Laverne's Champagne Chair

Obedient as we are, we followed-up on a designer recommendation, took a likin' to Erwin and Estelle Laverne's Champage Chair, and present to you a $2,400 transaction opportunity. A product of 1957 constructed with lucite, aluminum, and liquid leather(!), this chair is currently being offered by Monda Cane in NYC and is not to be confused with DWR's annual champagne chair contest, where designers with ridiculous amounts of talent create chairs from cork, foil, wire, and glue.

Because It's Friday...

Meet #56 on Residential Design and Build's Top 100 New Products list: Motiv's "tissue paper holder and protector", for those too-close-to-the-sink spots. While this particular winner doesn't seem to be available online, Motiv's latest collections are now distributed through Bed Bath and Beyond and at a few dozen other California locations.

If You Have To Show The Copper Stars...

There are hints of rationality in the SF market if you take the time to search for them, and the latest at 1448 Kearny certainly qualifies. Despite the killer Telegraph Hill location, the listing finally, finally expired after attempting to sell an interior-designed studio for about $2,110/SF. (Did they know that the Ritz-Carlton Residences in SF averaged $1,360/SF?)

Nevertheless, it produced a little new parlance around our offices. If a home has so few "grab factors" that you end up shooting copper stars on the beadboard walls, consider talking to the seller about pricing expectations again. We find ourselves referencing Kearny every few days with a sigh and a "We're getting into copper star territory" as we do one Brokers' tour or another.

The Story:

List price: $699,000 (Reductions? Oh, yes. Originally $778,000 or $2,360/SF)

List date: January 2, 2007

SF: Not provided by agent, but tax records show 330 SF

Comments: Sold fully-furnished; height restrictions

Citrino Update

Citrino update: 1BRs starting at $500K; 2BRs starting $689K. All units have deeded parking and HOAs are estimated to hover in the mid-$300s. Drive-bys available at 566 South Van Ness.

Cheap Reads: Prefabulous

It was only a matter of time before this title was used somewhere, anywhere, and here it is for $16.50 on Amazon. Sheri Koones' new book, published by Taunton Press, walks one through seven prefab approaches over the course of seven chapters titled Modular, Panelized, Structural Insulated Panels, Timber Frame, Log Construction, Concrete and Steel. It's nuts and bolts, not historical and experimental, but that probably means we're officially hitting mainstream status with prefab.

From the author, regarding her hopes for the text: "... by describing 7 different types of prefab construction ... that it will shed new light on this wonderful way of building a house. The houses profiled in this book are quite varied in size, style, and method of construction, but all of them were built in part or almost totally in a factory. In today's world I believe we are all concerned about preserving our resources and saving energy - prefab construction is an excellent option towards both of those ends. I have always hoped to be an advocate for the homeowner, providing options to help them make the best possible construction decisions."

Park Fifth Renderings

David Houk released Park Fifth's rendering to the LA Times this month, illustrating exactly how 732 units should fit into two skyscrapers--one of which will be the tallest building west of Chicago (at 76 stories). A sales center will open this Summer, though ground shouldn't be broken before 2008 and construction isn't slated to complete until 2010. (So, expect some amazing new reservation-holding tactics employed in L.A. soon.)

Now taking names: Parkfifth.com.

P.S. Love the logo.

Because It's Friday... The Onion

There's No Such Thing As A Free Seminar On How To Buy Distressed Property For No Money Down

See, We Told You They Are/n't Doing It

The windows thing. It's more contagious than we'd first imagined. In the same week that we brought you Sotheby's electric blue, exploding sky, we also call your attention to a new SFH listing -- 75 Mars Street, San Francisco, featuring nebulous blurred windows (2 votes for real; 2 for fake). The two fake votes were mostly driven by the living room shot, where the shadows in the pano-view shot don't match those of the room. If the blur-views are Photoshop indeed, we absolutely need to get our eyes on the house of ill-repute that must be driving the "modifications."

Citrino

Vanguard intros 32 one- and two-bedroom condominiums at their newest Mission project: Citrino. Homes will start in the $500,000s. Interest list only: http://www.citrinosf.com/

SF Evictions Down (Wait. What About the CRISIS?)

With all the voiced concerns/screaming/squawking/insert your preference from the SF Tenant's Union of late regarding a (perceived?) eviction crisis, we're surprised to read the Rent Board's March 20, 2007 Annual Eviction Report.

In the words of Executive Director Delene Wolf:
"The number of notices filed with the Department this year represents an 8.9% decrease over the prior year’s total filings of 1,621, and is about the same as the prior year’s total of 1,446 filings."

Nuisance causes ranked first again (19.3% of all evictions), followed by lease breaches (18.6%), the ever-castigated Ellis Act (16.7%), and OMIs (14.9%).

Natch, the data begs this question: If nuisances are the most "successful" route to eviction, why aren't Chris Daly and Aaron Peskin doing all they can to make tenants exempt from ever causing them? We feel some legislation coming on whereby tenants may achieve angel status to avoid some eviction tactics. Even in absence of this, it's interesting to note that despite Mirkarimi, Daly, and Peskin's Just Cause, Ellis Act, and other maneurerings, ordinance changes seem to have had zero effect.

Read the Annual Eviction Report

The Exploding Sky's Sister

As it's our day job, we've been slightly fascinated by the speed at which various new trends in real estate advertising are picked up by the general Realtor community before reaching their tipping point on the local MLS. Altering the sky on a listing's best facade shot caught on especially quickly, and some brokerages began using (and still do use) the exact same sky background, down to the cloud, on all of their listings.

You'll draw your own marketing line around what's an acceptable version of reality and what's crossed over into "misleading" territory (OK, so one approach is the equivalent of your mother, a talented photographer in her own right, taking a photo of you in your Sunday best, while the other is a lot like spending 8 hours in Photoshop erasing power lines, subbing the neighbor's cracked shale roof with new terra cotta tiles, and distorting perspective enough to make a 10 x 10 room appear to be twice that size.).

Wherever you stand on this one, we think we've spotted the sky trend's new baby sister: the electric blue nightfall shot--Photoshopped into every room in the house.

Pictured above: Sotheby's listing of a 3BR / 2.5BA SFH in Sunnyside, SF ( I said Sunnyside). Listed at $1,700,000 and recorded at 2,564 SF ($663/SF).

Now Selling: Ritz-Carlton Residences at L.A. Live

Their VIP reservation event complete (Which Warriors bought where?), what remains of the 224 Ritz-Carlton Residences will now be available to the public. $1,100+/SF-ish; the residences begin at floor 27, with the top 3 floors being reserved for 12 penthouses. The project website is a registration page only, but worth bookmarking. Keep up with the entire L.A. Live project at AEG's site.

SB 464 - The Ellis Act Bill

In the middle of flattening home prices, an imploding mortgage market, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' deficit spending (which now includes absolutely every scrap of surplus the City had, including the Rainy Day Fund), the movement of SB 464 continues through the California State Senate. SB 464 adds restrictions to already-restricted Ellis Act law by proposing that no landlord be allowed to exit the "landlord business" until after they have owned a property for at least 5 years.

That's right. No matter what financial, health-impacting, or emotional events befell a property owner during their first 5 years of ownership, if there are tenants on the property, the landlord will be forced to continue to perform all the landlord duties the State demands they perform for at least sixty months. Sure, not all landlords (or teachers, or bus drivers, etc.) are wonderful people. And this law assures that slumlords and evil landlords will have to stay in the business too.

Despite the obvious consequences of SB 464 (like that there's likely to be a mass Ellis Acting of all grandfathered buildings two seconds after the bill's passage and that it might be unconstitutional to force a citizen to work in a certain field for a number of years), tenant support groups are cheerleading the bill as the knife in the heart of evictions. The law would clearly steer developers and contractors away from tenant-occupied buildings, or in the least would increase the off-the-record tenant buyouts used to empty buildings before their sale in rent-controlled cities. SF tenants should be dancing in the streets if this bill stops getting postponed and is actually passed.

Keep up with it here.

Canine Gramercy

On the heels of all the hotel REITs that have picked up the pieces multifamily dropped in your stock portfolio, cue the entrance of another boutique hotel chain: Wag Hotels. Notably, they've adopted the second-trendiest element in the hotel industry: calling suites condos ("Our feline guests stay in our two story Cat Condominium.").

(For the latest human hotel trend equivalent, check out Barry Sternlicht's 1 brand venture.)

The third Wag Hotel in California opens its doors this weekend in San Francisco. They "invite you and your dogs to come and see Wag Hotels new location in San Francisco on May 12th and 13th from 10am to 8pm both days. There will be hors d'oeuvres, music, treats and we are giving away 1 year free stay for the lucky dog, and many more free nights."

Featured Project: The Book Concern Building

New construction in San Francisco can earn the right product $850+/SF. Naturally, developers then want $1,000+/SF, and they usually get there by building up, or building fabulous.

OR, you can build itty-bitty units of an entirely different tact that hit price points not seen since 1998 in San Francisco. You can do what the Book Concern Building did: convince people to live in 270 SF of space just so they can own it. Check out the six remaining units' prices -- especially the 261 SF studio at $1,045/SF. Even if your soft and hard costs put you at $350/SF to build, you're approaching 200% margins (pre-taxes, marketing, sales and other expenses).

At McAllister and 7th, Book Concern calls its location Civic Center, while the SFPD might call it a little more, say, Tenderloin-y. Add to this the building's former career as home to the Church of Scientology and, well, it doesn't seem to have mattered.

Showroom of the Week: Ikea Stockholm

No, really. Ikea Stockholm deserves a little mention for finally doing what everyone has been saying they should do for the past 10 years (make furniture that won't break when you move it, nor drive you to emotional meltdown during its assembly). I swear I saw the "pouffe" (cowhide ottoman at right - $199) at a staged open house, and there was something about it that made me think Ikea, and yet I just couldn't be certain...

Now, despite the compliment we're intending to give above, we do need to say that because Ikea CEO Anders Dahlvig has been so welcomely vocal about building and packaging sustainably, it'd be nice if he could endeavor to make the pouffe's "genuine cowhide" look genuine without also being genuine.

Steven Holl, Please Make Them Build This

We featured an Amsterdam-inspired project in the East Bay this week, which set us on one of those world wide web blackouts where we re-established consciousness three hours later while staring at Steven Holl's concept renderings for his Zuidas Housing site.

The yellow membrane is very very yellow, even in its preliminary design stage -- it's EPDM, the popular roofing material. And the skin is a green glass curtain wall. The design incorporates eighty-nine apartments of six floorplans at a cost of $14M. But just wait til you see its profile. Why doesn't this happen here?

Time to Love Building Two Custom Homes Per Year

The market's still above 13,000, but it's a bad day to be a Big 5 Homebuilder. Yesterday Centex announced that its Q4 2006 profits (free)fell 49% due to a 14% drop in closings (The stock promptly dropped $1.72/share). It seemed unnecessary to also call out an extreme rise in cancelled contracts across the Ryland/Centex/Lennar/Pulte/KB board (and Champion too, if you please), despite price decreases and increased buyer incentives.

Closer to home Pulte has pulled out of their plan to build 500 condos in SOMA at the San Francisco Tennis Club site, after many months of hand-to-hand with a well-organized and well-represented area group.