The Home Buying Guide
A year or more ago, we started by drafting up a “Home Buying Guide” so that we could be rational and strategic when the time was finally right to start looking. The first major step was discussing neighborhoods we’d both like to live in. We created a shared Google Doc and listed the following neighborhoods to include in our search:
- HaYES Valley (top choice)
- Noe Valley
- Castro
- Bernal Heights
- Potrero Hill
- Duboce Triangle
- SOMA
Next came amenities. I’ve lived in the same apartment for going on five years, and there’s a reason for that. It’s awesome. So awesome that when Dan and I decided to move in together and I suggested that we find neutral territory (though the thought made my heart ache), he said, “No way, obviously we should live at your place.” It wouldn’t make sense to us to buy a place just for the sake of it (you can either rent a place or rent money to “own” a place; same difference, right?), so we’d need some serious improvements over our current situation in order to get excited about the idea of moving. We proceeded to write down everything we could imagine we’d ever want in a dream home.
The basics
- Hardwood floors – medium, multicolor, dark, or black (basically just not light)
- Recessed lighting
- Kitchen open to living space
- Two of everything – sinks in the master bathroom and closets in the master bedroom
- Luxurious stand-in shower in the master bathroom (no tub shower!)
- Walk-in laundry room or other confined space to use as Buster’s den (he uses a dog toilet in the house which is a story for another post)
- Powder room for guests
- Breakfast bar (we find we don’t even really need a dining table)
- Guest space for day bed (need not be enclosed)
- Outdoor space for grill
- “Google” toilet
More fanciful
- 2 car garage (tandem ok) with extra storage
- 42” range and/or double oven
- Office space/area with room for two desks
- Large coat & shoe closet near entry
- Large or walk-in pantry
- Wine and beverage refrigerators
- Glass door on main refrigerator (bling!)
- Extra freezer (in garage?)
- Double height living space? (loft style)
- Built-in bookshelves
- A second dishwasher? (a girl can dream)
We finally decided that it would be a good time to start looking for real when we returned from Argentina in March. Dan had turned 30, we had concluded that we weren’t likely to ditch San Francisco for any other location (permanently) any time soon, our lease would be up in the summer (so it would help to have a good idea of the plan for renewal), and San Francisco was in the midst of its spring real estate boom — a time when buying is most competitive but there’s also the largest inventory to choose from.
Initially, Dan was attracted to places that looked “finished,” but after I showed him the web sites of a few good architects, he started to come around to see the potential in fixers. It’s sort of like buying a new car–you can buy one pre-configured off the lot but you’ll be paying for whichever options the dealer decided to install, whether you wanted them or not. One of the most exciting aspects of home ownership over renting is that the space can be optimized for your use. There are risks in taking on a fixer, but they give you no guilt when you tear out features that would not have been your first choice, and you’re less likely to live with stuff you’re not crazy about. And when you’re done you can arrive at something so much better than what was simply configured to appeal to the broadest market. (Caveat: this is not for everyone. I am in the industry, so I have a good idea of what I am getting myself into and also know how to keep a budget under control.)
Future Home A
We hadn’t looked very long when we found Future Home A. Future Home A was bank owned, had been sitting on the market for over 90 days, and would likely be a good deal. It was probably not much of an investment, but it would be a great home for us because the least attractive elements of the house were things that worked well with our lifestyle.
Pros
- Graceful facade with a lot of potential.
- Park views. I would not have thought I’d be into this since I like buildings, but staring right into the park from the living room was pretty magical.
- Square footprint which lends itself easily and efficiently to open floor plans.
- 2-car garage with extra storage.
- Existing enormous roof deck (woohoo!).
- Could be a mostly cosmetic fixer. Basically livable as is (except the original and very old bathrooms), but we’d want to make it awesome anyway.
- Reasonably high ceilings.
Cons
- Noisy, busy street — but the noise could be addressed through excellent construction, and we don’t mind busy streets all that much.
- Not a super desirable location — but not actually that far from where we currently live, and still walking-ish distance from a few commercial areas. Still, there’s a clear limit to how much the best house in the area on this particular street would go for no matter how much we improved it.
- No backyard — meaning no gardening! The roof deck and two nearby parks would suffice for outdoor space.
- Lack of maintenance during foreclosure — but we could budget for that.
- Potential liquefaction zone — we decided we could deal with this if we got a good deal, but we generally prefer minimizing earthquake risks as much as possible.
Alas, we submitted a lowball bid and got no response for a week, so we decided to pull it while we looked for other opportunities. We didn’t love it enough that we couldn’t handle losing it, and we could always make another offer if it was still available after playing the field a little more.
Privacy note: as you can see, I am intentionally being vague on details, excluding exact locations, and obscuring images a bit for privacy. This way I can share our story as it unfolds without risking divulging too much.
Future Home B
We really loved Future Home B. I know I’m not supposed to, but I started to envision our lives there. By now, we had determined that our search was more generally focused on districts 5, 6, and 9. We really wanted to stay in Hayes Valley but did not have the patience to wait super long until the right thing came on the market in our microhood. Hayes Valley has become pretty expensive, too, and nothing was going to beat our current location within the neighborhood. Dan wasn’t really into Potrero, I wasn’t really into Bernal, and neither of us really wanted to make SOMA our home in the long term (lame street life, HOAs, nervousness about huge supply). For a while, I had thought of Noe Valley as the dream neighborhood, but it’s also expensive and competitive (and windy!), so our experience with Future Home A encouraged us to start to consider neighborhoods around Haight-Ashbury more seriously. They were desirable but affordable and still plenty close to the action.
What really struck me about Future Home B was the elegant facade. For my personal space, I don’t really prioritize facades because, well, I can’t see the facade from the inside where I spend the vast majority of my time. And I don’t really need anyone to be too impressed by my place from the outside. But, once again, we were looking at a place that worked for us and as an awesome bonus had an even better facade than Future Home A, which had a nicer facade than I ever expected in the first place.
Pros
- Simply gorgeous and well-maintained exterior that could be easily modernized to our taste.
- Less than two blocks from a great commercial area that bears similarities to the neighborhood we know and love while still being new to us.
- Wide lot for the typical San Francisco-style rectangular structure.
- Large garage with room for expansion of the living space.
- Nice street.
- High ceilings.
- Spacious but not overwhelmingly large backyard.
Cons
- Would require more initial investment than we wanted, but the numbers really worked and we’d likely make a comfortable profit when it eventually came time to sell.
- Freshly on the market, so bidding would be competitive.
- Sealed bid probate sale. There would be one chance to win the place, but gunning for it too hard could result in leaving money on the table.
One of the most excruciating aspects of attempting to buy a home is that it transforms many otherwise ordinary days into THE DAY THAT COULD DETERMINE THE COURSE OF THE NEXT TEN YEARS. But most of the time, nothing happens. We came close on this one, but there were three bids all in the same price range, and one of them was all cash. That one obviously wasn’t ours. We mourned but pressed on.
Future Home C
Finally, we arrive at Future Home C. We hadn’t really been considering Future Home C seriously because it was out of our price range, but we noticed on Saturday as we planned our open house route that the property which had been on the market for about a year was open for viewing and had just dropped its asking price by more than 15%. Now, for the big reveal!
Pros
- Truly outstanding location — great neighborhood, relatively lively street (good for us), insanely close to restaurants and transit, proximate to other attractive neighborhoods.
- Back side of garage had already been converted to living space, and successfully legalizing it could add square footage.
- High ceilings.
- Great potential upside with low risk of “overbuilding.”
- Tall facade exudes urban vibe.
Cons
- Small garage compared to the others (1 car).
- Neighborhood isn’t as edgy as Hayes Valley.
- Victorian facade — I really liked the art deco-inspired facades of Future Homes A & B, but this was not top selection criteria. You can’t get hung up on the homes you didn’t get, and the boxy Victorian/Edwardian facade was superior in my mind to the storybook-looking Victorian cottages prevalent in the area.
- The price reduction had sent the property into short sale territory meaning a possible 3-6 month wait to close. Fortunately, we are patient (since we do love our apartment!), and this would give us some time to work on the conceptual design before being saddled with a mortgage and rent at the same time.
It took four rounds of counter offers, but one hectic week later we were in contract. We were so used to failing to reach mutual assent that it was truly surreal when it finally happened. Like I said on Facebook, this is far from a done deal because bank approval of the short sale is required. We likely wouldn’t be moving for at least a year because the sale will have to close and then we’ll renovate before moving in full time rather than attempting to live through the chaos. Construction will be much more efficient (and hopefully cost-effective) without us in the way, and we’ll probably have a much happier family for it, too.
So, HOORAY for committing to San Francisco! More details on Future Home C and our plans for it to come.
Filed under: Prospective Project House Tagged: | San Francisco Real Estate
Nice work! I can’t wait to see what you do with a project of your own.