Palo Alto Garage With No Kitchen Wants $2,865/Month
In the latest WTF moment of Bay Area real estate, a tipster let us know about what is essentially someone's slightly refinished, 300-square-foot garage now offered up on Craigslist for $2,865 per month. The place is being described as a cottage, but it's at the end of what is clearly a driveway and was obviously originally built as a garage. There are no interior photos in the Craigslist post, but we dug up the main home's recent sales listing and saw that the cottage includes floor to ceiling glass doors (awkward, since the renter will be sharing a yard with the family that owns the main home), a heater, a newly-built bathroom with a shower, and not much else. 
It's Now a Buyer's Market for Luxury Properties in SF
There have been plenty of questions flying around lately about whether San Francisco's madhouse real estate market is beginning to cool, and now Paragon Real Estate has weighed in with a resounding "yes"—at least in the luxury sector. According to Paragon, lower and mid-priced homes "have continued to remain solidly in 'seller's market territory.'" However, "in the luxury home segment, the dynamic between buyers and sellers has fundamentally shifted." So, first of all, what is the luxury market? In San Francisco, it's single family homes above $2 million and condos above $1.5 million. Right now, there is enough inventory on the market in both of those categories to qualify as a buyer's market. SoMa Loft Masquerading as Trendy Tech Office Asks $1.275M
The Norfolk Street loft that just came on the market is advertising itself as a live/work space, but it feels a bit more like a fancy start-up office with a kitchen and a bedroom tossed in. There are all the hallmarks of an office geared toward the creative class, from the warehouse-style windows to the exposed ducts and vertical wood paneling. A part of the main living space is partitioned off as what looks like a very cool conference room. Even the bedroom upstairs is enclosed behind sliding doors that look like they would be much more at home in an office space than an actual home. 
Market-Rate Housing Fees Could Bring Millions to Oakland
Lake Merritt Boulevard Apartments is just one example of residential projects in the Oakland housing pipeline. Photo via UrbanCore
According to the San Francisco Business Times, the city of Oakland has released details of a plan to impose fees on market-rate housing development that would fund affordable housing, transit, and infrastructure improvement. According to the SFBT, the proposed maximum fees are $55,909 for low- and mid-rise multifamily projects and $71,541 for high-rise developments. Charges for single-family homes would reportedly range from $64,009 to $110,905, depending on location. As the article says, "if the maximum fee was enacted, a 100-unit mid-rise residential project, one of the most common types of projects being proposed in the city, would pay the city roughly $5.5 million."
Plans for 109 New BMR Units in the Mission Move Ahead
Affordable housing is a hot topic in the Mission, and the neighborhood is about to get a bit more of it at a development that will turn a surface parking lot into 109 below-market-rate apartments. Back in September, the nonprofit team of Chinatown Community Development Center and Mission Economic Development Agency were chosen by the city for the site. Now, preliminary plans have been filed to build new housing for low-income families and transition-age youth. Mithun Solomon and Y.A. studio are on board to design the project.
49ers Tackle Joe Staley Sells San Jose Ranch House for $1.89M
49ers offensive tackle Joe Staley has just sold his San Jose house for less than asking. Redfin lists the sale price as $1.89 million, which would make it $85,000 less than the $1.975 million asking price. The football player was recently on the trading block, but now that that deadline has passed, he will remain with the 49ers—just not in this house. The home in question is a 1952 rancher with a modest exterior and a tricked-out backyard that includes a trellis-covered veranda, a pool, and a spa. With amenities like that, we wondered if perhaps the home had fallen into the hands of another professional athlete. The answer is no. The buyer's agent, Fran Papapietro, describes the new owner as a "very accomplished business woman."
A Florida Midcentury House Unlocks the Era—and Its Architect
A vintage photograph of the house. Photo © ESTO courtesy of Sarasota Modern.
Celebrated in its time, Paul Rudolph's Walker Guest House (Sanibel Island, Florida, 1952-53) is a magical modernist box essential for understanding Rudolph and midcentury modernism. When I was researching The Architecture of Paul Rudolph (Yale University Press, 2014), finding this small house amidst the beachside scrub of Sanibel Island, Florida, was a tricky, if pleasurable, treasure hunt. But now you can see it more easily. To make this important early Rudolph work accessible, a replica has been built for display at the Ringling Art Museum in Sarasota this fall.
Most remembered for his controversial, large-scale Brutalist buildings of the 1960s, Rudolph (1918-97) first achieved international acclaim in the late 1940s and early 1950s for a series of widely published, structurally expressive beach houses he designed in Sarasota, Florida, with Ralph Twitchell (1890-1978).
San Jose is Dubbed the Richest City, SF Not Far Behind
A new report says the tech industry has made San Jose the richest city in the U.S.; photo via sanjoseca.gov
Bloomberg is out with its list of the most wealthy cities in America, and San Jose tops the list. San Francisco ranks number three, and Bridgeport, Connecticut snagged second place. No surprise, the business news service says the technology industry is the source of SJ and SF's wealth. To compile the list, Bloomberg analysts looked at gross metropolitan product (a measure of economy activity within a region). San Jose weighs in with a GMP average of $105,000 per resident, which is more than twice the national average. San Francisco has a GMP of $80,643. Bridgeport's GMP was reported as $94,349. The Connecticut city, known for a population of finance professionals, led the list for many years.
Warriors Win Again: SF Planning Commission Approves Arena
Rendering via Manica Architecture/Steelblue
The San Francisco Planning Commission unanimously approved plans for the Golden State Warriors Mission Bay arena yesterday. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that this is the final major approval the team needed from the Planning Commission as they move toward a $1 billion arena on a site south of the Bay Bridge. The measure represents the Warriors' second victory this week, as they also received approval for environmental impact plans for the project. This doesn't mean that it will be completely smooth sailing for the effort. The Mission Bay Alliance, a group of detractors, told Chronicle reporters that they will be appealing the project to the Board of Supervisors. As we reported on Wednesday, the group is also considering an appeal of the environmental report.
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Napa Valley Showcase Features Casual, Stylish Interior Design
Dining room by Julie Rootes Interiors. All photos courtesy of the designers.
Traditional Home's annual Napa Valley Showcase is always a fun event. It tends to be a bit more relaxed than similar design showcases in the Bay Area, probably due to the fact that the participants tap into the Wine Country look of the more rural, more small-town locations. This time, the event happens in not one, but three historic buildings on Randolph Street in downtown Napa (including a bungalow and a Tudor Revival home). The work of more than 20 designers is featured, but today we take you inside rooms by seven Bay Area designers. You can see the whole project through November 15, and there's a big gala event on November 13.
What $6,000/Month Rents You in San Francisco
Welcome to Curbed Comparisons, a column that explores what one can rent for a set dollar amount in various San Francisco neighborhoods. Is one man's studio another man's townhouse? Let's find out! Today's price: $6,000.
↑ This Cole Valley penthouse in a Victorian building has two bedrooms and one bathroom. There's lots of period details here, including moldings, pocket doors, and bay windows. The owners are asking for $5,800/month for the corner unit that has views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Sutro Forest. There's a washer and dryer in a closet off the well-appointed kitchen. A parking space is included in an attached garage, but no mention of a pet policy.
A 180-Square-Foot Palo Alto Shack Is Up For Sale for $1.998M
We've been following the world of the very expensive fixer-upper closely within San Francisco's borders. It turns out that the fixer scene is just as crazy down in Palo Alto, where an 180-square-foot shack is currently on the market asking a whopping $1.998 million. That's a completely astounding $11,100 per square foot, but, of course, the real value of this place is not the shack itself,but the land it sits on. The maximum floor area of a future home on the property is 2,816 square feet, meaning that when design and construction costs are figured in, this is still going to be a very expensive per-square-foot home after it's built. 
Take a Look at the Brand New Public Art at the SF Shipyard
Art has long been a part of the community rising out at the San Francisco Shipyard. When developer Lennar Urban took over the land, part of it was occupied by the Hunters Point Shipyard Artists, the nation's largest artist colony. Lennar committed to building an 89,000 square-foot artists' building on the site and has held open studios and used local artists' work in the development's sales offices. Public art comes into play too, and nine artists were selected from nearly 300 applicants to create site-specific installations for the Shipyard. Six of those are now on display, and we have a first look at them. One Man's Fight to Reclaim a Racist South Carolina Monument
Photos by Whitney Kimball.
In the center of North Augusta, in front of a fountain on the lawn of the town's oldest house, there's an obelisk memorial to a white supremacist who died massacring a black town. The monument is in no way ambiguous about its purpose.
"In memory of THOMAS McKIE MERIWETHER," it reads, "Who on 8th of July 1876, gave his life that the civilization builded by his fathers might be preserved for their children's children unimpaired. In life he exemplified the highest ideal of Anglo-Saxon civilization."
The engraving thanks Meriwether for his "service" as one of the 200 white supremacists who rode into the town of Hamburg in 1876, capturing 25 to 30 people and executing six of them. To make a point about blacks participating in politics, they cut out the County Commissioner's tongue and chopped off his head. On the base of the monument, there's washed-out charcoal graffiti: "HE MURDERED."
Does San Francisco Have Mostly Gender-Biased Street Names?
The gender behind street names isn't something that we take the time to think about very often. But a new interactive map from Mapbox developer Aruna Sankaranarayanan and her colleagues visualizes "male" and "female" streets in several cities around the world, including San Francisco. Among the seven cities studied, only 27.5 percent of streets were named after women (after gender-neutral streets were filtered out). Indian city Bengaluru tops the list with 39 percent. There's no exact figure given for San Francisco, but the streets look pretty blue. SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
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