Big Number for North Tree Section

In this market, new construction will consistently blow past price expectations, it seems.

Consider the over-asking sale just closed at 713 35th: $3.900M, fully $105K over asking and with virtually no time on market (5 DOM).

The slightly oversized home (5br/7ba, 3880 sqft.) on a street-to-alley lot was a must-have.

Here on the blog for the home's debut weekend, we said there was a "masterful, custom-level attention to detail throughout the home. Choices of fixtures, countertops, paint colors and the like are more like artistic expressions."

Yeah, it was special like that. The proof is in the action on the house.

Now it's the priciest sale north of 33rd in the Tree Section.

We took a look at all historical sales in the Trees north of Valley and west of Pacific, an area sometimes referred to as the Grand View area of the Trees. (Have you seen our video tour of the Tree Section yet?)

There are 16 MLS-reported sales in the area over $3.600M, ranging as high at $5.475M (that being 605 25th St. last year).

As you can see, 713 35th is the northernmost of those.

Why does that matter?

Experience shows that there's some buyer reluctance, even resistance, as homes get closer and closer to Rosecrans and the refinery. For some people, gorgeous 31st St. is the furthest they'll go. Others can't refute the charms of 33rd St. and mark that as the "border" past which they won't look at homes.

This is not to say that locations north of 33rd are awful. There's probably a half-billion dollars worth of Tree Section homes past that imaginary line. We've sold listings and helped buyers buy in the area. But that buyer reluctance is a factor that tends to keep a lid on pricing.

Before 713 35th hit $3.900M, the highest and northern-most comp was early 2016's sale of a new home at 569 33rd (6br/5ba, 3650 sqft.) at $3.795M. Hey, that's the 500 block near the Sand Dune... a special area.

3300 Palm is another case of expectations defied from earlier this year. That 5br/5ba, 3950 sqft. house was also new, and also ranked highly here at MBC with an appreciation in our open-house post.

It sold for $3.850M in less than a month. It's not as far north as 713 35th, but it's further east, and not entirely shielded from refinery views or noises. Again, superb craftsmanship and a larger home got them top dollar, despite whatever limitations one might have feared from the location.

It's an amazing time still in this market, especially for new construction. Consider how well new homes in East Manhattan have been doing as well.

Time was, spec builders would go into a project in a "lesser" location with lower expectations and would therefore "cheap out" on finishes. The builders' negative mindset, and negative bet, would become a self-fulfilling prophesy as they took less for the final product. Values stayed lower because builders expected them to be lower.

That mindset is out. What's in is going whole-hog, treating any home as a potential masterwork without too much regard to location, certainly without defensiveness about it.

That bet keeps paying off.