This house is listed as 1,805 square feet on the tax rolls, but that has to include the upstairs loft.

Will buyers pay full value on the attic room?

12 Comments

  1. Susie

    The furnace on its side–now I haven’t seen that before, JtR! I wonder if this house was built by an owner-builder. There was some wacky stuff in that 1,800+ sf…

  2. Jinx

    I’m so glad you did a video on this one. I can cross it off my list!

  3. enplaned

    So, JtR — if they’d asked you to put a list price on it, what would you have advised? 499k?

  4. tj & the bear

    Funky. Of course, you & Tom Tarrant have me thinking creatively now, so now I just think about how you could blow out some things here and fashion some new things there… 😉

  5. Jim the Realtor

    yes, $499,000 sounds right to me, but they probably priced it based on this FHA sale in November for $575,000:

    http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-100054216-1740_Sorrel_Ct_Carlsbad_CA_92011

    And didn’t catch this $515,000 sale in January:

    http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-100066118-7027_Columbine_Dr_Carlsbad_CA_92011

    Buyers gravitate to the lower, more recent sales.

    I don’t want to bag on the agent though, the banks make the decisions.

    Did you see the has-been from Million-Dollar Listing in the news yesterday, saying Jennifer Aniston’s $42 million price was way too high?

    I don’t care what you think about her, the house, or the price, you don’t do that to another agent out in public.

    Hopefully in our little corner of the world it’s OK to discuss valuations – this is an educational blog.

  6. Former RB Resident

    Isn’t CA one of the few jurisdictions where they are required to disclose SF? We don’t hav ethat here, and its always a bit of guessing games as to what they are counting and what they aren’t counting. The biggest rule we have is the definition of “bedroom” for MLS purpose which actually varies slightly by county.

  7. MarkB

    Excellent video!

    I have in my basement lots of low pipes that I have meticulously covered with padding and memorized their location. I still whack my head on one of them once a month or so. I can not ever have a house with an overhang like that in front of the front door. I would be in the hospital in a very short time.

    I have never seen a furnace laid on it side like that. That is Crazy carpentry 101.

    That place needs a full remodel, probably sacrificing a bedroom to the master.

  8. ewhac

    There are, in fact, furnaces that can be installed either upright or on their side (or rather, on a particular side). Furnaces that support this describe how to do so in their installation instructions.

  9. MarkB

    Ewac, you are correct.

    I should google before I call crazy carpentry. My Kneejerk reaction came with imagining the burner shooting it’s flames out sideways but of course the unit is designed so the burner is easily turned vertically before installation. Here’s a whirlpool furnace that installs sideways for places (like the house in the video) where space is limited.

    http://www.whirlpoolcomfort.com/Upload/46889B003.pdf

  10. just some guy

    It is pretty obvious from the photos on SDLookup that this is not a good property because two of the photos are of the street facing away from the house!

    Considering the age and funkiness of this house, it is pretty much a tear down. Would someone dare incur the wrath of the Aviar-ans by installing a modular home? Good size lot, though.

  11. Mark

    In fact, lots of houses these days have the furnace in the attic, where there’s not room to stand it upright. I actually thought that was pretty standard for modern houses.

  12. Geotpf

    Am I the only person who doesn’t mind a slightly funky house? I kind of like this one, frankly. But I suspect one’s ability to tolerate funkyness decreases as the price increases. For a $150-200k Riverside (or Vista for Jim’s neck of the woods) tract house, that would be fine, IMHO. But for $500k, you expect a little more, although the difference is all in the land value, of course.

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