Address: 830 Harvard - 90403
Details: 4 bed/5.5 bath 3,846 sq ft house on a 7,900 sq ft lot.
Description: Drastic Price Reduction of $400,000!!! Contemporary, Cape Cod, custom designed single family built in 1989. This home features 4 bedrooms and 5.5 baths of very generous size. Great natural lighting throughout in a normal, family style layout. 3 bedrooms upstairs, 1 down. Den/Library can be converted to a 5th bedroom, if needed. It has an open kitchen with large family room and breakfast area facing the backyard. Large formal dining room. Tons of built-ins. Large walk in closets. 2 car garage in the back alley. Heated lap pool. Franklin School District. Motivated Seller!
Listing History: 11/26/10 - $2,749,000
Reduced down to - $2,350,000
SOLD: 9/29/11 - $2,128,000
This house took 266 days to get into escrow. Judging by the photos, the condition doesn't look bad at all but maybe you could make the argument that it could use some minor updating or a little face lift. Either way, I thought this was a lot of house on a nice big lot for the money. The sales price came in at $553/sq ft. You could spend $200k on some updating and you would still only be in the very low $600/sq ft range.
Next up is 850 Stanford - 90403
Details: 4 bed/3 bath 2,625 sq ft house on a 8,000 sq ft lot
Description: There is a charm that surrounds this lovely 4 bdrm, 3 bath home, in a prime Santa Monica location within the Franklin School District. Enter into a turret style foyer with leaded glass-paned windows and slate tile flooring. The living room and dining room have high volume ceilings, wood floors, slate tile fireplace in living room and plantation shutters. The eat-in kitchen has high vaulted wood beam ceilings with glazed Spanish tile flooring, Spanish tile counters, butcher-block center island. The mater suite is located on the 1st level with French doors, very large walk-in closet. Granite fireplace, beautiful private bathroom with vaulted ceilings and skylites, granite counters and glass and granite shower which leads to a large deck to the backyard. The second bedroom on the first level has beautiful built-in cabinet and deck and can be used as office/den. Two additional bedrooms and bath grace the upstairs. The beautifully landscaped grounds include a patio and deck leading out to a swimming pool and spa and two car attached garage.
Listing History: 6/5/11 - $1,875,000
SOLD: 9/29/11 - $1,700,000
This house took 116 days to get into escrow. Sure, it isn't as bad as the 266 days it took the Harvard house, but this is still a little long. Anyway, again judging from the photos, this house looks to be in pretty good shape and I agree with the listing description that there is some real charm here. The sales price came in at $647/sq ft. Given that the marginal square foot of house gets cheaper as houses get bigger and given that this house is over 1,000 sq ft smaller than the Harvard house, I would say these two valuations aren't terribly far apart, especially given that I would argue this house is a little more unique and probably gets some premium for that.
Finally, we come to
2619 Washington which I just
featured recently.
It is a 3 bed/2.5 bath 2,037 sq ft house on a 7,040 sq ft lot.
You can read more about my thoughts on it in my previous posts but when comparing it to the two houses featured above (which actually sold), we can notice a few things. First off, the positives of this house are that it arguably has the most charm out of these three and it is in pretty good shape (new kitchen, etc). It isn't however completely redone as I remember looking at a pretty original looking bathroom. But hey, maybe that is part of the "original" charm here...The negatives of this house really stand out however. The lot is almost 1,000 sq smaller, it has one less bedroom and less bathrooms than both of the other two houses.
Most importantly, the picture becomes even more clear when we look at the fact that even after reducing the price, this seller is still asking a very lofty $897/sq ft. Again, we have to remember that this house should sell for a higher $/sq ft just based on the fact that it is the smallest of the three houses -- AND because I think it has the most charm, but even adjusting for these items, a price of nearly $900/sq ft seems way too high.
The Stanford house is only about 600 sq ft bigger and it sold for $647/sq ft. So maybe you pop it up to $700/sq ft to account for size difference, then add some premium for the new kitchen and overall good condition, and then add on a final premium for the character and unique Spanish style. I think some readers would be surprised to see how big these premiums might be. I don't think they justify the bump from a potential $700/sq ft up to $900/sq ft, but I think they could be worth $100/sq ft. So at $800/sq ft you are looking at $1.63mm.
The seller of this house has been stubborn about reducing the price down to a market level. The house has been listed several times with no luck at selling. At this point they are hoping to find someone who stumbles into an open house and loves the property (and thus would be willing to ascribe a far greater than $100/sq ft premium to it). I don't think it is likely that they find someone willing to pay near the current list price, but I could see someone paying something like $1.7mm.
Finally, this house previously rented for $6,000/month. The interesting thing is that I have a rough valuation tool that I use which is based on rental value...in this case, a rent of $6,000/month gives me a fair value of just about $1.63mm which is the same price as we came to above using $800/sq ft. Now, if the rent would be higher now (say $6,500 or so), then I can get a value north of $1.7mm. So ultimately, I see fair value on this house somewhere between $1.63mm and $1.75mm. Now you can of course make fun of me if it sells for more but I don't see that happening.
