Even a Fire-Gutted SF House is On the Market for Big $

San Francisco is the town of quirky, sometimes bizarre, real estate. We have a luxury condo tower that is sinking into the ground and leaning over 15 inches to the northwest (Millennium Tower), and monthly renting of a Fedex Truck (no plumbing for $600) and a backyard tent (for $400). And many other examples of surreal real estate.

Now, take the case of the burnt-out shell of a house on 121 Gates Street that burned in a 2-alarm fire in 2016 in the Bernal Heights neighborhood. It was gutted but still standing—a 600-square foot one-bed, one-bath house built in 1907, the year after the great SF Earthquake.

Now, the Bernal Heights charred walls-and-frame of a house is on the market for $800,000 (and will require extensive tearing down and rebuilding). That is almost the median price for a home in the entire Bay Area, while the median price for a house in California is $555,400. The ad now lists as a sale pending.

It’s expected that this house will go well over asking. A precedent for this kind of action is an “extensively damaged, uninhabitable” house in Sunset listed in early 2016 for $600,000 and ended up selling for $950,000.