1900's Victorian / Edwardian Outer Mission Home

I saw an interesting Victorian / Edwardian transitional house in the Outer Mission last weekend:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/24-Niagara-Ave-94112/home/823171

It's actually already pending after less than two weeks, yet another example of the hot housing market in San Francisco right now - its official square footage sits at 836 square feet, it's got bars on the windows and it's located about a block from the corner of Geneva and Mission which is somewhat of a crime hotspot (on the plus side, it's literally across the street from El Pollo Supremo, where the grilled chicken seems to have a cult following in the City - I have tried the grilled chicken, pretty good, really). Though, that's not really why I find this house interesting.



This is a good example of a house that was built right after the period when highly ornamented Victorian houses were most popular (this was built in 1907 according to records though according to the agent it could have been built before since a lot of records were destroyed after the earthquake). This house has the shape of a Victorian house but has much plainer ornamentation, more in line with Edwardian houses built in the late 1900 and 1910's. I also think the exterior color is pretty hot. Even though I think of Sunset style homes as being houses built in the 1920's to 1930's primarily, this particular house does more or less has the same form as Sunset style homes - narrow row house on a narrow lot, one story living space over basement style garage.

It has a cute fireplace in the living room:


It's got nice detailing on the hardwood floors:


Nice built-in cabinet and wood paneled walls in the dining room:


Nice boxed beam ceiling in the dining room:


I was joking with the agent that this is a great three-bedroom 800 square foot house. This is because while the official statistics show 836 square feet and 1 bedroom, there are two fully finished un-warranted knotty pine bedrooms in the attic that are very cool and which I'm sure would be well loved by children:


Finally, one small funny thing I saw is the dining room has a nice window facing out, except looks like decades after this house was built, another house was built right next to it, blocking the view of that side window and making it somewhat useless:

Colorful San Francisco Outer Mission Houses

My wife recently took some photos of Sunset style homes in the Outer Mission that are particularly colorful. The buildings look like they date from the 1930's to 1950's. Not all the houses are to my taste but the colors are awesome!



Here's a link to her Instagram, enjoy! http://instagram.com/thesecitystreets/#

Knowing Your House - Historical Features

If you like history or historical architecture, you probably want to know and understand the historical features of your home. I read a very cool (if academic) "Sunset District Historic Builders, 1925-1950, Historic Context Statement" document yesterday, see

http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=3192

which includes a lot of details about the exterior of your historic San Francisco home. What most of these survey types of documents do not include is details on the interior (though there are many other sources which include detail about historic house interiors), for the obvious reason that the architectural preservation professionals who write these reports are frequently not allowed to go inside these homes. Which leaves real estate listings as one of the main sources where you can figure out this information. But these listings can be misleading if the listing realtor has no idea about the historic interior features of your home. If you want to preserve these types of features in your home, it can be very confusing trying to figure out what are original features of it on the inside.

For example, I saw a 1931 listing yesterday where the description listed a "bonus room" downstairs. As you may recall, I have written previously that bonus rooms are usually illegal rooms added after the home was built. Yet, when I looked at the photos of the listing, the faux fireplace, shaped arch, and wet bar with what looked like bright original wall tiling seemed to indicate that the bonus room was actually a legally built, original social room.

Here's a photo I took of the Rousseau home I went to awhile back with the wet bar in the downstairs social room:



Social rooms were rare special features for Sunset style homes built in the 1930's, so this makes this home a special treat, but you wouldn't know it from the listing!

When I emailed the uninformed listing realtor in question, he wrote back, "I really don't know. All the information is in the disclosure package. I'm sorry I can't be more specific but I have very limited knowledge and I have a legal responsibility to be almost 100%." Honest enough answer I suppose... I'm pretty sure the realtor we used for our home purchase would have known the moment he set eyes on it what that room was.

Not Your Typical San Francisco 1950s House

Saw another interesting home show up on Redfin today, a home in Merced Manor from the 1950's:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/150-Gellert-Dr-94132/home/1822602?utm_source=myredfin

There's actually a pretty large cluster of San Francisco homes built in the 1950's, especially in the southern and southwestern part of the city (coinciding with when much of Daly City was developed); it's just there aren't as many large developments of such houses in most parts of the city since most of the city had already been developed by then.

This is kind of an interesting house. First of all, the exterior is built in the English Tudor style, which is a bit unusual as most of the 1950s houses built in San Francisco were built in a more mid-century modern esque style, similar to the Westlake district in Daly City. It's free-standing, unlike a lot of houses in San Francisco that are more row houses. It's got a relatively modern two car side-by-side garage, which is very unusual in San Francisco where most houses have tandem garages. Finally, it's a split level home, which is also a bit unusual for San Francisco (though not for the United States; split level homes started appearing in common usage in the 1930s and became truly prevalent from the 1950s to 1970s). This house was built in 1953, so pretty much at around the same time as the Stonestown Galleria (the developer of the Galleria was the Stoneson Brothers, who therefore possibly built this house as well).


Inside, it's got a beautiful lava rock fireplace and wood beam ceiling:


The next photo shows clearly how the split level works - the level in the "middle" contains the front entrance and the living and dining rooms. You go up the stairs halfway to get to the main bedrooms and bathrooms. You probably go down a few steps to get to the basement room(s) and garage.


Pretty hot looking green bathroom:


Another bathroom, typical 50's tiled bathroom:


Very cool and comfortable looking family room in the basement with built in benches:


Finally, here's looking at the two car garage:

Spanish Influence in Sunset Style Homes

Saw a good example of a Spanish influenced Sunset style home show up on Redfin today:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/710-43rd-Ave-94121/home/1563063?utm_source=myredfin

Within San Francisco, since roughly the 1910's, there had been homes built in a neo-Spanish style that harkens back to the days of Spanish missions in California. But most of those homes tended to be for the rich. Within San Francisco in the 1920's, for normal mass produced homes, the more typical style was Marina style with barrel front. Around 1929 to 1930, it finally became stylish for even these mass produced homes to show neo-Spanish or vaguely Mediterranean characteristics.

So this home is a good example of the first batch of mass-produced homes in San Francisco to show with this style, built in 1930 in the Outer Richmond:


Notice the overall exterior appearance is still a barrel front Marina style, harkening back to the 1920s, but there's some extra red tiling at the top along with the two little decorative triangular parapets on both sides.

The living room is very nice, with a barrel ceiling. The built-in cabinets next to the fireplace look very nice but not sure if they are really original.


My favorite part is the fireplace, which comes with a decorative tile showing what could be a California Spanish mission:


The dining room has a nice rounded ceiling:


Finally, looks like they've remodeled the downstairs with a bonus room. The steps look a bit narrow, and you can tell on the walls they've painted/plastered over the foundation) it bulges out from the walls, up to the small windows. And you can clearly see the pillars that support the original home in the middle. But still very nicely done for a bonus room.

Rising Home Prices in San Francisco

Rising home prices in San Francisco? Gee, I hadn't noticed. It feels like the best time I could have bought a house was Fall 2011. Oh well. I saw a pretty interesting sale the other day that caught my eye.

http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/207-San-Juan-Ave-94112/home/1352022

From Google Maps:


It is a very nice mid 1930s Spanish style Sunset style home, located in Mission Terrace, which is not in the "hottest" area of town in terms of real estate, but still, moderately good area. The Mission Terrace area has an interesting contrast in qualities. It's a family friendly area with lots of beautiful, well-kept homes. It's near the freeway and somewhat near the more expensive Glen Park area, which has a village feel with a very few very nice restaurants. Prices here tend to be moderately high. At the same time, it's just east of an area of the Excelsior that has a relatively high crime rate. The crime spills over into Mission Terrace through street robberies (similar problem as Glen Park, but seems like more street robberies in Mission Terrace). I know because I pay attention to the Ingleside Police Blotter.

The house itself looks renovated (but with cool original living room detailing and fireplace), with new floors, beautiful new kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs, well kept side patio, a beautiful downstairs social room that looks original to the house (based on the faux fireplace and detailing downstairs) - though the square footage is listed at 1,251 square feet, which would indicate that the square footage doesn't include the downstairs. In other words, this is a top-of-the-line Sunset style home. If this house were in the Outer Sunset or Parkside, this home could conceivably sell for $900,000, higher than any other type of Sunset style home other than ones built by known architects like Oliver Rousseau.

Well, this house did sell for over $900,000 anyway. Listed at $749,000, then listing adjusted to $759,000, this house ultimately sold for $950,000, all cash! In other words, almost $200,000, or 25% above asking. On redfin.com, Davis Pemstein writes about the sale, “18 total offers on this really nice property in Mission Terrace. We came in ~13% above list and waived our inspection. We finished in the top 3rd of the offers. Per the listing agent, an all cash, non-contingent offer was accepted well above our price.” The sold price is way over what other homes are selling for in the area. For comparison, a house sold literally two blocks away from it at nearly the same time, http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/259-Otsego-Ave-94112/home/1997070 , with similar square footage (but interior is nowhere near as nice, but still okay) sold for $620,000.

Wow. It is a top of the line Sunset style home, but still. All I can write is, the buyer must have really liked the home!

Cottage / Bungalow in Westwood Park

Saw this adorable cottage / bungalow in Westwood Park today. Generally speaking, in San Francisco, when the square footage is under 1000 square feet, they start calling that a cottage. Typically, with these smaller homes, the price can be more attractive given the smaller square footage, but typically it may also not be easy to expand the home without tearing the home apart, as these houses are typically one-story on a limited parcel. These homes are typically one bedroom with a small office or two small bedrooms. Personally, these type of homes are a bit small for my needs, but one like this one might be a nice starter home for some folks.

http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/1358-Plymouth-Ave-94112/home/1938972

In this house's case, it stands exactly at 1000 square feet, and was built in 1918. Property in Westwood Park does seem to be more expensive generally. Specifically, Westwood Park homes tend to be more expensive than neighborhoods to the south and east of it (the neighorhood itself is very nice and residential) like Ingleside Terrace and the Outer Mission and Excelsior, but less expensive than the large, really nice homes in St. Francis Wood to the northwest of it, so from an investment perspective it's a good place to be.

Beautiful Crafstman-esque exterior (note the 1920s house to the left which is more of a full size Sunset style home):


It's got a beautiful but small living room:


Nice (also small) dining room with beautiful built in cabinets, probably original:


It's got a small bathroom with an old claw tub, which is quite cool to see (though not sure how cool it is to use):


There are two reasonably sized bedrooms in the back.

The parking situation is a bit weird. A lot of homes in Ingleside Terraces / Westwood Park are fully non-attached structures, with a private path on the side for the car to drive through to get to a garage near the back. In this house's case, the path has been partially dug up and obstructed with plants grown in the ground. In the back of the house is the garage, which is really a shed that fits one car. So the garage could be used as a storage space, renovated to become living space, or you can pave over the plants and turn the garage back into a garage. There is still a parking space on the property though.


Finally, the best or most interesting part is the backyard. Definitely my favorite part. Because this house backs up on City College property, beyond the chain link fence of the backyard, is a completely undeveloped field with a tree and other natural plants. So the backyard feels so very bucolic, unusual for San Francisco.