San Francisco Schtuff

By Coach A:

Two doors west of Home San Francisco World Headquarters sits 331-333 Cortland Ave, a 3 unit mixed use building. There’s a 1200 square foot commercial space, a 3 bed/2 bath, 1200 sqft flat and a stand alone cottage in the rear. (approx 650 sqft).

This building was on the market for $1,699,000 for 90 days and withdrawn on August 12th. On August 28th the building came back to the market as new with no staging and a new price of $1,495,000. Fairly typical in our industry to see a listing expire and come back on the market with a new broker but in this case there are a few interesting factoids.

1. What is being sold: The property is being marketed as individual TIC’s this time around. The two residential units are on a “fast track” for condo conversion according to the new listing agent. I find this hard to believe for a few reasons, namely the lack of off street parking. In order to convert to a condo, a variance must be issued as there’s no off street parking. Before a variance gets issued, the City will send out a notice to the neighbors who will be potentially effected by the additional street parking. The neighbor due west of the subject property complains about EVERYTHING – you can take it to the bank that he’ll protest the variance – which means trouble for anyone trying to convert to condos.
2. Kitchen: THAT’S NOT A KITCHEN! Marketing remarks: “The two story, free standing cottage has two bedrooms, one full remodeled bathroom, a sunny living room, and kitchen with a stainless steel sink….” Umm – there is NO kitchen. The kitchen is the stainless steel sink. As seen from my picture, the sink has 2 small electric burners on the left side and a mini fridge below the burners. That’s the “kitchen.” You can’t feasibly cook a meal in this sink –err I mean kitchen.   Jackson can’t even cook a meal in this sink/ kitchen. No counters, no cabinets, no where to put a freaking cutting board, yet advertised as a “kitchen.” (Note: the gas line for the building doesn’t run to the rear cottage-another red flag for me.)

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