It’s Down Down Down on the Up Up Uplands: A Market in Microcosm
Three homes on the same upscale Berkeley street (mapped above) and their sales, or attempted sales, stories. If you needed a snapshot of where we’re at, this is it.
First up, towards the top of this hilly, winding street is 118 The Uplands (above), a 4/2.5 gray stucco home with elegant living areas and views of the Claremont hills. Bought in 2000 for $1,450,000, it went on the market in September 2007 for $1,800,000. Barely a month later the price was down to $1,650,000. The following month it sold for $1,550,000.
We saunter down the street to 26 The Uplands, a 3++/2, 3-story brown-shingle house with some nice original features in need of updating and reached by public steps (above). Bought decades ago for a song (let’s say nowhere near six figures) it goes on the market in January for $1,395,000. Finding no bidders it is reduced to $1,275,000 this week and, I hear, an offer has been forthcoming although no contract as yet.
Finally, we skip a few doors down almost to where the street merges into Claremont Avenue and encounter 14 The Uplands, a rambling 5/4.5 white shingle house which needs work (above). It went on the market this week, for the first time in more than 50 years, for $1,250,000.
To recap those starting (rounded up) prices again: $1.8m, $1.4m, $1.3m. You’re getting the picture, right?
Plummeting property values are not restricted to south Berkeley, of course. In the north of the city, a house I first reviewed, and liked, when it went on the market in February 2007 has just made a reappearance on the MLS. Back then the original asking price for 769 Spruce Street (above) a 4/3.5 home designed by Edwin Lewis Snyder was $1,750,000. By March it was down to $1,625,000 after which it went off market –whether sold or not I do not know. Today it could be yours for $1,250,000. You can do the math but I’ll do it for you: that’s a half million, or 29% drop in 12 months.
I’m a (prospective) buyer but I do have a heart and this is all making me feel mighty sorry for sellers.
