I was on my way back from taking care of the wall in my next post, and saw this house sitting up in the air. Everyone was gawking! It sure didn’t take long to “jack it up” like that. I think they may have a view of Green Lake now. Pretty cool.
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I took a photo of the company who jacked it up, in case anyone was interested in this type of service.
Uh-oh, Ardell. I live in a Greenlake house that I’m hoping to have prepped and on the market in 3-4 weeks for around $600k. Although my guess is you’ll be STI by then, you may have just given a heads up on an easy upgrade to a retaining-wall-possessing competitor. Let’s hope we don’t come to fisticuffs over it – especially since I’ll consider hiring you if my FSBO doesn’t work out or I don’t bother trying it. I’m looking forward to more info on the house as I think you can price the neighborhood better than most listings I see here.
Ben,
I have plenty of primer and paint left. I’m heading to L.A. tomorrow for a week. Take a ride past 2342 N. 60th St. If you like the paint color, email me and I’ll bring it over after I return on Sunday 2/25. I bought three gallons of the paint, and didn’t even use one because of the great primer product. The paint is Valspar in “English Tea Party”. I left the unfinished can in the basement of this house for new owner touch up. But have two full unopened cans.
This is a 36 foot frontage lot (builders in that East of Green Lake section want 40′ frontage, BTW). Kim and I worked together on it, so 2 1/2 hours for two people. This house has a remodeled kitchen with maple cabinets and granite tile counters, and french doors off the kitchen to a large newer deck and fenced yard.
I’m going to try to make one of those “fake bed” setups with an air mattress on crates and bedding. I already staged the first floor and painted two large canvasses to tie in the fireplace and living room space with the kitchen and dining.
If you drive over, look across the street. They smoothed out the wall finish, before painting. I like ours, because it seems to fit the house style better. Looking at the picture, I really would like to put shutters on a couple of those side windows to match the one front left. PNW doesn’t use shutters enough…not sure why. Being from Philly, we wouldn’t dream of not having shutters to dress up that side view. I think that’s the difference between “colonial/cape cod” and “Craftsman”.
What do you think about shutters on the top side and front and back side windows? Of course I don’t own the house, so I’m already “touching the real estate” of this one too much, but it just looks so bare to me. Plus, at a 2% listing I’ve already got a lot of “out of pocket” on this one, including taking those front bushes down from 13 feet or so. They were blocking the whole front of the house. They were up past the roof line last week and blocking the front door and rail view and breaking up the curb appeal too much. So I had them topped way down to about 3-4 feet.
Email me your address. I’ll treat it as a “pocket listing” and collect a list of potential buyers from the sign calls who don’t want this one, or who call after this one goes STI. I do find that owners tend to do the “wrong” things if they don’t consult me in advance of making improvements. Be happy to give you my $.02 on what to do and what not to do. Maybe we can get them both sold at the same time. I’m sure I’ll have a few callers who don’t want to spend more than $600,000. Even if they don’t have an agent and take the 3% off the $630,000 on this one, making it $610,000 or so, having another option for people when this is gone would be a plus.
I’m wondering if Karin’s flip over on 65th ever sold at $650,000? She’s had a b-tch of a time selling that one. Just too busy of a corner for a flip project with no yard or parking. They started that one at $750,000 or more. Take a peek at it if it is still available. Was last I looked. It’s at the corner of 65th and Sunnyside.
Green Lake in the 6s has been a whole lot easier than Green Lake in the 7s. Over $800,000 and under $700,000 seems to work a lot better than the $700,000 to $800,000 price range, for some reason. Like the missing link of pricing over there. Go $599,950 on yours. Breaks the “double hit – straight up” rule…but works in Green Lake better. i.e. the one that sold on Chapin Pl. Never even got a thank you for that one, even though we sold it for free. Oh well..it’s good kharma.
I have to start packing for my trip. Will be bringing my laptop, so hope to stay in touch during my visit with my daughters.
I took a walk on 59th St yesterday. The problem with the shutters is that you can’t put them on the other front windows because of obstacles. It seems like a toss-up to me, which means don’t bother unless you’re really bored. Consider putting a narrow bush or two on the side and another on the front by the corner with the bare deciduous bush and maybe toss that one out. (Bear in mind, my house is currently an overgrown mess.) Also, try to de-emphasize the dormer in the pictures for the listing. When walking by I didn’t notice it nearly as much and, considering it doesn’t fit the house very well, that’s a good thing. I guess it’s unrealistic but adding banding to the front siding at soffit level and changing the paint for the second story could be a great move.
When I was starting my search I almost bought 6627 Woodlawn and I’m close enough that I know the area by 65th and Sunnyside pretty well. I’m sure the corner is busier but I think it’s a relatively innocuous kind of busy, unless you’re afraid of small kids and the occasional senior citizen. Plus, it quiets down a lot after 5 or 6pm. Still, I thought it was priced way too high and she still has it near $700k.
Then again, on the walk home from your upcoming listing I was surprised to see 1839 N 57th St getting a makeover and a little shocked when I found out it had sold for $750k last month. It seems to me that spending that much for that house to flip it would be a high cost, low upside deal with a likely long time on market. I suppose I shouldn’t badmouth it, as my property has some construction or flip appeal – if I had the capital I’d do a major remodel and possibly a second story addition – and I wouldn’t mind being paid 10+% too much for it. I’ll send you my address and some details. With the exterior work yet to be done, I’m not sure when or if I’ll have a use for the surplus paint.
I meant 60th St, although I did notice the silly skirting on the facade of a new construction house on 59th just a block or two west of the property on 60th. I wish I had the capital to be a builder.
Oh, I noticed the house on 60th has been listed for sale on Zillow for quite a while now – did they get much of a response? I have one couple interested in my place from having a “make me move” on Zillow, although the lack of ability to filter out ridiculous “make me move” prices seems to have cut the usefulness of that feature off at the knees; the mapping limit doesn’t help, either. I doubt I’d have gotten any interest if not for my location.
Nice choice of color on the wall…recedes well in the photograph so the house can shine!
Ben,
I’ll try it without the dormer. Thanks, Don’t want it to look too small though. Email me for a private response on Zillow comment.
Just remembered why the dormer is in it…It’s because of the front door. I don’t like main shots where you can’t see the door.
Now this adds value. I’ve always thought those walls are ugly. But that paint color really makes it look nice. Thanks for the idea (in case I ever buy a house with one).
Karin’s flip issue isn’t the busy corner – it’s the horrific master bedroom/bathroom combination and the fact that most people who want a house that size have kids and don’t want each kid living on a different floor. It’s pretty looking (though not if you actually look at the quality of work done), but not practical for living.
The house on 60th has issues too. Have you fixed the open window into the crawl space yet? Or the broken windows throughout the house? There were an awful lot of “little” issues once you got past the pretty, staged factor.
Interesting 🙂 I’m a first time home buyer looking to pick something up in the Greenlake / Ravenna / Maple Leaf area. The house I’m spying right now has a retaining wall and this would be a great way to spruce things up, and cost effective to boot.
Thanks for the tip!
You are very welcome, Lori. I’m going to do the steps, walkway and garden wall at my house, when the weather gets better. I got spoiled yesterday! I want more days like yesterday!