The lot is 4,360 sqfr. 2 bedrooms, 1 bath.
Zillow calls it a “charming bungalow”
Map, 128 Middlefield Rd, Palo Alto CA
Ridiculous
The part I find curious is this
Why on Earth would somebody dig a basement, but then only build a 10 X 14 room there?
$2886 per square foot??? Holy crap on a cracker!
“Holy crap on a cracker, Batman!”
The lot is 4360 square feet. Someone may be buying this house for the real estate with plans to tear it down and build a bigger house: full basement, first and second floors?
Location, location, location!
It’s in Palo Alto, high end finishes and is fully renovated and ready to move into!
Isn’t this exactly how the much adored free market is supposed to work? Things are worth what someone’s willing to pay for them, right? In this location I’d wager someone is willing to pay this much.
Not me or you, of course, but someone!
Check the comparables. Plenty of small bungalows in Palo Alto that sold for over $2 million. Some even smaller than the OP.
To me, nothing is more indicative of the sorry state of the human condition than how humans view “worth”. It really struck home many years ago when, on the news, it mentioned that a Japanese corporation spent $40 million on a portrait of a pot of flowers (Rembrandt) so they could display it as a symbol of their prestige. I remember thinking about what that $40 million could do in terms of parks and programs for children, etc, and how it could benefit the image of any corporation actively supporting such worthy endeavors. But, nope, they wanted a picture of a pot of flowers instead.
On the news two nights ago, it showed a house “two doors away from the Obama’s” that is now on sale for an exorbitant price just because it is “two doors away from the obama’s”. Mind you, the two girls are grown up and will be living somewhere on their own and, when the Obama’s are in town, they will be whisked in and out of their home by the secret service and literally never be seen. Still, someone will pony up all that money anyway.
Yep. Bay Area real estate is hot than a Texas BBQ right now, and Palo Alto is ground zero on the peninsula (i.e., south of SF).
It would seem that most everyone in the world wants to live here.
Regarding the basement… it might have been just a crawl space originally or just big enough for utilities. From the picture, this is an older home and that wasn’t uncommon.
Yikes!
That’s only a tenth of an acre. You’d almost have to build a new place with a second story to get the size people want these days.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t basements uncommon in California?
The house doesn’t cost that much. Most of the cost is for the land.
The normal way to deal with high land value (build more homes on top of it) is basically illegal in that area, so you get weird things like this.
In this case the house is probably more of a liability. Unless it’s is deemed “historic”, the new owners will likely tear it down and build new. Tearing it down costs money. They might be able to redeem that by renting it out while the plans are drawn up and approved. That process can easily take a year. But property taxes will be upwards of $20K/year and with the $10K limit on SALT, most of that is not tax deductible.
There could be an ongoing thread: Ridiculous! ____ for a home in ___ California.
Or New York City. Or London.*
*just read a story about a couple that paid the equivalent of $1.14 million for a tiny apartment in central London, then spent $600K to make it livable.
Tearing down a 900 sq.ft. home might cost a few thousand dollars, max. And if a year’s property taxes are ~25K, that’s 1% of the purchase price. We’re still down in the white noise.
I expect the main concern for the buyer - other than the price tag for the land, of course - will be any applicable height limits and set-back requirements that restrict how much house can be put on this 1/10 acre lot.
asterion - basements may be uncommon in CA (I know that used to be true, but my familarity with CA is dated), but if you’re spending $2.5M for a lot the size of a soda cracker, you’re gonna do everything you can to maximize the amount of usable space inside the house.
How about $650,000 for roughly 100 sq ft? Did I mention that it is a parking spot?
Kind of a bargain, actually. Middlefield Road is busy enough to not be a prime location.
1200 sq. ft. houses near me are going for over a million, and we are far from as desirable as Palo Alto.
If they buyer is just starting out at Facebook or something they may keep the house, depending on its condition. Our first house was about 1,000 sq. feet, and it was fine for us. The issue might be the time needed to get a builder to do a new one. As John said, things are hot.
I used to drive by that place every week going from the old Sun campus in Menlo Park to Stanford. I doubt it is historic. It is also close to Willow, the way to 101, and has lots of traffic. It is one of the place where I would hate to try to get out of my driveway every morning.
Not walking distance to the middle of Palo Alto either. But pretty convenient for Facebook which took the Sun campus over.
The reason for these absurd prices is lack of inventory. In January there were about a dozen homes on the market in my town of 100,000 people. I know many blame restrictions on new housing, but there isn’t a lot of open land in Silicon Valley. 4 or 5 massive condo developments went up in Santa Clara / San Jose near Cisco and Oracle just as I was retiring, and the traffic was getting even worse, but that’s just a drop in the bucket.
I could sownsize, but beside from having to deal with moving I’d get slammed by taxes, since my appreciation is well ove the federal limit. Some of my neighbors who have been around longer than me would have it even worse.
I know about 1/2 the people in the Bay Area say they would leave, but that is the half who don’t own houses, and more people come in than leave anyway.
Anyhow, the weather is still great.
Actually, in CA it’s “location, location, WTF!”
Regards,
Shodan