit or something?  Anyway, this couple is probably just being realistic about the sale price because they first listed this more than 7 months ago.  This is  a water front home, but the water in question is a man made lake kind of thing.  Anyway, there are showings for this home on  2/1 from 1pm to 4pm.

Price: $1,298,000

Last sale:

Loss if sold for asking: $2000 or 0.2%

In any other place, this is just a post war rancher that will probably sell for $200k or less, but here in Burlingame it’s $1.298 million.  There doesn’t seem to be much to justify this price.  The current owner took out a $960k adjustable loan in 2005, and perhaps it’s adjusting soon.  Anyway, this home is overpriced even for Burlingame.  A comparable property that’s larger than this home is at 1641 Albemarle Way and is around $300k less.  Both properties have open homes this weekend on 1/25 from 1pm to 4pm.

124 FARALLON Dr Belmont, CA 94002

Price: $749,000

Last sale:

Loss if sold for asking: $26,000 or 3.4%

This Belmont townhome is almost down to its 2004 price.  It’s one of the newer units in the Peninsula built in 1990.

300 BODEGA St Foster City, CA 94404

Price: $860,000

Last sale:

Loss if sold for asking: $11,000 or 1.3%

This is straight from the listing: “* * * PRICE ROLL BACK TO PRE-2006 DAYS * * * LOWEST PRICED HOME IN FOSTER CITY * * * AMAZING VALUE FOR THE MONEY!!! HUGE CORNER LOT!”

I like how the realtor used the term “roll back”, but I’m not quite sure if this is actually the lowest priced home in Foster City since it’s selling for $672 per square foot while the median single family home is selling for $483 per square foot in Foster City. It is the lowest priced single family home considering the price of $860k, but that’s only because other homes are twice the size of this little rancher, so I’m not quite sure if it’s an “AMAZING VALUE”. Anyway, I guess it does have a decent sized lot, but it’s not exactly spectacular. I suspect this one will actually sell within 6 months since a lot of buyers do not care about the price per square foot and just want to get into Foster City.

2109 DUMBARTON Ave East Palo Alto, CA 94303

Price: $995,000

Last sale:

Last sale: Aug 01, 2003 Sold $1,000,000

Loss: $5000 or 0.5%

This 9 unit apartment building in East Palo Alto is selling for below its 2003 price.  The capitalization rate is almost 8% according to the owner.  Unfortunately investment property loans are still pretty expensive now and unless you would need more than $300k for this purchase to be a non-jumbo loan.  This could work out for some investor with a lot of cash and experience in property management.  The property’s location is not optimal since it is practically on the 101, and it is in East Palo Alto, which has a bad reputation.  Recently East Palo Alto has become more gentrified, and perhaps in 20 years or so it would catch up to Palo Alto and Menlo Park? Anyway, this has been on the market for over 4 months, and it could sit longer unless the Feds decide to help out the commercial real estate credit market.