Mill Valley Proof of a RE Bubble

Appeal, location and opportunity! Wonderful home or investment property or weekend get-away. Fabulous views of the bay and bridge. This one level home has great light, open beam ceilings, new carpet, large deck, covered parking and extra storage. Great lot with level yard area.

A dear friend of mine, who lives in the neighborhood of this 1 br 1 ba Mill Valley house, knew the lady who lived there and recently passed away. I was visiting the other day and so we decided to walk up to this house and look around.

Truly, this place is a dump. It is incredibly small (we estimate less than 600 sq ft of living space). It is nothing. It is a box. Nothing has been done to this house other than the heirs have cleaned it up (the lady had piles and piles of junk all over the place; accumulated stuff from over the years) and fixed the plumbing and the septic system. Not shown in the picture, attached and to the left, is the one car carport.

It was originally listed at $1,100,000 and now is listed at $999,000.

You really have to see this place in person to get a grasp of how ludicrous that asking price is and how small 600 sq ft really is; looking at a picture just isn't enough and in fact the picture makes this POS seem larger than it really is. A million dollars is a mind boggling amount of money to pay for something like this.

If ever there was proof of a housing bubble in Marin then this would have to be it.

(Incidentally, in case you are wondering why the lady didn't just sell the house a few years back and move and live her last few years "in style": my friend, who has lived his whole life on that street and who lives practically next door to this POS, told me that she said "it's paid for and it's my home, not an investment". That is an indication to you readers of the sort of people who used to live here (in Marin) in much greater numbers -- down-to-earth folk whose lives were not dominated by money or get rich quick schemes or displays of wealth.)

(Also, there is a house just like this one, except it's grey, to the left of this yellow one. These two houses appear to have been built by the same person. They are very close to each other and there is no wall or fence separating the two properties. In fact, they are so close to each other and essentially identical in style that it really looks like they were originally built on the same lot, possibly as rentals.)

(Further, you can only just barely see the bridge in the "view" that the realtor makes such a woop-de-doo about. The view is dominated by two large trees (not Redwoods but of similar height and girth) that have been allowed to grow to such a height that you can no longer see much of the view anymore. As time passes it is unlikely the view will improve as my friend says the owner of the two trees has no intention nor requirement of either topping them or cutting them down. So, if you buy this POS for the so-called view, then plan on enduring months if not years of dispute with one of your neighbors who has already been through it a few times with other neighbors.)