131 BELMONT Ave Redwood City, CA 94061

Price: $499,000

Last sale: May 10, 2005 Sold $630,000

This tiny little cottage is still asking for half a million, which makes it over $800 per square foot. I wonder if the owner noticed that it’s NOT in Atherton. The funnier part about this is that it is available for rent for $950 a month. Let’s do some math here. Suppose you put 20% down and finance $400,000 at 5% over 30 years, you’d have to pay about $2150 for mortgage plus another $400 a month for tax. So, why would anyone buy this if they wanted to live here? It might help the seller to remove the fact that it’s for rent because it just emphasizes how ridiculous of a decision it is to buy this home. Additionally, the listing is probably keeping renters away because potential renters would fear that they can be kicked out once the home sells to some sucker.

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.

485 A St #9 Daly City, CA 94014

Price: $179,900

Sales history:

This is an interesting property because it has a sales history from the last housing bubble to the current housing bubble. There are enough datapoints for me to make a graph.

Series 1 is a series of the sales prices, ending with the current listing price. Series 2 is a graph of the original $144,000 sales price in 1989 appreciating by 3% per year. After nearly 20 years, the current sales price does not beat the inflation adjusted price from 1989!  However, the person that bought in 1995 did get an excellent rate of appreciation.  So I guess catching the bottom and selling at the peak is the most profitable thing to do.

2002 FOREST Ave Belmont, CA 94002

Price: $898,000

Last sale: May 31, 2007 $945,000

Loss if sold for asking: $47000 or  -5.0%

This tiny little cottage’s price per square foot is about 40% above Belmont’s median.  I think it could fall at least 30% before it is even remotely reasonable.

This is yet another off MLS listing I found on Craigslist.   It’s a pretty small condo and it’s now listing for $299k.  That makes it $610 per squarefoot.  As far as San Mateo condos go, that’s still pretty expensive. 

Contact Anne Oliva (650) 291 9775 or Denise Baker (650) 888-1387
Remarges@aol.com. www. realestatemarges.com

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1025 TOYON Dr Burlingame, CA 94010

Price: $649,900

Last sale: Jun 24, 2008 $935,420

Loss if sold for asking:  $285520 or 30.5%

This home is from a tip by reader Carina.  She says “Just wanted you to know, 1025 Toyon, a bank owned property, just came on the market today at $649K. Its a nice size, 3/2 at almost 2000 sq ft, but it is right across the street from the train tracks.”  This is indeed a nice sized house in Burlingame.  It’s kind of odd that the bank took it back for $935k when the assessed value is only $700k or so.  I guess someone went crazy on the cash out refinances. Thanks for your tip Carina!