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Million Dollar Listing SF - General Discussion


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Well I did like all 3 brokers.  They are not as loud and arrogant as MDLLA or MDLNY.  I didn't like the interviews laced throughout though.

 

I do see that the sellers are just as much dicks here as in the other shows.  I think the producers seek them out.

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The producers seem to be going for a snarkier vibe for sure. Wonder if the third wall interviews will carry through the season. Not sure about any of the guys yet except nobody outright annoyed me. Let's see -- the three of them didn't really know each other at the start of filming, however I'm guessing their business interests will now miraculously become intertwined.

 

I was born and raised in San Francisco. Thought I'd throw that out there because it's apparently an impressive feat.

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Trying too hard. And no, Alamo is not 25 minutes from San Francisco.

I thought by helicopter?

I don't watch the other shows but this was so crazy scripted and the people they hired can't act for shit.

Also Roh clearly scratched the shit out of the floor with his watch breakdancing at his "bootie" party.

Edited by biakbiak
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I live in the Bay Area and there is NO WAY Hayward or San Leandro have million dollar properties. Try Berkley or parts of Oakland. And marketing a house in. St. Francis Woods to techies? I'm sure the neighbors would LOVE that.

I hate the interviews with the questioner. Can't these guys do their own talking heads?

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I didn't mind the interviews at all. Since they are new to the audience, I found it helpful to learn more about them.

 

The guy who moved to SF (Andrew?) gave off a Ryan vibe to me.

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I didn't mind the interviews at all. Since they are new to the audience, I found it helpful to learn more about them.

 

The guy who moved to SF (Andrew?) gave off a Ryan vibe to me.

 

Heck, they had him responding to the amorous couple exactly like Ryan would in the same situation.  Ryan's great on his show, can't we have someone else on this show?

 

He actually annoyed me with some of his mannerisms and his choice of words.

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Well I did like all 3 brokers. They are not as loud and arrogant as MDLLA or MDLNY. I didn't like the interviews laced throughout though.

I do see that the sellers are just as much dicks here as in the other shows. I think the producers seek them out.

No, sellers are dicks. I sold real estate for a few years.

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I didn't mind the interviews at all. Since they are new to the audience, I found it helpful to learn more about them.

 

The guy who moved to SF (Andrew?) gave off a Ryan vibe to me.

 

I don't see it.  Even when Ryan acted like a dick, he had a sarcastic, humorous side.  Andrew seems very intense.  My opinion of ROH, who I thought was too serious, and Justin, who I thought was too silly, changed by the end of the show.  My opinion of Andrew being wound pretty tight did not change - especially after he told them that he acquired their domain names.  Very insecure move.

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Ugh this was so annoying. No one goes around saying "I'm in tech". What does that mean anyway? There are many different roles at a company. And Most of us are not oozing with money and able to buy 3+ million dollar properties. I wish, like with NYC, they would focus on these realtors and the buyer and sellers instead of painting San Francisco and the Bay Area with such a broad brush.

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I thought by helicopter?

I don't watch the other shows but this was so crazy scripted and the people they hired can't act for shit.

Also Roh clearly scratched the shit out of the floor with his watch breakdancing at his "bootie" party.

 

 

My 13 year old son popped in the room during the break dancing and asked me "why are they wearing booties", and I said "So they don't scratch the floor".  Then he watches the breakdance, sees the floor and said "bootie fail", and walked out.  LOL

Edited by TV Diva Queen
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OK, you would expect really driven people as brokers of high-end properties.

 

Roh and Justin's ambitions, on first glance, don't annoy as much as Andrew's.  It's impressive that he built himself up after hitting rock bottom but what is the deal with saying he's not going to give up after the sellers said they changed their minds?  And haranguing the other broker for not keeping the sellers out of the open house?  No way those sellers were going to stay away.

 

I did like how all 3 pushed back on the high prices that the sellers wanted.  But all sellers seem to think they can get more than market prices.

 

Maybe big broker parties aren't a thing out here in the Bay Area like it is in NY.

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I have to admit, I watched the show, but I really wasn't paying all THAT much attention. I missed the very, very beginning, and as was doing something else so I couldn't really devote my undivided attention. 

 

Thoughts...SO FAR:

-- NOT feeling that we need ANOTHER MDL

-- The realtors are OK. Nothing against them. BUT like other shows -- from Survivor, to the Bachelor, to the Housewives, to Big Brother to The Profit.....once a show has been on -- cast members or people chosen for the subsequent season already know what the show is about, and play to that, and what producers are looking for -- and what to do to MKE them "famous'. Everyone knows what to do to try to be the breakout personality. AND IT CHANGES SOME INTANGIBLE "X FACTOR" ABOUT THE SHOW.

 

-- It's clear to me these realtors are coming in --TRYING to be cool...playing to the audience. And I don't like that. The tall blond one -- in one clip I saw (from a promo) -- even says about being a number 1 realtor, in a teasing and bragging way that he has sold more real estate the Fredrik....who's on another frigging show. Why is he referring to Fredrik....he has nothing to DO with that. But clearly he's playing to that to make HIMself more famous or relevant.

 

- HATE that the producers are heard asking question questions during the interviews.....I was like, so what is this?....now THEY are part of the damn show?

-- Like I said, I wasn't paying attention that much...so MAYBE that's why I didn't get the real estate p o r n that I watch these MDL shows for. I'm sure San Fran has some great houses...but I didn't see what I was hoping for...but maybe I just happened to tune in on just the non-showings/open house scenes.

 

-- Wait a minute, I did see the open house that one of the supporting realtors invited the SELLER/OWNER to......really??!! And she changes her mind about sellign. So OF COURSE, we have to see the hea realtor angry with his underling...talking about WHY he inviting the frigging OWNER? DId that owner get drunk or something? I can't remember if she slurred her words, but she didn't sound right at that open house when she was talking about raising the price, and having second thoughts.

 

I'll watch again....to give the show another chance, but 1) I'm NOT impressed...and 2) I just don't think we need another version MDL. New York and L.A. are ENOUGH for me. (Hear that Bravo???)

Edited by selhars
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Roh was much better looking without that ugly beard. I hope he shaves soon.

While they are not necessarily required to by the Q'uran or Islamic law, many observant Muslim men wear a beard. Based on the photos of Roh's younger, partying days, if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that he's embraced his Muslim faith more seriously as he's matured and settled down. The beard may be one of the ways he chooses to demonstrate that faith.

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I live in the Bay Area and there is NO WAY Hayward or San Leandro have million dollar properties. Try Berkley or parts of Oakland. And marketing a house in. St. Francis Woods to techies? I'm sure the neighbors would LOVE that.

I hate the interviews with the questioner. Can't these guys do their own talking heads?

 

Hayward, at least, does have a few $1 million dollar homes. They were built about 7 or 8 years ago and are up in the hills. I lived near what was then called Cal State-Hayward in a home that was listed at $850K in 2006, so not much of a stretch to $1 million.

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I actually didn't mind the back and forth with the producers in the background for the talking head segments.

 

It's clear that these guys are new and feeling their way around.

 

Not sure if I would like it as much if they kept doing it.  In one segment, Justin has to explain to the producer sitting in the backseat of his car what part of the city they're in.

 

Maybe they put this show together pretty quickly, without a chance to do much research.  I have to say the exterior photography is great, especially the fly over the Bay Bridge with the skyline in the background.  Often, there is a marine layer or haze so I wonder how they got it to be clear all the way through.

 

I wonder if they'll continue to emphasize the social networking.  Justin boasts about having the best social network.  Justin and Roh seemed to hint that their personal backgrounds included socializing a lot with all the young tech millionaires.  As hot as the IPO market has been recently, I'm not sure how many startup or tech workers are in a position to buy $3-4 million homes for cash.  What are the odds that the people they partied with in their 20s are all now millionaires in their 30s able to buy high-end properties?  I'll be interested to see if Roh finds a buyer for that $6.5 million property from the bootie party he held.

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I like that we hear the producers asking questions -- it kind of winks at the audience to say we all know how this is really done. It elicits a more sincere response than what we usually see of someone who has rehearsed an answer and is parroting it back.

 

I'm already sick on the phrase "tech buyer" so that doesn't bode well for me. And young! young! young!

 

We lived in the Mission District in the 50s-60s when my sister and I were being raised by a single mom and it was the farthest thing from cool. Ah, gentrification. Made me laugh.

 

Was the LA version renewed, does anyone know? If Josh Flagg bows out because of his grandmother, I'm not interested enough in the Brits or Altman to watch.

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I like that we hear the producers asking questions -- it kind of winks at the audience to say we all know how this is really done. It elicits a more sincere response than what we usually see of someone who has rehearsed an answer and is parroting it back.

It's very UNreal-esque.  I kind of like it, seeing the moments where they're BS-ing with their producer, not really "on," because they're waiting for that guy in the background to finish hustling around setting up lights or whatever.

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With his new listing in the Mission still under construction, Justin has to try and sell the neighborhood before he can sell the house. Roh's business partner Joel criticizes his open house and demands a more conventional approach. Meanwhile, Andrew is dealing with an emotional seller and an inexperienced co-lister...and he's not sure which is more problematic.

 

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Justin is such a dork! And here I thought Roh was cast for the up and coming striver role.

 

So we saw one house under construction and re-saw two from last week. A little light on real estate porn for my taste.

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How do they get the sellers to sign the release or play along?

Both Andrew and Roh's sellers come off bad, though both end with successful deals. But the women look ridulous the way they behave.

And Justin may not have done the math but getting $250k more would get him that much more commission. Certainly not enough to cover the $25k in staging costs that he offered to pay.

Wonder how typical it is for brokers to pay out of pocket for staging and open house costs. Maybe more a San Francisco thing.

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Hating this version and love the others. 

 

Might try the second one but these guys are irritating and it shows SF to be annoying. I don't think that's the idea. Pretense run wild and the houses are mediocre although they keep telling me how fabulous they are. Eh, not that impressive.

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I live on the sister street to San Carlos.  Basically San Carlos and my street are two tiny streets tucked in between the major streets of Mission and Valencia.  Our housing market is booming.  There is a large influx of tech workers, some of whom are quite wealthy (or ready to toss everything into a house). 

 

The work being done on the San Carlos house infuriates me.  Yes, classic Victorians do have smaller rooms than are generally created in high end homes now.  However, that block of San Carlos is in a historic preservation district and a landmark district.  We are supposed to try to preserve the integrity of these homes, not destroy them.  That house was already stripped of the woodwork on the front and the original redwood has been covered in stucco.  Tearing out all of the walls and the interior woodwork just further destroys the property.  Grrrrrrrr.  There are plenty of modern buildings in SF and new construction in the Mission.  Buy one of those; don’t destroy the historic buildings. 

 

Also, there are several walking tours of the Mission, one that goes down my street.  If I happen to be out front, I let people see the original foundation through the garage.  (My house was the fire line in the 1906 earthquake.  The houses to the north of mine burned completely.  My house only had damage to an upper corner.)  There are tours for architecture, food, nightlife, history and our wonderful murals.  What a silly staged for the show thing to offer a tour and end up in a bar. 

 

And his snarking on the size of the backyard was silly.  The house being shown had an addition put on it that extended it back, taking up the yard.  That was very common in SF, especially post-quake.  Any outdoor space is good.  There are other neighborhoods with yards. 

 

The Mission is really hot right now. Unless there is something really wrong with the place, houses are selling very quickly.  Any BS of how am I going to sell this is ridiculous.  It will sell quickly and high. 

 

Finally, none of these guys is a top realtor in SF.  Dammit, I was looking for major house porn, not the place around the corner.

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Great post Muffyn. I was kind of annoyed they modernized the house on the interior too.

It will sell quickly and high.

I'm assuming this episode was filmed a few months ago and Zillow still has the house listed for sale.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/376-San-Carlos-St-San-Francisco-CA-94110/15145698_zpid/

The story I've always heard from my Dad is the house he sold was basically a refugee shack moved to that location after the 1906 quake. It was (is) pretty small, but I'm sure it's the same size lot as the listed house.

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The hydraulic car lift in the garage is a nice touch, and the EV plug. Interesting choice of flooring that I'm not sure is everyone's taste. The bottom level is fitted out to be a separate apartment -- do these vaunted "tech buyers" need mother-in-law suites?

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Many of these homes were split into units a long time ago.  Because of the housing crunch in SF, the city will not approve plans to convert them back to a single family home.  My less than 1500 sq. ft. home is what we call a two flat; that is, each floor is it's own unit.  Most of the houses on my block are similarly split.  This one is different in that the house was fully lifted to put in the garage, leaving room for a basement unit.  My house has an undercut garage, so much of the basement is more of a tall crawl space.  You can see the floor plan on this listing: https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/376-San-Carlos-St-94110/home/1774081.  It seems there is an open house tomorrow.  I think I'll stop on by.  

 

As far as the change in the neighborhood, we started seeing more restaurants and music venues.  Rents were cheaper so it made it possible for people to open new places.  Also, the Mission had an active arts scene.  Younger people started coming just to hang out.  When the big tech companies on the peninsula started using buses to transport people to and from the city, this neighborhood really started to boom.  We now have many new restaurants; they are more and more high end.  We also have a lot of places with great drinks and mediocre food.  The small businesses and non-profits are being pushed out.  This was a working class Hispanic neighborhood.  You could always find a good meal for less than $7.  It's getting a lot harder to do that now. 

 

The house does seem to be prices high at $3.25 million.  Let''s see how it does.  

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Interesting choice of flooring that I'm not sure is everyone's taste.

I hope, hope the original hardwood floor was removed and salvaged for future use.

So many of my favorite mom/pop shops in SF have closed in the past few years due to high retail rents.

Edited by AnnieGirl
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Andrew lands a listing in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Bernal Heights, but quickly realizes that the buyers are having a hard time seeing the potential of the area. Meanwhile, Justin's property in the Mission is finally finished and ready to show, but the size of the backyard proves to be a difficult selling point. In Hayes Valley, Roh scores a listing by making promises that may be impossible to keep.

 

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I went to the open house.  The floors are really ugly.  I mean really ugly.  Such an odd choice for the area.  People kept discussing the garage/lift for the car.  Quite the topic of conversation.  It seems like they focused on high end appliances and that type of extra but did a poor job on some of basics.  The interior paint job is poorly done.  And all of the tile work and the counters show very sloppy grout work.  I'm not sure the tile setter understood what a right angle is.  There were two agents.  I didn't see Justin, although I may not have recognized him.  One of them seemed to expect to have someone recognize him.  No one mentioned the show when I was there.  

 

Also, this house would have been a two flat like mine.  They combined the two flats back into the main house.  The mother-in-law unit is odd.  It is basically a room plus a bedroom.  The kitchen portion of the main room is very large for such a small space.  They went with adding high end touches but did not think about usability.  If someone uses it for house guests, it's okay but weird.   If they want to rent it, given our market it will rent, but it is such strange space.  

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Interesting Muffyn. That explains why is hasn't sold. Photos look nice but sure sounds like the detail is terrible. I thought the same thing about the kitchen in the lower unit. Allows lots of extra storage but it seems way overkill. It's not like you are going to entertain in such a small space.

Edited because I keep picking the wrong slash for bolding, ha!

Edited by AnnieGirl
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I guess I hope the show has its fans, but this show just isn't doing it for me.

The realtors don't seem comfortable yet, but yet they all seem to be playing to the camera -- while being ill at ease.

Example: for me, the scene with Roh making his pitch to the developer to -- of course -- get the EXCLUSIVE penthouse listing....seems so "been there, done, that." Because -- of course -- it WAS...Roh said the same. old. tired. pitch. we've heard every. time. a MDL realtor wants and exclusive...only he was so uncomfortable it just came of as uetterly staged. I was almost as if I could see and hear producers saying, "No let's stop. you have to do it again." It was like he was remembering lines in a script....either that our they through him into this client set-up and was told to just wing it. Either way this show is just sad.

 

Also, sorry San Fran...you don't have the real estate p o r n to compare to NY or LA......or, if you do have it....we sure haven' seen it on this show (yet). And with out that, this show sucks.

 

ETA.....oh, yeah, and the negotiations are the same, too.

Client: "Let's pull the house off the market," or I want to up the price," or "you made promises I think I need a new agent if you can't deliver.

MLD Agent: "This is not what I was hoping for," or "I really need to come through on this sale, "Or I really need to get the buyer to come up," or "This is the biggest deal of my career," or I really want to work with this developer," or "We need to get top dollar," "This is going to be a challenge," or "I know I can make this sale work," or "I'm NOT sure I can make this sale work", or "I will work for you harder than anyone else," or "No one has my connections," or "No, no, no that price is to high," or "This is crazy the price is too low."

 

 

(Edited for typos.)

Edited by selhars
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