San Francisco’s most and least expensive homes this week

Friday is time for the High & the Low, a Curbed column chronicling the most and least expensive homes sold in San Francisco in the last seven days. What surprises did the week hold?

How much of a house can the owner add or replace before it’s no longer the same house? The example of San Francisco’s most expensive home this week poses such an existential question.

3984 20th Street, a four-bed, three-and-a-half bath house in Dolores Heights, was “completely rebuilt,” according to the ad. Since selling for just under $2 million in 2013, it received a new second story with two additional bedrooms and baths, a new foundation, a full remodel of the kitchen and existing baths, and a garage conversion.

The owners even replaced more than 40 light switches throughout the home, which dates back to the beginning of the 20th century (precise date indeterminate, as it almost always is).

Whether or not this onetime Victorian classic is still the same home it once was, buyers favored the Six Million Dollar Man treatment with a nearly $5 million sale. As noted earlier in the week, that beat the asking price by $350,000.

The week’s number two big seller, a four-bed, four-and-a-half-bath house at 760 Dolores Street, rests just down the block from the 20th Street house. This too was also another big remodel, albeit one that in this case promised to stick closer to the original 1900 unit’s “sense of timelessness.”

The big payout here as $4.2 million, beating out the $3.8 million asking price set in early January. This home’s last sale was in 1999 for $1.2 million.

The week’s least expensive home had a bit in common with the top sellers, being a classic Victorian in its own right—a pretty Bayview number on Palou Avenue, once again of indeterminate late 19th/early 20th century build.

Like the 20th Street home, this one may be in need of rebuilding, as a great many liens have been placed on it in the last two years, and the ad specifies that it’s sold “as-is” without buyers being able to see it in person.

Whereas the low end of High/Low is normally a cause for celebration as one local buyer ekes out a deal, 1182 Palou Avenue’s $491,000 sale price comes by way of a sad note: bank auction after foreclosure.

Presumably better circumstances surround the second place low ball sale of the week, that of a Potrero Hill condo on 23rd Street that hit almost $50,000 over asking for $545,000 in all for the one bedroom place with the Spanish tile bathroom and the salmon-colored exterior:

• Eureka Valley Home Sells For $350K More [Curbed SF]
• 3984 20th Permits [BuildZoom]
• 760 Dolores [Ackerman Realty]
• 1182 Palou Avenue [Xome]
• 2225 23rd Street [Redfin]