And you thought RM500,000 for a condominium unit was bad.
Earlier this year, the Huffington Post reported that San Francisco is the most expensive city in America in terms of rental, with the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco priced at $3,410. That’s about $400 more than in New York, which is astounding, considering that the Big Apple holds the title of most expensive city in the world.
Just ask Katherine Patterson, a gainfully employed Silicon Valley software engineer who lives out of a van – a beat-up, rusty 1969 Volkswagen Camper, to be exact – in San Francisco. Her search for housing yielded finds such as $2,000 for a single room with shared bathroom, and $1,000 for a single bunk in an 8-person room. As a tech engineer, she’s actually paid better than most people, but as she puts it, “Even if I was to spend the huge majority of my salary on rent, I knew I would likely still be in a grim living situation, resenting every penny I handed over that could have gone towards paying back my student loans”. Luckily for her, her job includes food and a place to shower and do laundry while at work.
Photo by Katharine Patterson, from Quartz.com
But I digress. Now back to the shack.
This sorry-looking, rundown shack located at De Long Street in San Francisco, California was the most-viewed listing on Realtor.com when it was listed in September, not because of how dilapidated it was, but because it was the cheapest property listed for the San Francisco area.
Photo from Realtor.com
Yes, $350,000 (approximately RM1.5 million) for real estate is considered cheap in America’s most expensive rental city.
The shack was listed by two real estate agents and partners, Brian Tran and Alexander Han from Vanguard Properties, who have made a habit of hunting for dusty gems within San Francisco’s compact 49 square miles. It took them four months to convince the owner to sell the house, and when they held a weekend open house, almost 100 people showed up.
The shack (it can’t be called a house at all, because honestly, it’s like something out of a horror movie, or worse) has a built-up area of 765 sq ft on 1,742 sq ft of land, and has a living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a tiny kitchen. The house comes complete with sagging ceilings, collapsing roof, ‘natural’ skylight, an unspeakably horrible bathroom, decades-old kitchen cabinets, and a lot of rubbish. According to the listing, it was built in 1906.
A screenshot taken from the video walkthrough, showing the collapsing ceiling of the shack. -Realtor.com
The agents have received 6 offers for the property, and it has been sold for well over the asking price – $408,000 to be exact. No plans have been disclosed (so far) about what will be done to the property, but one thing is for sure: whatever the new owner does to the shack, it will definitely be much prettier than its current condition.
Click over to Realtor.com to see the exclusive video walkthrough, or view the actual online listing of the shack.
