homesmillbrae.com

The couple, who are Black, got a second opinion last February. This time, they asked a white friend named Jan to sit at the kitchen island and pretend to be the homeowner. They also “whitewashed” their home by hiding art and family photos. That appraiser said their house was worth $1,482,500.

The $487,500 discrepancy between the two 2020 appraisals pushed the couple to file a fair housing lawsuit in federal district court this week against appraiser Janette Miller, her firm Miller and Perotti Real Estate Appraisers Inc., and national appraisal company AMC Links LLC. It’s the latest escalation in a series of similar cases of alleged racial bias in the home appraisal process as California property owners move to reap financial gains from record home prices.

“We did our homework,” Austin told the Reparations Task Force in a panel on the racial wealth gap in October. “We believe the white lady wanted to devalue our property because we are in a Black neighborhood, and the home belonged to a Black family.”

Miller’s firm and AMC Links did not respond to requests for comment.

Researchers at the Brookings Institution have found that owner-occupied homes in majority-Black U.S. neighborhoods are undervalued by an average $48,000 per home, representing some $156 billion in cumulative losses — a dynamic that has prompted calls for policy reform to automate more of the home valuation process and otherwise minimize bias. Some in the appraisal industry, meanwhile, contend that the process is inherently subjective and driven by extreme pressure to increase home values, opening appraisers to unfair personal liability when homeowners disagree with the results.

In the case of Austin and Tate-Austin, the large appraisal discrepancy illustrates how even Bay Area residents able to purchase a home in one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets can be shut out of some of the massive wealth generated by increasing property values.

The Austin family bought the home in late 2016 for $550,000, according to the lawsuit, and Austin said they spent around $400,000 expanding the footprint, renovating the interior and adding features like an outdoor deck and an in-law unit with bay views. With the higher second appraisal designed to take race out of the equation, the home is now worth nearly triple what they paid five years ago.

“There are definitely things about this complaint that are uniquely strong,” said the couple’s attorney, Julia Howard-Gibbon of Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California. “They erased themselves from the home, essentially.”

Though similar cases with extreme differences in appraisal values have also surfaced in Oakland, Stockton and other California cities with large Black populations, the new lawsuit revolves around the North Bay’s unique racial dynamics.

Austin knows firsthand that Marin City, an unincorporated area wedged between affluent Sausalito and Mill Valley, grew out of the pre-World War II migration of tens of thousands of Black workers seeking employment around the Sausalito shipyard. His own grandparents lived and worked there.

Though they saved money to move to other areas of Marin County, Austin said in his October testimony, they were unable to buy property elsewhere because of exclusionary practices like discriminatory bank lending and racial covenants.

The fact that his family encountered what seemed like a new version of the same old problem more than a half-century later, he said at the October meeting, made him feel ill.

“My stomach hurt, my head hurt, just because of what we went through,” Austin said. “I don’t wish that on anybody.”

Attorneys for the couple argue in the new lawsuit that “Marin City has a long history of undervaluation based on stereotypes, redlining, discriminatory appraisal standards, and actual or perceived racial demographics.”

By focusing the first appraisal only on the small number of homes sold in the immediate Marin City area, Howard-Gibbon said the appraiser “built an invisible barrier” around the home by comparing it only to other sale prices in a long-marginalized area — a result she called “recycled discrimination.”

The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial, financial damages and a court order directing the appraisers to take action to ensure the issues in the complaint are not repeated.

Austin said at the October meeting that he is also focused on ongoing issues like recent desegregation orders issued for Marin County schools. He still can’t help but notice that neighbors’ homes on smaller lots have already crept up to values around $1.6 or $1.7 million.

“Yes, I do want to see a change,” Austin said. “I don’t want to see my children have to deal with this.”

The warehouse is a 336,680-square-foot structure, an Amazon spokesperson told SFGATE on Tuesday. The spokesperson also confirmed that the space will enable the shopping titan to strengthen the presence of Amazon Logistics, its delivery service, in the Bay Area. Its proximity to public transit and freeways is also desirable, the spokesperson added.

The warehouse is slated to launch by the end of November, the spokesperson added, but did not confirm hiring numbers.

The news of this lease comes as Amazon is set to formally propose construction of a warehouse in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood where a Recology site once stood. That structure promises as many as 500 new jobs — but has drawn concern over clogging up the city’s already tight streets with more traffic, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. (SFGATE and the Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently of one another.)

Amazon’s Bay Area expansion has grown more rapid in recent months, with the e-commerce behemoth buying parcels of land — one in Pleasanton bordering a lake and the other in Milpitas, near the Great Mall. In recent years, Amazon has purchased or leased nearly 3 million square feet of Bay Area property, as documented by the Registry.

The couple, who is Black, got a second opinion last February. This time, they asked a white friend named Jan to sit at the kitchen island and pretend to be the homeowner. They also “white-washed” their home by hiding art and family photos. That appraiser said their house was worth $1,482,500.

The $487,500 discrepancy between the two 2020 appraisals pushed the couple to filed a fair housing lawsuit in federal district court this week against appraiser Janette Miller, her appraisal firm Miller and Perotti Real Estate Appraisers, Inc. and national appraisal company AMC Links, LLC. It’s the latest escalation in a series of similar cases of alleged racial bias in the home appraisal process as California property owners move to reap financial gains from record home prices.

“We did our homework,” Austin told the Reparations Task Force in a panel on the racial wealth gap in October. “We believe the white lady wanted to devalue our property because we are in a Black neighborhood, and the home belonged to a Black family.”

Miller’s firm and AMC Links, LLC did not respond to requests for comment.

Researchers at the Brookings Institution have found that owner-occupied homes in majority-Black U.S. neighborhoods are undervalued by an average $48,000 per home, representing some $156 billion in cumulative losses — a dynamic that has prompted calls for policy reform to automate more of the home valuation process and otherwise minimize bias. Some in the appraisal industry, meanwhile, contend that the process is inherently subjective and driven by extreme pressure to increase home values, opening appraisers to unfair personal liability when homeowners disagree with the results.

In the case of Austin and Tate-Austin, the large appraisal discrepancy illustrates how even Bay Area residents able to purchase a home in one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets can be shut out of some of the massive wealth generated by increasing property values.

The Austin family bought the home in late 2016 for $550,000, according to the lawsuit, and Austin said they spent around $400,000 expanding the footprint, renovating the interior and adding features like an outdoor deck and an in-law unit with bay views. With the higher second appraisal designed to take race out of the equation, the home is now worth nearly triple what they paid five years ago.

“There are definitely things about this complaint that are uniquely strong,” said the couple’s attorney, Julia Howard-Gibbon of Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California. “They erased themselves from the home, essentially.”

Though similar cases with extreme differences in appraisal values have also surfaced in Oakland, Stockton and other California cities with a large Black population, the new lawsuit revolves around the North Bay’s unique racial dynamics.

Austin knows firsthand that Marin City, an unincorporated area wedged between affluent Sausalito and Mill Valley, grew out of the pre-World War II migration of tens of thousands of Black workers seeking employment around the Sausalito shipyard. His own grandparents lived and worked there. Though they saved money to move to other areas of Marin County, Austin said in his October testimony that they were unable to buy property elsewhere because of exclusionary practices like discriminatory bank lending and racial covenants.

The fact that his family encountered what seemed like a new version of the same old problem more than a half-century later, he said at the October meeting, made him feel ill.

“My stomach hurt, my head hurt, just because of what we went through,” Austin said. “I don’t wish that on anybody.”

Attorneys for the couple argue in the new lawsuit that “Marin City has a long history of undervaluation based on stereotypes, redlining, discriminatory appraisal standards, and actual or perceived racial demographics.” By focusing the first appraisal only on the small number of homes sold in the immediate Marin City area, Howard-Gibbon said the appraiser “built an invisible barrier” around the home by comparing it only to other sale prices in a long-marginalized area — a result she called “recycled discrimination.”

The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial, financial damages and a court order directing the appraisers to take action to ensure the issues in the complaint are not repeated.

Austin said at the October meeting that he is also focused on ongoing issues like recent desegregation orders issued for Marin County schools. He still can’t help but notice that neighbors’ homes on smaller lots have already crept up to values around $1.6 or $1.7 million.

“Yes, I do want to see a change,” Austin said. “I don’t want to see my children have to deal with this.”

It was built in the 1920s by Conrad Alfred Meussdorffer, who also designed the St. Regis apartments in Lafayette Park (the Beaux Arts beauty of which catapulted Meussdorffer’s career among the city’s elite), as well as 2006 Washington Street.

A co-op is a distinct type of property. Unlike with a condo, in which the owner owns both the unit and a common share of the property, in a co-op the owner doesn’t technically own the property at all. These sales can be complex, as prospective buyers must meet the approval of a co-op board, and buyers should expect sizable HOA fees. Financing can be tricky, too: Some lenders don’t offer co-op loans when there are rules limiting how or to whom you can sell your shares.

But none of that mattered for this apartment, which sold for its record-breaking asking price.

Anna Marie Erwert writes from both the renter and new buyer perspective, having (finally) achieved both statuses. She focuses on national real estate trends, specializing in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest. Follow Anna on Twitter: @AnnaMarieErwert. 

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/record-sale-at-Pacific-Heights-co-op-16618574.php

Tech titan and space entrepreneur Elon Musk has found a buyer for his last remaining residential property, a historic California estate listed for nearly $32 million. 

The 16,000-square-foot mansion in Hillsborough, California—an affluent area in Silicon Valley—went into contract over the weekend for an unknown amount, according to the Multiple Listing Service. No public  information about the price or the buyer was available, as the sale has yet to close. 

Mr. Musk, 50, first announced he was selling the European-style residence in a June tweet saying he’d “decided to sell my last remaining house. Just needs to go to a large family who will live there.” He listed it shortly after that for $37.5 million.

More: Producer Joel Silver’s Los Angeles Megamansion Lists for $75 Million

In October, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX shaved $5.5 million off the price, relisting it for $31.99 million with Mary and Brent Gullixson of Compass, Mansion Global reported. 

Also known as Guignécourt, the home sits on 47 acres—one of the largest parcels in the area—with views of the San Francisco Bay and city skyline. It was built in 1912 by a French nobleman, Count Christian de Guigné, who came to California and married Mary Katherine Parrott. De Guigné later started Stauffer Chemical Company and Leslie Salt, which distributed the mineral around the Bay Area. 

The residence boasts seven bedrooms and nine and a half bathrooms, according to the listing. It features a grand living room, a library with leather walls and a fireplace, a gourmet kitchen with an area for a personal chef and dining and music rooms that can be combined into one large entertaining area. 

No surprise, there have been quite a few technology updates to the 100-year-old home. 

“Upgrades to infrastructure include fiber optic cable under the driveway, high end security system, interior sound system and restoration to several of-the-era features,” the Gullixsons said in the listing. The agents declined to comment on the deal. 

From Penta: Gerhard Richter’s ‘Kerzenschein’ Could Fetch HK$75 Million at Phillips

The landscaped grounds boast a reservoir, a pool and pavilion, hiking trails, a three-car garage and an eight-car carport.

Mr. Musk bought Guignécourt in 2017 for $23.4 million through Gatsby LLC, which is connected to another entity, Excession, tied to Mr. Musk’s family office. The property was once listed for $100 million before he purchased it, Mansion Global reported. 

He has been selling off his real estate in recent years in an effort to to focus on a “multiplanetary” life. Representatives for Mr. Musk did not immediately return a request for comment.

The New York Post first reported the deal.

Article source: https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/elon-musk-finds-a-buyer-for-his-last-remaining-house-outside-san-francisco-01637000652