In the SF Bay Area, million-dollar homes are torn down to start fresh

[Newsjock]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Imagine paying $1 million or more for a home -- and then destroying it.

That's what's happening in some upscale Bay Area communities as homeowners and wealthy buyers have no interest in upgrading aging houses but instead want to start from scratch and build all-new custom homes stocked with the latest features.

While the demolition and rebuilding trend is heaviest on the Peninsula and the most affluent parts of Santa Clara County, it extends to East Bay communities as well -- anywhere it makes more sense financially to tear down the existing structure and start fresh. That includes sought-after neighborhoods with no vacant lots, where prices of small, aging 1950s-era houses have soared.

... "We're wrecking 3,000-square-foot houses and erecting 14,000-foot houses," said Hal Nelson of O. Nelson & Son excavating and demolition company in Woodside. He said he has 20 tear-downs scheduled in Los Altos, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. Business was up 20 percent last year, and up 15 percent in 2012, he said.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25283556/bay-area-million-dollar-homes-are-torn-down

[Pretzel_Warrior]

1. Most of the home value is the land--not the structure.

[upaloopa]

2. The houses are called scrapers. In San Diego county

and Orange County people would buy two scrapers side by side and build a bigger home on the two combined lots.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. Or tear-downs, with that label having nothing to do with the quality of the housing.

Perfectly good, not very old ranchers are torn down and replaced with much larger houses. All but one wall is torn down, that is. By leaving a small piece of the old structure in place the owners preserve the Prop.13 basis for the portion of the new house that is the same square footage.

[KoKo]

3. They are Back at it Again, I see. This was going on all over CT, NJ and FLA

along with other states back in the early 2000's before the housing bubble burst.

TEAR DOWNS was the word...and was out of control then. After the housing crash business writers said no one wanted those huge mansions that had been built and they wouldn't be able to sell them.

I guess what's old is new again.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. It's that way in a lot of trendy neighborhoods

Seattle and Vancouver BC are two other cities where such is occurring.

[marions ghost]

5. Disgusting

paying a mil for a lot and then building 14,000 sq ft "houses" while the middle class struggles.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. The family with the Ranch in Menlo Park

They lived in the house for two years trying to make it work. But after finding major termite damage even after a $5,000 tenting, problems with heating and plumbing, and a persistent tobacco smell from a previous owner, they decided to tear it down.

I don't blame them. If they 'could' - then why not?

And I'm asking that as someone in the midst of the remodel (soup to nuts) of a 1910 Arts and Crafts Tudor . . . but there were homes we didn't put offers in on because termite damage - another issue - house settling and uneven floors (indicated foundation damage).

[sufrommich]

7. I wonder how many architectural gems will be

lost and replaced with bland McMansions. I hate to see crap like this happen.

[X_Digger]

9. At 14,000 sq ft, I doubt there's anything 'Mc' about these monstrosities.

But I do get your point.

[KamaAina]

10. In many of these areas, a "million-dollar home" isn't really anything special.

He said he has 20 tear-downs scheduled in Los Altos, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton.

It would be hard to find anything in those four communities for much less than a million, except for the largely African American Belle Haven neighborhood in Menlo Park, which shares its school district not with the rest of Menlo Park but with neighboring East Palo Alto, which is also heavily minority.

If the name 'Atherton" sounds familiar, it may be because it leads the nation in traffic stops for "driving while brown".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023423378

[MissB]

11. I own a tear down.

I don't live in SF or even in California, but I do live in a small highly sought after community. When we moved in 10+ years ago, the most common question we heard from our new neighbors was whether we'd be tearing it down.

Every improvement we do on our house is for our benefit and comfort, not because we think we are creating a higher valued house.

Each year, our county assessor lowers the value of our structure and increases the value of the land. And to be clear - we aren't living in a shack - this is a 2600+ sq ft home on a half acre. But it's still a tear down, because that's what folks do in our neighborhood. I've seen countless close-to or million plus $ homes torn down and new, bigger homes built.