The House We Are Looking For
Preferred era/style: redwood-framed (pre-1926), 3- to 6-unit Victorian or Edwardian with original details, 3,000-6,000 square feet, less than $300 per square foot, with functioning kitchen and bathroom in each living space.
Can need: paint, refinishing floors, window replacement, roof resurfacing, updating systems, redoing bathrooms or kitchens, minor electrical or plumbing work.
Cannot need: foundation work, structural renovation, termite remediation, major electrical or plumbing work. (Has to be loanable: have functioning kitchen, bathrooms, electrical and plumbing systems.)
Preferred neighborhoods: Mission Dolores, Noe Valley, Castro, Duboce Triangle, North of Panhandle (Nopa), Inner Mission, Lower Haight, Hayes Valley.
Preferred site: 3,000 or more sq. ft. lot, with backyard south, east, or west, preferably south. (Preliminary research indicates that lots in Nopa are 25 to 30 feet wide and 137 feet deep, while lots in the Mission are 20 to 25 feet wide and 100 feet deep or less, depending on how many streets are cut through the block.) Ideally, it will have adjacent neighbors open to “unfencing” or selling to other mini-cohousing groups who want to share backyards with us; another possibility is to be next to a landlocked parcel owned by the city or an absentee owner.
Basic Financials: ca. $300/s.f.; ca. 1,000 s.f. per unit; ca. $300,000 value per unit
