Almost $1.2 million for what appears to be a 3BR 2,400-2,800 sf house in CV seems way overpriced in this market IMHO.
I lived in CV up to about 8 yrs ago. Although I am moving back to SD in ’08 or ’09, I now live in the Bay Area (San Jose) in one of the few semi-gated neighborhoods up here this very CV like, in that I live in a Spanish tile roofed Mediteranian tract home that and it is just under 2,600sf, about the same size as that FSBO Saratoga home, except that mine is 4BR, but my lot is about 1/2 that size. Although my house was worth $1.2 million not that long ago, it is now worth about $1 million. But this is the “uberexpensive” bay area, where the price per square foot of homes run anywhere from 1.5-2 times as much as San Diego. So on that basis, that Saratoga home should be selling for around $800k.
Even ignoring that, based on what I know about CV prices (granted I have only recently looked at homes in Del Mar Meadows, Del Mar Mesa, and Grand Del Mar, but I have noticed closing sales in CV generally), that house should be listing for between $800,000-$900,000 depending if it is on the low or high end of that range.
The only other tidbit I can provide is a Lexington house (the name of the model) that was a cul-de-sac model home off 56 just up the hill accross from Meadows Del Mar (off Carmel Country road). I looked at possibly buying that house way back in 1999 when I lived in CV. It was just under 5,000 sf 5BR with a great hill top view. It was selling for $700,000-$800,000. Everytime my wife and I have visited SD since then, we have looked at home prices and toured new development model homes, primiarly in CV and Del Mar just for fun to see if we would move back (we added RSF this year). That Lexington model house was for sale back in 2005 (August) for around $2 million. If you assume that the CV market has dropped 10% since that peak in 2005, then that house should be worth $1.8 million or so. And at that price, this Saratoga home should be in that $800k-$900k range.
Incidentally, thanks to Zillow, I can check my recollections and estimates above with their data on that same Lexington house. Zillow says the value of that home peaked in mid 2006 at $2.2 million. The current Zestimate for that house is $1.5 million, which suggests a price for that Saratoga FSBO more in the range of $700k-$800k depending on where it falls in that size range. I do realize that Zillow #’s are always very suspect.
Either way, a short point made very long, that Saratoga home is way overpriced at almost $1.2 million IMHO and an informed buyer should not pay more than $800k for it.
