Is it a map of Ellis Act Evictions in San Francisco, or a Rorschach eviction-blot test to see where you are on the San Francisco political spectrum?  The map below shows the location of Ellis Act evictions in San Francisco over the past approximately 15 years. While I have some issues with the map (ie, the map points of interest are rather larger), I find the reaction people have to the map to be even more interesting.

Map of Ellis Act Evictions in San Francisco

Some individuals and institutions (I’m looking at you, SFBG) feel that it is proof of how wealthy “speculators” have occupied San Francisco, forcing out every person of modest means in their never-ending-quest to enrich their pockets at the expense of others.

Others look at it and see evidence of a city failing to meet the housing demands of its residents – both current and future.

Others look at the map and wonder what the big deal is all about, anyway?

What do you see?

As for me, I get really frustrated every time I see an article that posits home-owners and home-renters are mutually exclusive groups with no common ground. I get even more frustrated when the situation is seen in terms of a “zero-sum” game, in which every “win” comes at the expense of the other side.

What I see when I look at the map is an incredible failure of the leaders and planners of San Francisco to meet the housing demands over decades and decades. San Francisco isn’t the largest city in the world, and it will never have the space to sprawl like a Las Vegas. But that doesn’t have to mean a victory for home-owners must come at the expense of renters, or vice versa.

It’s easy to play the politics of divide and conquer, lining up the usual suspects for “property rights” against the usual suspects f0r “tenant rights.” Why do otherwise smart and savvy San Franciscans continue to fall for this? Why aren’t we capable of electing leaders and choosing planners that realize for our city to continue to flourish we will need to find ways to accommodate citizens of every socio-economic background and income range?

We can do better, and I think it starts with putting our typical polarizing arguments to the side and working from areas of common agreement. What do you think?

A big part of our job as San Francisco Realtors is keeping up with the market. Every Tuesday, agents in San Francisco have the opportunity to showcase their listings for other agents, and preview other agent’s listings. The tour starts at 9am in the north-east corner of the city, and works its way through the city in a roughly counter-clockwise motion, ending at 4:00pm in District 9 (Bernal Heights to  South Beach) and District 10 (Excelsior, etc.).

We faithfully use both Tuesdays and Wednesdays (our office meeting and tour day) to preview new listings, showcase our own listings, and more generally keep up with the market.

We made a video showing a recent Tuesday tour for us (link to the youtube page of the video embedded above), starting with Matt previewing homes in the 9am block and ending 37 properties later in the Mission at about 3:30pm. There really is no such thing – for us, at least – as a typical Tuesday Tour. Depending on how many listings we currently have, how many buyer clients we are working with, and what is on tour when, we sometimes divide and conquer, tour time-blocks separately, or otherwise put the power of two to work for our clients.

Here is the Tuesday Tour schedule (as of the writing of this post):

9:00 am – 10:30am: District 8

10:00am – 11:30am: District 7

11:00am – 12:30pm: District 1, District 6

12:00pm – 1:30pm: District 5

1:00 – 2:30pm: District 2, District 3, District 4

2:00 – 3:30pm: District 9, District 10

We hope you enjoy the video we made of our May 21, 2013 Tuesday broker’s tour in San Francisco. We hope that you find it to be an enjoyable little movie, and that it also gives you a better idea of how we stay on top of the market for our clients. We’d love to hear your questions about Tuesday Tour or, well, pretty much anything. Feel free to leave a comment below, or give us a call or email anytime.

Last fall we previewed an adorably small single family home for sale at 141 Ames in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. As you can see from the picture below, the fence has a lot to say!

A Very Talkative Fence in Noe Valley

Would you live on a block or next to a neighbor that has such a busy fence? On the one hand, I really like it and respect their creativity (particularly since artistic creativity is not my speciality, although I’m working on it).  On the other hand, it just seems really busy and if they have this much to say on their fence, how much do they have to say in person?

The fence in question is on a lightly trafficked alley, I honestly don’t know what the SF rules and regulations are about exterior decorations, particularly when it comes to fences. Given that the city wanted to fine a Russian Hill homeowner for installing a tasteful-by-comparison cartouche $250/day, I’m pretty sure that if someone wanted to make a stink about this fence that they certainly could. Not that we’re encouraging that. We like San Francisco quirky, and if the current Noe Valley neighbors don’t have an issue with it, then we certainly aren’t trying to stir things up.

But how about it? Would seeing this fence when you were out on a home tour make you more likely or less likely to be interested in the home for sale? Or, would you be indifferent to the fence and be much more concerned with the home you are looking at? I have to say that if I’m being really honest, it would give me a bit of pause. I wouldn’t let it be a deal-breaker, but I’d definitely want to meet the neighbor to make sure that they are crazy-cool, not crazy-crazy!

]]> http://www.jacksonfuller.com/2013/05/20/how-would-you-feel-about-this-neighbor/feed/ 0 http://www.jacksonfuller.com/2013/05/20/how-would-you-feel-about-this-neighbor/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jacksonfuller/omsn/~3/C4Ptb2WZbtY/ http://www.jacksonfuller.com/2013/05/17/2013-decorator-showcase-at-2800-pacific-ave/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 18:50:41 +0000 Matt Fuller, GRI http://www.jacksonfuller.com/?p=7099 Yesterday evening Zephyr hosted a private party at the San Francisco Decorator’s Showcase 2013 home. The home is in Pacific Heights at 2800 Pacific Ave. You can see us in the photo below at the entrance on Pacific Avenue. The home is on a corner lot at Pacific Ave. & Divisadero. Curious about what to [...]]]>

Yesterday evening Zephyr hosted a private party at the San Francisco Decorator’s Showcase 2013 home. The home is in Pacific Heights at 2800 Pacific Ave. You can see us in the photo below at the entrance on Pacific Avenue. The home is on a corner lot at Pacific Ave. & Divisadero.

Curious about what to wear to a designer showcase? The popular answer last night was “black!”

Here we are, ready to decorate!

Important Disclaimer: 2800 Pacific Ave. is currently for sale. We are not the listing agents for the property, it is listed by Patricia Lawton with Alain Pinel. Any mention of the house is incidental to our experience of this year’s decorator showcase. If you are interested in the home and don’t have an agent, we are certainly happy to chat with you.

The view towards the bay from 2800 Pacific Ave.

If you aren’t familiar with the designer showcase, it is a fundraiser for tuition support at University High. They divvy up the house – each decorator gets a room, and every decorator then goes wild. Depending on your perspective, the results are either cacophonous or inspiring.

My favorite rooms were the bathrooms on the second floor. The master bathroom has an awesome living wall that is behind the bathtub and an absolutely gorgeous shower. The elysium guest bathroom off of the “teenager’s bedroom” was also a personal favorite. Bonus points go to the designer – Alfredo Gregory – for once being a Zephyr agent! The tiles were custom-made, as was the water closet. It’s a very sweet bathroom!

Honorable mention goes to the 1/2 bath on the main floor. I liked the materials and give it bonus points for removing the bathroom door! (although in fairness to this 1/2 bath, many of the doors in the home have been removed for the showcase. It just helps with traffic flow. A lot.)

I also loved the “spa” concept on the top floor, as you can see from the above picture the home has a pretty amazing view from the top floor rooms and roof deck.

The decorator showcase is open through May 27 of this month. If you haven’t attended and are looking for some design inspiration, we highly recommend it!

While I was doing some research about how many sales in San Francisco have been cash this year, I ended up on a tangent, which led to the graph below. As you can see, there have been more sales of condos year-to-date than there have been sales of single family homes in San Francisco.

Sales of San Francisco Homes by Property Type – 2013 Year to Date

The chart above is based on data reported to the San Francisco Multiple Listing Service, with the property closing escrow on or after January 1, 2013.

So far this year there have been:

• 859 sales of condominium homes
• 796 sales of single family homes
• 128 sales of tenancy-in-common shares
• 72 sales of lofts (which are technically condos, for those of you keeping score at home)
• 26 sales of stock cooperatives (coops)

I have to say that the graph doesn’t really surprise me. While condos are often considered the red-headed stepchild of real estate in other parts of the country, many buyers in San Francisco prefer to purchase a condo over a single family. Usually, it is for one of two reasons: security or convenience.

Security:
We work with plenty of single buyers who travel a fair amount, and don’t want to have to continually be worried about coming home late at night after a trip only to be worried about the safety of their home. For any buyer with concerns about security, a condo building with attended front-desk and/or security staff on duty is often strongly preferred over a single family house.

Convenience:
Some buyers also prefer the convenience of having a homeowner’s association to worry about all the “un-sexy” parts of home ownership, like maintenance, replacement planning, long-range budgeting, and all of the other tasks traditionally associated with ownership of a single family home. They’d much prefer to spend their free time enjoying their neighborhood instead of cleaning gutters or washing windows.

Are you surprised that condos are as popular as they are in San Francisco? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

SF Planning has been hard at work on an updated plan for Castro Street between Market and 19th St.

Castro Street Design. Source: SF Planning Dept.

If you aren’t familiar with the proces so far, last fall the development of a draft conceptual design informed by community input and staff analysis started. In January and February of this year there were public workshops to get feedback from community members, neighbors, and local merchants on the draft design.

Based on that community input, SF planning went back to the drafting boards, and is ready to present their final conceptual design for the street.

Coming up on this Thursday, May 14 from 7:00 – 9:00pm the SF planning department will host a public open house at the Market and Noe center (2278 Market St. between Noe and Sanchez) to get feedback on the final conceptual design for Castro Street.

While I’m looking forward to the details of this proposal, the draft concept (6MB, pdf file) is big on increasing pedestrian flow and traffic calming. While a variety of solutions are proposed, the net result seems to be wider sidewalks for better pedestrian circulation, sidewalk bulb-outs at 18th and Castro, and the potential addition of several “mini-parks” that highlight various neighborhood locations of historic note.

Generally speaking, I’m all in for the proposed changes. The Castro neighborhood is an incredibly popular pedestrian destination, particularly with tourists, and I fully support almost any proposal that will make The Castro a more walkable location, particularly at the very busy intersections of Market and Castro and Castro and 18th Streets.

How would you like to see the Castro neighborhood change? What are your traffic calming ideas? How would you highlight neighborhood locations of historic note? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to show up at the community open house this Thursday!

The story coming out of Cleveland, OH is a horrific miracle. At this point, things are still early, and I’m sure that the investigations underway will eventually provide us with a much better explanation for how three women were held against their will in an American city for over a decade. While the world is busy looking for explanations, I wanted to take this moment to reflect on what it means to be a neighbor.

2207 Seymour Ave. home owned by Ariel Castro

The home in the above picture belongs to the main suspect in the kidnappings of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Georgina “Gina” DeJesus. It is located at 2207 Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. According to public records, it is owned by Ariel Castro and has four bedrooms in about 1,436 square feet of living space. This isn’t a story about homes, but the people that live in them – Neighbors.

What does it mean to be a Good Neighbor in 2013?

Michelle, Amanda, and Gina all owe their freedom today not only to the actions of Amanda, but also to the 911 call from a neighbor – Charles Ramsey. Charles, according to the news reports I’ve seen, was a relative newcomer to the neighborhood, having lived their only for about the past year.

Seymour Ave. in Cleveland, OH

How could three individuals be held against their will for over a decade in a densely populated neighborhood in a good-sized American city in the heart of the “traditional family values” region of America?
Cleveland is America’s 45th largest city, and the 2nd largest city in Ohio, with just shy of 400,000 people per the 2010 census. This did not happen on a rural farm miles away from strangers. This did not happen in a suburban neighborhood where cars ferry people from garage to job or school in a hermetically sealed hybrid car. This happened less than a mile from the intersection of two freeways that carry thousands of people through Cleveland every day.

What was different about Charles Ramsey that made him call when others didn’t?
He gives a pretty good interview, I’ll give you that. But that doesn’t really tell me much about who he is, and what makes him tick.

How did the cops visit on numerous occasions and not notice anything peculiar?
It would be easy to “blame the professionals” as it appears that police were called to the home on multiple occasions over the years, yet never went inside. Was it a lack of curiosity? A casual indifference to the poverty and dysfunction that police are dropped in the middle of on a regular basis? Or did Ariel know how to keep himself and his house out of policy scrutiny?

Is Tremont Special?
The victims lived and were held against their will in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, OH. Here’s a condensed description of the neighborhood based on its Wikipedia entry:

Tremont is a neighborhood in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Tremont is one of the oldest parts of Cleveland, and is home to many restaurants and art galleries. The district sits just west of the Cuyahoga River and south of the Ohio City neighborhood. Tremont is home to numerous historic churches including Pilgrim Congregational UCC (founded in 1859),  St. Augustine (1893), St. John Cantius (1898), and St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral (1912).

Tremont, was originally part of Brooklyn Township and from 1836 until 1854 was a section of what is now its sister neighborhood, Ohio City. During the early 1850s, the now defunct Cleveland University briefly occupied a section of Tremont. Vestiges of the neighborhood’s days as a college town remain, however, in streets with scholarly names, such as Professor, Literary, College and University.

• The early 20th century saw an influx of Ukrainian immigrants who sought work in the steel mills in the area, and by the 1920s Tremont was home to over 35,000 residents.
• By the 1960s, however, the population had begun to steadily decline. With the loss of manufacturing jobs particularly in Cleveland’s steel industry, culminating in the recession of the early 1980s, Tremont’s population dwindled.
• By the 2000 census there were fewer than 9,000 residents.
• Since the early 2000s, Tremont has reinvented itself and is experiencing a revival.
• Tremont has become a destination spot with numerous restaurants, shops, and art galleries.

Depending on your level of political correctness, and where you sit in the spectrum of American optimism, you may think of Tremont as poor, as gentrifying, or as “urban” (which seems to be code for “non-white”).

I don’t seem to be the only person with these questions. TPM has a great article and so does NPR.

What Are Our Neighborly Obligations? Do we have any?

As a general rule, I do my best to mind my business with the assumption that others are also minding their own business. I’m not calling for us all to be nosy neighbors, ready and eager to account for the whereabouts of all our neighbors for the past 72 hours. But surely there must be a middle-ground between not-asking-questions and being the nosy neighbor that everyone dreads. What do you believe our neighborly obligations are?

Last Saturday morning I found myself in The Presidio. Not in a kidnapped and wake-up-in-a-strange-place-kind-of-way but more along the lines of the pretty domestic and boring. As in: I need some clean clothes tonight so I’m picking up my clean clothes from the most awesome dry cleaner in all of San Francisco.

While I was looking for the dry cleaners (nothing is quite as much fun as navigating construction detours in The Presidio), I happened upon this awesome shot of the fog melting away beneath the Golden Gate bridge.

The fog sneaks out underneath the Golden Gate bridge (click to enlarge)

If you’ve ever wondered why people will pay millions of dollars for a home in Pacific Heights, the above photo will hopefully answer the question for you. And if it doesn’t, I’ll offer you a hint: The homes in Pacific Heights that have Golden Gate Bridge views have everything awesome in this photo, and none of the construction fencing or other heavy equipment.

San Francisco is an incredibly gorgeous city to live, work, and play in. When talking about how expensive it is to live in San Francisco, I often find myself joking about the “culture tax.” I define it as the premium we pay to live and work in San Francisco, one of the world’s most awesome cities. It’s awesome because 1) it is filled with sharp and interesting people and 2) it is one of the world’s most beautiful cities and 3) because I said so! Although I guess I could also rename it to the “beauty tax” given what a gorgeous city San Francisco is to live in.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the picture of the fog slowly creeping back to the Pacific Ocean underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. I also hope you enjoyed your Saturday, mine was excellent!

Quartz is my latest obsession for news.

They’ve got an article today that highlights the ugly buildings coming out of the building boom in China. Which reminded me of all the complaints I’ve heard over the past few months that architecture in San Francisco is incredibly bland.

2299 Market St. – Icon SF (we aren’t the listing agents, it is a Gregg/Gorski – Paragon RE listing) is one example that comes to mind, with plenty of individuals panning a pretty bland building in the heart of one of San Francisco’s most treasured neighborhoods. Last week, there was a look at whether or not Mission Bay is ugly?

So here’s the question, which is preferable: Bland and Boring (San Francisco) or Over the Top (China)?

Take, for example the proposed rendering of 2299 Market St. If I’ve heard one recurring theme about the building, it is bland or uninspired. Which isn’t to knock the building – it is what it is, and if the aesthetic is modest, well then, that’s just the way it is:

If we take a look at some of the construction in China, by contract, we get buildings like:

Under construction in China. Credit: HugChina/Weibo via Quartz.

So the question is: Which is worse – bland architecture that might not look like much of anything, or bold architecture that might look like something, um, else?

San Francisco is a progressive town in many ways, but it has never been (in my experience) particularly progressive when it comes to architecture. I don’t know if it is the cost of development, our lengthy approval process, or some other factor (feel free to chime in down below), but buildings in San Francisco, even though they might be filled with some of the most interesting people in the world, are rarely that interesting to look at.

The one recent exception, IMHO, would be The Millennium Tower. What are your thoughts?

Who owns the land at 29th and Valley in Noe Valley? This was a question that I found myself asking on a recent broker’s tour…

The city owned land at 29th and Diamond St.

It turns out that the land is owned by the city, and the property is APN 7536-018. While it doesn’t have an official name, you can just think of it as the 29th and Diamond Open Space.

The lot is fairly large, and is also fairly steep… from looking at city records, it appears the grade on the site exceeds 20%, which probably explains why the city still owns this land in Noe Valley and it hasn’t been snapped up by a developer.

What are your thoughts about this patch of green at 29th and Diamond? Should the city keep it as is, consider selling it, or otherwise improve the property to be of more benefit to the neighborhood?

We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.