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dewitt | 5 years ago

14-bedroom, 11,000 sq. ft castle on 94 acres. Not too bad.

By way of comparison, this is what $3.3M buys you in SF: https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/2070-Beach-St-94123/...

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echelon|5 years ago

Absolutely absurd. The comparables are a quarter of the price or less in any other major city.

SF as a tech hub needs to die. There are better cities that are far less NIMBY and regressive.

If you don't succeed in launching a startup, you're just participating in a meat market. Your salary goes to rent. It's not sustainable.

My SF coworkers often have roommates. You can't live like that in your 30's. You can't get married or raise kids like that. I've owned multiple concurrent properties in the heart of a city - historic properties with 25' ceilings - and I still pay less than SF rent. It floors me people put up with SF living conditions.

NYC, Boston, Portland, Austin, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Miami have way better adjusted costs of living and aren't so broken politically. You can probably pick two cities and own homes in each for the cost of your SF rent.

Let the land owners have what they deserve. A brain and wealth drain.

api|5 years ago

I was visiting SF for business a while back and while I was going for a walk the following kind of just hit me:

"San Francisco is someone else's house."

I can't explain exactly what prompted it, but I got the sense that there exists in SF a deeply embedded property-owning class that owns the city. The city is theirs. If you are not one of them, you are only visiting. The city will never truly be your home. It's possible to buy into this class, but the cost of doing so is intentionally kept so high that it's unreachable to all but the extremely wealthy.

Has the city always been like this? I don't know, but I wonder if maybe it has... if the various waves of hippies, post-hippies, ravers, hackers, and tech bros weren't just visitors permitted to crash on the couch for a little while.

There are many other cities all over this country where you are permitted to become a true resident, often for a very sane price. I don't get this feeling in most other cities.

mrgordon|5 years ago

You lost me completely when you said Miami is less broken politically than San Francisco. Have you spent much time in these places? Miami is a mess of planning and corruption with none of the modern industries like tech that create quality employment for the middle class with reasonable wages, quality healthcare, and partial ownership of their employers. After decades you still can’t take a train from the airport to the main destination (Miami Beach). They won’t even admit climate change is happening as the state suffers worsening floods every year. In fact the governor has banned the use of the term “climate change” to help avoid the issue. You must be pretty far to the right if you’re going to argue Miami is working well

swiley|5 years ago

The weirdest thing is that a lot of politicians are holding this up as a model for housing and a solution to what is essentially a national crisis.

4ggr0|5 years ago

Of course you can raise kids and be married while having room-mates, it's just not the standard way of living. I know of some homes where 4-5 people live together and all their salaries are put on the same bank account. Doesn't matter if someone's a student or working full time.

It's obviously an alternative lifestyle and I don't know if I could do it. But saying that having kids, being married and having room-mates is impossible is not a fact, but an opinion.

I wonder if there are people living together in the some home and in a polyamorous relationship and simultaneously have kids, also living in the same home. Basically a whole community living together.

dmode|5 years ago

How is it absurd ? It is in a nice neighborhood, close to the water, walkable to the Golden Gate bridge, and sits next to a massive national park.

baby|5 years ago

This is so absurd, I left SF last month and I still can't fathom why anyone would spend that much money to get a house there. I guess if you are stuck there because of work, and work pays really well? But I can't see any other reason why you would pay that much money for a place that is not that nice.

teacpde|5 years ago

It is less logical, but when you see all your peers here spend that kind of money for houses, you start to question less. Also, it is a market, which is controlled by supply and demand dynamics.

glitchc|5 years ago

I believe you’re paying for location there. It’s in the Marina district and a short walk to the yacht harbour where a person buying this house also (ostensibly) owns a yacht.

three_seagrass|5 years ago

Yeah, this home is a block from the bay and two blocks to the presidio.

ksherlock|5 years ago

And property taxes are only $3,900 a year. That's not much more than the monthly property taxes in your California comparison.

jcims|5 years ago

Note that section of RedFin is breaking down your monthly payment.

maxlamb|5 years ago

Not sure where you saw that, I see property tax listed as $3300 a month.

sfkdjf9j3j|5 years ago

I wonder how expensive it is to maintain the castle. And since it has some kind of official designation, if you have to use period-accurate materials for repairs.

Andrew_nenakhov|5 years ago

Rather expensive. The walls must be keep repaired and strong, a moat must be filled with water, a forest must be cleared up to a distance of a trebuchet shot, the locker must have enough food supplies. Fail to do any of this, and an eventual siege will end in a disaster.

And of course you'll need a retinue to man the walls.

fvdessen|5 years ago

AFAIK the biggest ongoing expense which such castles is the heating bills which are insane since castles are very big and badly insulated. The gardening expenses are also quite intense; depending on the size of the property you may have to hire personnel.

The price of repairs are also mind-boggling, but for those you can get state subsidies

pmiller2|5 years ago

I'm not totally familiar with French law on the matter, but, it's likely that, in addition to needing period-accurate materials, you also have to use period-accurate methods. This is what makes it expensive, since very few people are familiar with obsolete, 4-500 year old building methods.

rtpg|5 years ago

Someone on Twitter said the maintenance is likely around 200k/year. I don’t know how they got there but at the same time you probably need at least one full time staff at that size right?

x87678r|5 years ago

Here is a nice French Style Farmhouse for $2.5mm in NJ, about an hour away from Manhattan. Only 5 Beds but still 36 secluded acres in a nice town. https://www.trulia.com/p/nj/mendham/375-cherry-ln-mendham-nj...

lotsofpulp|5 years ago

Wow, that house sold for $3.6M on Mar 1, 2001 according to the records on the county's website and is now for sale for only $2.5M, if it can get that. ~$71k in property taxes per year and rising, that's a tough pill to swallow.

Also, an hour away with zero traffic to Manhattan means you need to budget 2 hours during non covid times outside of the dead of night.

thatfrenchguy|5 years ago

I’m French and this does not look like a house you would see or own in France

SilasX|5 years ago

Yes, I remember it almost being a meme about SF tourist groups being told the prices of European castles/estates by tour guides and being completely unimpressed.

chrisseaton|5 years ago

To be fair this is also a pretty nice house given the location.

baby|5 years ago

It's not a nice house :| and the location is quite coldish year round, so I wouldn't say it's a great location either.

JoeAltmaier|5 years ago

But those 94 acres are hours by train from most anywhere. Usually prices decline the further you go from city centers.

bpizzi|5 years ago

The comparison isn't really meaningful thought: this french castle is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. You are 2h away by car from the either Bordeaux or Nantes, which are your closest chances to find an IT job.

tintor|5 years ago

Doesn't matter if you are Working From Castle.

nl|5 years ago

> By way of comparison, this is what $3.3M buys you in SF

4 Bedrooms and a yard within 2km of the financial district and 1 block from the waterfront for only $3.3M?

Try getting that in Sydney!

Edit:

To the doubters, this is between $3M and $3.5M (Australian $): https://www.realestate.com.au/property-terrace-nsw-millers+p...

It's an area that is roughly comparable, but smaller, not great condition and a courtyard.

akhosravian|5 years ago

$3.5 million USD is closer to $5 million Australian dollars.

If we’re not accounting for conversion rates let’s find what kind of house 3.5 million yen will get ;)

tehlike|5 years ago

"The oversized flat turf yard" - that's my favorite about sf homes. everything is relative.

willcipriano|5 years ago

Only 15 grand a month. You would need a household income of 380k to reasonably afford that house.