Rockridge Listings: True Urban Grit or Escape In The City?

Lots of activity in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood at the moment — and I’m not referring to hold-ups in restaurants or fresh goat meat finding favor on the menu at Oliveto’s.

By my calculation, there are about 15 new listings in this area — and I mean the Rockridge heartland, not including lower Elmwood or upper Rockridge, but taking a slightly more relaxed approach to the boundaries than Redin does.

Given that a combined freeway and BART train line runs straight through Rockridge, it can be difficult to find a home here where noise, not to mention air quality, isn’t a contributing factor. There may be an argument for embracing the urban grittiness of it all rather than try to fight it — in which case, 5635 Miles Avenue might be of interest to you. There is no doubt that you couldn’t be better placed if you commute by BART, for this 2/1, 1,274 sq ft one-level home is spitting distance from the tracks. Cute on the outside with a British Racing Green exterior, the interiors have seen better days, however. Price: $718,000 ($564/sq ft).

Further away from BART, but smack on a busy arterial road, 5766 Claremont Avenue looks good inside and out (and on the day I visited the street noise was muted — presumably a result of the 3/2 home’s double paned “tilt back” windows). I liked the classic Craftsman features — including a remarkable brick fireplace — and the generously sized master bedroom. The garden is tiny but perfectly landscaped. Price: $889,000 ($466/sq ft).

And then for something completely different. For it appears possible, after all, to escape the travails of city life while remaining at its very core: 391 Clifton Street (pictured above), a 2/1 shingled Craftsman, has all the feel of a weekend beach house, although it’s barely 600 meters away from Rockridge BART station. Set back on a large lot, there’s a Bohemian chic aspect to this little (756 sq ft) home which will suit anyone looking for a private retreat. There’s fashionable concrete countertop in the kitchen, a newly remodeled bathroom and a huge subarea with potential. Price: $599,000 ($792/sq ft).

Other Rockridge listings:

5616 Kales Avenue:  2/1 bungalow above Broadway described as “clean and crisp”: $799,000.

5321 Miles Avenue: 2+/1.5 unit with “rainforest” garden and passive solar energy: $535,000.

5641 Oak Grove: Big 5/1.5 house on a big (6,000 sq ft) lot that needs a little TLC: $899,000.

Check out more listings, as well as comprehensive Rockridge facts and figures, with Redfin’s Neighborhood Overview tool.

Granite Countertops Passe – Readers Choose the New Sexy Amenity

Yes indeed, we have a winner! In fact, several! Last week we ran a contest to see who could guess what the new sexy amenity is, replacing the now-ubiquitous if-not-tired granite countertop. After a number of excellent guesses (more on that latuh), Jackie nailed it, guessing that the answer is C*L*O*S*E*T*S.

“Giant closets have become the new granite countertop,” Carol Lloyd proclaimed in an SF Chronicle article last week, citing and once again proving that size does matter. Because these are not, as they say, your  mother’s closets. Oh no.

Readers of Apartment Therapy, the real estate blog with the juciest photos (at least in my eyes), surveyed its readers, who agreed that a larger closet is “very very sexy.” We’re talking six-foot closets, designer closets, his-and-her room-sized closets.

Meanwhile, reader Debbie suggested that the new sexy amenity is custom concrete countertops, and after checking these out, I can see why she (and Sweet Digs Fearless Leader Susan Brady) like ‘em. Alexandra V. voted for quartz countertops, which she saw on David Bromstad’s show. (Big thanks to Los Angeles Apartment Therapy blog for the juicy photos of celebrity closets.)

10 Ways To Save Big Bucks When Sprucing Up Your Home

I recently did some research into remodeling my kitchen. The ballpark estimate for the work, which included moving a half bathroom and refitting all cabinets and appliances, was $100,000.

I can’t help thinking this is bordering on the absurd. Sure it could be done for that amount, and no doubt it would end up looking pretty darn fabulous. But in these straitened times, it’s become a point of pride, as well as a budgetary necessity, to score serious savings when doing up your home — whether ahead of a sale, or after you’ve just moved in.

There is always a way to make significant savings if you are prepared to do the research and know where to look. The made-over kitchen above, for example, cost just $6,000. (My Sweet Digs colleague Susan Brady will be interested to hear that, given that she is embarking on a kitchen remodel right about now.)

Sourcing used fittings, and fixing rather than buying everything new, tick environmental boxes too: why not help the planet as well as your bank balance?

Hat tip to Apartment Therapy and This Old House, therefore, for most of the ten tips below on how to work wonders on a budget:

1. Perform prep work before the contractor performs the actual work — sweat equity pays.
2. Buy cheaper products at places such as restaurant supply stores and Ikea, and then have them cut to size. (The granite countertops in the kitchen shown above are from Costco, for instance.)
3. Avoid reaching for the credit card and ordering from high-end stores and peruse Craigslist and EBay instead. (The Bosch pro-style range in the kitchen above was bought on Craigslist for $700 and was still under warranty — it would have been $2,000 new.)
4. Buy embossed, paintable wallpaper (from as little as $10 a roll at Lowe’s) and use it as a faux tin ceiling (like the one pictured right) to hide cracks and unevenness.
5. Salvage items from dumpsters outside houses being demolished (after obtaining permission).
6. Look for house-parts recycling centers in well-heeled zip codes. A growing number of them now stock gently used high-end appliances from the likes of Viking and Sub-Zero.
7. Knock $500 or more off the $2,500 average installed price of a granite countertop simply by choosing a square edge instead of a much more expensive bullnose or other curved detail.
8. Tap your contractor’s sources. When it comes to things like flooring, ask them if they have odds-and-ends stock left over from other jobs.
9. Use the experts astutely. If your project is relatively small, you may not need the full services of an architect, for example. One design consultation may be enough to produce sketches you can hand to your contractor.
10. Repair rather than replace: we live in a society used to built-in obsolescence (don’t get me started on I-Pods), but it needn’t be that way with your house or what’s in it. Fix and repaint the stucco rather than installing a whole new siding; a fresh lick of paint on a chest of drawers found at the flea market will cost a fraction of the cost of a spanking new one from Pottery Barn.

[Photo credits: Kitchen Jurgen Franck/This Old House; embossed ceiling Apartment Therapy.]

Berkeley’s “Little Secret”: New Housing Construction Downtown

An August post on Curbed SF highlighted the fact that the sassy San Francisco real-estate site rarely writes anything about Berkeley.

Why not? “Well people, ’cause Berkeley builds squat, that’s why,” was the curt explanation provided, thus making it clear that “only the new would do” for the San Francisco-centric editors.

Do an archive search for “Berkeley” on Curbed, and you will find dozens of results, however — but they all fall into two neat categories: eating and tree-hugging. Well. Nothing new there then.

But there is new residential construction slated for Berkeley, as I reported back in July. The Charles Hotel/conference complex, to be located downtown, on Center Street, will include about 50 residential units.

And now, as Curbed acknowledges, there is the advent of Arpeggio (pictured above), a mixed-use development to comprise 143 condos, as well as new rehearsal space for the Berkeley Repertory Theater. (Arpeggio: “the playing of the notes of a chord in quick succession instead of simultaneously” — don’t you love the names they choose for new-builds?).

Arpeggio will rise up nine stories, an anomaly in a city which to date has placed height restrictions on new developments, and will also be sited on Center Street.

A report in San Francisco Business Times suggests this is just the tip of the iceberg. Berkeley is apparently pushing for more mixed-used development near public transportation to encourage people to get out of their cars:

“The Arpeggio project will fit right in for the future vision of our downtown,” said Debra Sanderson, the city’s land use planning manager. “It’s sort of a little secret that (there’s) been all this housing construction in Berkeley. We’ve had more projects approved in the last five years than we had approved in the previous 50.”

It looks like Curbed SF may have to strain its neck to look eastwards more often in future — CurbedBerkeley anyone?

[Photo credit of Arpeggio: Curbed SF.]

Berkeley: Homes With Good Bones Testify To Architects’ Skills

A few new Berkeley listings caught my eye this weekend. The first, 148 Stonewall Road, a level-in 2-bedroom house in the hills above the Claremont Hotel (pictured above), is going for a rather astonishing $857 per square foot ($1,100,000). I decided to hike up there to see whether it could justify that price tag.

The truth is that I think it just about can. Even though this is only a 1,283 square foot home, it offers something many larger homes do not: namely a good vibe. It was designed in 1962 by architect Reece Clark and, although there has been minimal updating, the architecture, with its liberal use of wood paneling and plate glass, has stood the test of time. There are sweeping views of the Bay from a vertiginous deck, soft breezes keep the open-plan living area cool on sweltering days, there’s a new expensive bridge driveway and some charming landscaping on the front decks that lead to the entrance. A bonus is that, if you don’t mind a bit of a climb on the way home, you can walk the 0.4 miles to the local Peet’s for a morning coffee.

Another architect-designed home is up for sale across town at 959 Miller Avenue. David Stark Wilson‘s work is highly regarded in the Bay Area, not least because of the quality of the homes he designed in the Oakland hills after the 1991 firestorm. A home he built last year (above left) won acclaim for its striking modern lines and use of sustainable, fire-resistant materials and was included in Metropolitan Home’s Design 100 list this year.

959 Miller, a 4/3.5, 3,106 sq ft home (above right), was built in 1990, and leans more towards traditional Mediterranean with some contemporary aspects. It has three floors of living space, an indoor/outdoor flow, views, and a level entry from the driveway. Price: $1,695,000 ($546/sq ft).

The 2-bedroom home at 1228 Monterey Avenue is worth investigating because, although it needs some work, the neighborhood is desirable –near BART too  — and the price is a reasonable $685,000.

Lastly, 6450 Mystic Street: this 2/2 Craftsman on the Berkeley/Oakland border, near Chabot Elementary School and College Avenue, has some good things going for it, including a huge bay window in the living room on the front, a peaceful location at the end of a cul-de-sac, and a bonus third bedroom and bathroom created by converting a garage. Price: $875,000 ($646/sq ft).

[Photo credit David Stark Wilson home, left: David Stark Wilson.]

Readers, You Vote: What’s the New Granite Countertop?

Doubtless we are all sick of seeing that cliche on nine out of every ten listings, the granite countertop. Well, while the dang things aren’t going away anytime soon (for one thing, they weigh a TON, so it’s hard to haul ‘em off), they are no longer the coolest amenity around, the Chronicle reports.  

So, Redfin readers, what IS the coolest amenity? It’s ”very very sexy,” according to 170 out of the 326 respondents to a Remodeling Magazine poll.

It’s not the backsplash, the Swarovski crystal chandelier or an ever-so-green sustainably harvested bamboo floor. Whoever guesses correctly gets featured in a blog post. C’mon, readers … hit me with your best shot! (Amazing granite photo: vittands on flickr.)

Home Prices To Bottom Out By Late 2009 But Some Can’t Wait

Not surprisingly, many homes that go up for sale in Berkeley are taking longer to find buyers and selling for under original asking prices. My guess is that only homeowners with little choice in the matter are choosing to put their houses on the market now.

For all of those out there, whether seller or prospective buyer, reader David flags up this recent prediction: “Credit Suisse agrees that we’re about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the price declines nationwide, and the bottom will be here around late 2009-early 2011.”

His advice to buyers: “Rent for a year or two, decide on [the] ‘hood, and buy at the bottom.”

The lists below show home sales in Berkeley for September 7 and August 31.

1708 Oregon Street (pictured right), a 3/2, 1,841 sq ft home, was on the market for $559,000 in February. At the time I described is as being one the best value homes for sale given that its price per square foot was a minimalist $304. Nevertheless, it took more than six months to sell and then went for 8% under asking at $515,000.

2436 Stuart Street, a 3/2 brown-shingle between Telegraph and College, appeared on the MLS in April last year, priced $859,999. It was back on in December, a short sale, priced $667,000 — a 22% price plunge in 8 months. At that point reader Tunguska, who had visited the house both times it hit the market, reported that “There is a horrible slope towards the NE corner, no driveway, and it was a rental property at the time so the condition was poor. I saw it again after “renovation”, not much improvement, just some new tile.” It sold this week for $555,000, a whopping 35% drop in 15 months.

When SFR’s are Converted to Multiplexes: Should I be Upset?

 It all started kind of gradually. First I noticed one house on a corner half a block from my house (pictured below) that had been vacant for months. Then contractors and builders started coming over a period of time: they redid a staircase here and converted a basement there.  When they were finished, I realized what had once stood as a single family home had become a multifamily unit. The I saw another house on the opposite end of the street undergo this transformation (pictured right). Then another. And now one more. There are at least four homes in a 2-block radius from my bungalow that have been converted from single family residences into duplexes or from duplexes into multiplexes. When the first one went up I didn’t think much of it. Even after the renovation it remained vacant for months and I assumed they were having a hard time renting it. Then several months ago a bevy of tenants moved in (it is a 3-unit building now). As I watched the three other buildings steadily being converted while the housing market took the mother-of-all-belly-flops, I began to grow more and more anxious: would these new aparment buildings cause my first house to drop its value even further? Would my home become difficult to sell someday due to all the rentals surrounding it? Will the owners manage the properties well? It also made me a little angry: what right does whoever is developing these units have to do so in a neighborhood that’s struggling to keep its value above water anyway? After all, chances are they’re not living here. I imagined that they were somewhere far away, like Dublin. Or San Jose. Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe property values won’t drop (at least, not due to these new units). On the bright side, the units are brand new and look relatively tasteful (though gargantuan) from the outside.  As long as their landlords keep them up, I suppose they could add to our neighborhood and not take away from it the way a vacant, blighted house can.  But ideally I’d like to see the blighted SFR’s become renovated and then sold (affordably) as SFR’s. (And likewise, if it’s a blighted duplex, renovate and remain a duplex, not become a megaplex). Should I dream on? Let me know your thoughts.

As Home Prices Nosedive, the (Brit to Brit) Advice is “Head East”

I ran into a real-estate friend on the street the other day. She was busy — dashing between her handful of listings, organizing stagers, scheduling buyer tours and open-house dates. But she confided she thought she would have difficulty shifting a couple of her listed homes because, she said, the homeowners were refusing to set realistic prices. The market has changed, but they just don’t see it, she moaned, and then sped off, coffee cup and disclosure packets in hand, acknowledging that at least business was still buzzing.

The picture, as painted by latest price data from Altos Research (for the 11 months to August)  certainly seems to bear her view out (see tables below).

Prices per square foot are way down in both Berkeley and Oakland — $457 for Berkeley and $239 for Oakland at August 31. Median prices overall have taken a dive in Oakland — the median price of a single family home there is now $285,211. As usual, Berkeley, a much smaller, and somewhat schizophrenic market, shows a slightly less definitive trend:  prices picked up in the spring after a dip over the new year and are began to level out again in early July. The median SFH price in the city is $812,607.

  $812,607 is still a significant chunk of money and not dissimilar to San Francisco’s equivalent median price of $848,899 — which won’t be welcome news to “London girl asking” over at Socket Site whose imminent move to San Francisco from London with a $500K budget to spend on a home has prompted an avalanche of advice and guidance in the form of dozens of comments from plugged-in Socket Site readers.

Personally, I think they are all being far too polite. As a fellow Brit, I feel it’s my duty to inform London girl that she’s in for a rude shock as her budget is hardly likely to secure her more than a derelict garret in the city (above left) — and replicating her lifestyle near Hampstead Heath (above right) is pretty much out of the question. “Look East” I say — as did several of those friendly commentators.

Those median prices don’t look like increasing any time soon, and she will certainly get more bangs for her bucks (and better weather) in Berkeley or Oakland than in Fog City.

[Photo credits: sanfranciscohousing.com/.../SF_skyline.jpgand www.londontown.com/DirectImageProcessor/image]

When Crime Pays An Unwelcome Visit To Your Patch

Everyone hopes crime won’t come to their neck of the woods. For some Oakland inhabitants, and certainly Berkeley denizens, I think this (let’s face it) delusion extends to believing there is an invisible line beyond which gang warfare and gun-related crime won’t venture.

The recent spate of hold-ups in restaurants around Oakland, in the Grand Lake, Lake Merritt, San Antonio and Rockridge districts among others, caused an understandable flurry of consternation, as well as a certain disbelief. Could it be that just going out to eat on a summer evening now brought with it the fear of being held up at gun point?

A recent post by my Sweet Digs colleague Alison Ching on Tesmecal prompted an exchange of comments on the safety of that particular, up and coming neighborhood. Asher Hawke, who had lived in the area for several years, wrote: “Crimes in the Temescal proper are sky rocketing. Drive around and see the gang tagging… Don’t even think about crossing 40th or Telegraph unless you are prepared for crack houses and gun shots all night.” In contrast, Anon, who lived in exactly the spot Hawke was describing, responded that, although property crime was on the increase and one should take normal precautions at night, “I’d happily buy in Temescal right now.”

Whether a sudden rash of crime has an impact on the real-estate market is as difficult to judge as whether former Hillary Clinton supporters will switch their allegiance to a certain female governor of Alaska. There may be a short-term drop in sales as prospective buyers seek out what feel like safer neighborhoods — the flip side being that a slight dip in prices may attract a few punters who had previously considered the area too expensive.

The advice remains the same: check out the crime stats for wherever you are considering; look up archived news stories and talk to anyone you know who lives in the area or has friends who does; spend time in the neighborhood — take a walk around the streets in the daytime and in the evening. Don’t skimp on this research. It could be a life-saving investment.

Useful Sweet Digs posts on crime-related resources: here and here.