You only need to have clicked on Curbed once or twice this year to have seen that even basic forms of shelter cost a million dollars in 2015 San Francisco, and that unless you are already rich and expect to continue to be rich, not just on paper, in the coming decade, you will never own a home here larger than a shoebox, if that.
But SFGate just ran down some of the cheapest single-family home sales of the last year, and given that even shacks with decent views like this one sell for over $1 million, you can imagine how shitty the shitshacks are that sold for under $400,000. I'll give you a hint: They're all in the Excelsior, Visitacion Valley, or Bayview. And like Apartment Sadness, you can just treat this like the opposite of real estate porn, and laugh.
The shack above is on Shafter Avenue in the Bayview, and just to give you some perspective on the insanity: It sold for $320,000 11 months ago, apparently resold for $399,000 in May, and Zillow already estimates its current value at $458,000, a 43-percent appreciation in 11 months with presumably no significant improvements made.
This hovel below is a couple blocks away at 1660 Shafter, and it sold for $350,000, also back in January.
Here's another, and apparently we have to reach all the way back to January 2015 to find these prices. This teardown is at the corner of Wilde Avenue and Brussels in Visitacion Valley, and sold for $380,000 on January 30. It's current Zestimate: $487,000.
Photo: MLS
One more: This single-family home on Russia Avenue in the Excelsior with two bedrooms and two and a half baths sold in April for $380,000. Apart from the bars on the windows and the rotted front stairs, it looks almost passable. Its current Zestimate: $626,000.
Photo: MLS