Precarious POS On A Stick
It's been much too long since my last POS post. No, there is no shortage of POSs in Marin as there has been a huge number of new listings; I've just been lazy. Then again, nothing is moving and I'm sick to death of looking at the same list of Marin POSs for sale. One thing I have noticed is that many of the newer listings do not have pictures attached and way more than enough time has elapsed for the agents to update the listing. Maybe this blog is having an effect; maybe agents have been shamed into hiding the true POSness of their listings and so don't want to show a picture. Or maybe not.
Anyway, this POS in Sausalito was sent in by a reader (thank you). It comes in with 2 br 1 ba, 1040 sq ft, built during the 1920s. This is the actual picture you see on the agent's web site:
Looks nice. The interior is really nice too. But the reader who sent this in took this picture of the back end:
You gotta love those stilts. And one of the stilts comes with its own home-made staircase. To where? Who cares? How cool is that! The kids will love it.
So many houses in Marin are propped up like this one but rarely do you get to see pictures of them. One good mud slide, e-quake and you can ride your POS down the side of the hill. In Marin that's called "hill surfing". Heck, even a stout wind would do it. Or maybe stacking up all your crap on one side of the house would do it too. Or maybe jumping up and down a lot...
And for this precarious POS you just need to put $895,000 on the line. Seems like a safe bet to me. Not!
Anyway, this POS in Sausalito was sent in by a reader (thank you). It comes in with 2 br 1 ba, 1040 sq ft, built during the 1920s. This is the actual picture you see on the agent's web site:
Looks nice. The interior is really nice too. But the reader who sent this in took this picture of the back end:
You gotta love those stilts. And one of the stilts comes with its own home-made staircase. To where? Who cares? How cool is that! The kids will love it.So many houses in Marin are propped up like this one but rarely do you get to see pictures of them. One good mud slide, e-quake and you can ride your POS down the side of the hill. In Marin that's called "hill surfing". Heck, even a stout wind would do it. Or maybe stacking up all your crap on one side of the house would do it too. Or maybe jumping up and down a lot...
And for this precarious POS you just need to put $895,000 on the line. Seems like a safe bet to me. Not!
posted by Marinite at 8/23/2006 02:13:00 PM
13 Comments:
They must have a lot of faith in that one securing point, seeing how three beams radiate from there. But if that point fails, how much of the house follows. How is this possibly to code? And, is showing that photo considered "disclosure," or just bad marketing?
I make it four beams ...
Eek! Is any part of this house built on solid ground? This sort of POS madness was bad enough at the height of the RE feeding frenzy; now, it just seems sad and delusional.
Is anybody besides me having A Series of Unfortunate Events flashbacks? :)
As rickety as the structure appears the builder's must have done something right. The house has made it eighty years so far.
Asleekotter said : "Is anybody besides me having A Series of Unfortunate Events flashbacks? :)"
Absolutely. The first thing I thought when I saw the pic of the stilted part of the house was "Looks just like my old house in the Santa Cruz mountains." The back end collapsed, detached and fell down the hill in the '89 quake. House split 3 ways, was redtagged, and with FEMA redtape and county redtape, we called the whole thing a loss and it went to foreclosure.
Check back on this one after the next big shaker. Bet it'll be a lot closer to sea level.
Oh, and regarding anonymous' statement about the the builder doing something right -
You can bet that this house wasn't 1040 square feet back in the Jazz Age. More likely it was one of those 400-600 square foot vacation cabins for the citydwellers. Then, just like my house was, they expanded it off it's flat foundation out over the hillside, which was the only way they could go but up.
The front part of my house, built on a flat area, stayed (albeit in bad shape). The post and pole part didn't. We always meant to get around to fixing those post and poles. But when you're young and sort of stupid, you paint the kitchen instead.
This is not related to this POS, but a previous one you reviewed back on 7/28 ( Mildew-Green in Fairfax) I stumbled across the blog of a Marin POS flipper. Check out the fast talking action man: http://ptre.blogspot.com/
Scroll down to find the POS you reviewed on your blog. He states "No traditional bank will touch it... hence, the price. This is where cash talks and experience gets the deal done. The right person can put $150,000 into this beaut and flip it back onto the market in 60 days for $800,000. And that's how we do it downtown."
...Down town? downtown where? Downtown real estate fantasy land?
dana -
Thanks for that flipper's url. Wow! Who ever said Marin doesn't have flippers was a fool.
A perfect picture for a Potemkin culture. Look out below!!
The flippers have moved north! This house around the corner from me sold for $315K 3 months ago in June. http://tinyurl.com/qvjon
The buyers put in about $100k in labor and materials (my estimate) and now are offering it for $675K! I say they won't get it. My neighbor says it will go fast due to the sq. footage. BTW, that is my tree in the middle of the 3 trees in the upper right of pic.
The flippers have moved north!
And that's the funny thing: a lot of people around Seattle and the sound don't think speculation had a hand in driving up prices. Like Marin, they think Seattle "earned" that appreciation, despite the sheer insanity of it all. They're going to be surprised just like folks down here.
What the hell is "bamboo hardwood flooring"? Bamboo is a grass, it may be hard but it sure as hell ain't wood.
How ignorant can a realtor be?
Bamboo is the new lifestyle cliche. It became popular roughly after granite was the "must have" building material.
As it is a grass and not a wood, as you point out, it tends to be more "environmentally friendly" which is hugely politically correct around here.
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