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Real Estate

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Austin, the retirement home for aging software companies Borland has found cheaper rents in Austin, Texas, a regulatory filing reveals. Cheaper rents, but costly obscurity. Had anyone even heard that the software maker had moved its headquarters from Cupertino? Or heard from the company, period?

4 comments

crime

San Francisco landlords Kip and Nicole Macy allegedly falsified emails to defame pesky tenant

New details have emerged in the landlord-tenant dispute featuring Palo Alto couple Kip Macy, a software engineer who's worked on FreeBSD, and wife Nicole Macy, a local realtor. Emails were purpotedly fabricated in the name of tenant Scott Morrow, even though he told prosecutors that he has no email account:
When a court ruled in Morrow's favor in the eviction case, a lawyer at the firm representing the Macys got an email purportedly from the tenant that read, "One day you are going to come home to the Victorian house ... and find (your three children) missing. Then each day a package will arrive with a piece of them. You are f- with the wrong person."
Now a city of renters has turned to Craigslist to exert their anger at the innocent-until-proven-guilty Nicole Macy.

5:20 PM on Mon Apr 28 2008
By Jackson West
1,399 views, 4 comments

Latest by Fidel on the Roof: That is so sleazy. It doesn't matter how much money someone has, if their heart is full of s__t, then it will be during good times and bad. What does their house look like on Google Maps? Anyone have an addy? more »

crime

FreeBSD developer Kip Macy arrested for tormenting tenants

Kip Macy, a software developer well-known in FreeBSD circles, purchased 744-746 Clementina in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood with his wife Nicole for $995,000 in 2005. The couple then moved to evict the tenants to replace them with renters who would pay more, which would be a violation of San Francisco rent-control laws and California's Ellis Act. Now they've been arrested after allegedly terrorizing residents who protested: More »

1:20 PM on Thu Apr 24 2008
By Jackson West
3,715 views, 14 comments

real estate

David Hayden's Pacific Heights manse for sale after foreclosure

Serial entrepreneurial failure David Hayden has had his home transfered to boutique bank Robertson Stephens under a Sheriff's deed — which means that the property was seized to pay debts. The transfer is so new, realtor Bernadette V. Lamothe hasn't even had time to have the place properly staged judging by interior photos. It's now for sale for a mere $14.9 million through Sotheby's. Prospective buyers won't just get an opulent home with fantastic views, but a piece of San Francisco history. More »

6:00 PM on Fri Apr 18 2008
By Jackson West
2,948 views, 3 comments

Latest by dagard: David wasn't a bad guy when I worked for him, but, yeah. A little... naive. Let's go with that. more »

real estate

Gurbaksh Chahal buys $6.9 million penthouse

BlueLithium founder Gurbaksh Chahal, who flipped his online-advertising startup to Yahoo for $300 million, recently purchased a penthouse suite at the Infinity on Rincon Hill for $6.9 million according to the San Francisco Business Times. I'm not exactly sure who SF Luxe's Damion Matthews is proclaiming confirmed bachelor Chahal most eligible for — my head is starting to hurt trying to parse exactly what Matthews means by "ladies." Can't get enough of the adorable egoist? His recently released self-promotional YouTube video after the jump. More »

10:20 AM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Jackson West
3,438 views, 6 comments

Latest by lawrence: this guy is creepy, in a michael jackson-like way more »

real estate

Eco ego-inflater now available at home

Have you already bored all your remaining friends with how many miles per gallon your Prius gets? San Francisco architect Michelle Kaufmann has the answer for you: prefab homes labeled with "sustainability facts" like CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and thermal conductivity. Be sure to note this at Mill Valley cocktail parties between swigs of your planet-killing plastic bottle of Fiji water.

9:20 AM on Fri Apr 11 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
1,186 views, 11 comments

real estate

Bay Area hit hard by mortgage foreclosures

While the whole country has been hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis, with sky-high housing costs the Valley and surrounding area have also felt the pain. How bad is it? HotPad's interactive heatmap of local foreclosures show eastern counties with more than one in 150 foreclosures. Surprisingly enough, there are few in San Francisco, but that probably has to do with most of the population renting — with rents going up, how about an eviction heat map? (Via Good Morning Silicon Valley)

7:00 PM on Tue Apr 8 2008
By Jackson West
1,610 views, 7 comments

Latest by Valleygrrl: check out www.socketsite.com for better commentary and analysis on the subject. more »

i hate it here

Great place for a startup: rents up 10.3 percent in San Francisco

The best advice you got from successful entrepreneur Patricia Handschiegel? "Don't spend." Good luck with that if you're living in San Francisco. Bootstrapping entrepreneurs and everyone else have to live somewhere and if its in the foggy city its getting yet more expensive for many. San Francisco rents increased 10.3 percent in 2007. According to Curbed, that's the highest rate increase in the country. Rents increased only 7.7 percent in 2006 and a mere 3.8 percent in 2005. Over 60 percent of San Franciscans rent, and it may be time to look into buying for those with savings — on the flip side, home prices fell. Remember the good old days before Google bought YouTube for $1.6 billion? (Photo by greencandy8888)

8:40 AM on Tue Apr 8 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
1,024 views, 9 comments

Latest by QADude: href="#c5086608">sample032: SJ isn't exactly land-locked. They don't have water on 3 sides. Well, they have it on one side - they could just annex Alviso. They actually have plenty of room - hell, they only put together a greenbelt a more »

real estate

RedEnvelope failure frees up SoMa space

The likely closure of troubled online retailer RedEnvelope has a benefit for space-hungry startups near its SoMa headquarters at 149 New Montgomery. Yelp and Slide are among the rapidly expanding companies in the neighborhood. I asked Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman if he was going to swoop in on the space. "I wish 'cause it looks like a cool building, but we recently added space at 706 Mission so I think we're locked in there for a while," he told me. No word from Slide CEO Max Levchin. RedEnvelope signed a five-year lease in July 2004, with a base rent of $51,332 a month for 28,000 square feet. (Photo by Google Street View)

1:40 PM on Fri Apr 4 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,035 views, 4 comments

Latest by w00zy33: Anyone know when the garage sale is going to be? I could use a new Aeron chair. more »

real estate

Fox Interactive's new Santa Monica digs: the Yahoo Center

When the reshuffled Yahoo Media Group in Santa Monica holds an all-hands on April 15, it's going to be awfully tempting for Adam Bain to send spies. He's the the head of Fox Interactive's new ad network and his unit moving into the "Yahoo Center," reports PaidContent. Talks over renaming the place are underway. We nominate: "Bill's place." (Photo by stevelyon)

9:00 AM on Fri Apr 4 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
778 views, 3 comments

real estate

In Cupertino did Steve Jobs a stately pleasure-dome decree

A miracle: Cupertino bureaucrats have managed to go two years without being verbally abused by perfectionist cult leader Steve Jobs over any and all modifications to his vision for a second Apple campus in the Valley suburb. In his surprise appearance before the local city council back then, Jobs threatened to locate the new offices in another sleepy South Bay burg. But no paperwork has been filed for planning or construction, according to Fortune. Maybe Jobs is still busy verbally abusing the architects.

5:00 PM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Jackson West
901 views, 9 comments

Latest by ThatKid: @raincoaster: In fact, that's how Apple works. Everyone goes home at 5. more »

real estate

VC starter home in Pacific Heights for sale

Benchmark Capital's second-generation VC Peter Fenton has put his San Francisco home on the market. The 2,621 square-foot, four-level, cedar-shingled manse has gorgeous bay views and is being offered for $5 million, just a little over the appraised value — though you'll have to spend to repair what's been done to the yard, picture here, what with the mirrors and blue running lights and open-flame outdoor heating elements. Why would the Stanford alum and triathlete be moving? I'm guessing he's hedging for a long-term investment in his latest venture, marriage.

6:00 AM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Jackson West
2,051 views, 4 comments

Latest by colintoal: I think Vincent Hanna said it best... more »

real estate

Larry Ellison dickers over tax bill, takes money from the children

Peninsula school districts will have less to spend on their evil government entitlement programs thanks to "Uncle Larry" Ellison. Lawyer William Bennett successfully lobbied San Mateo County officials on Ellison's behalf to slash the property tax assessment of the Oracle founder's sixteen-acre Woodside estate. Bennett argued that because the grounds have been styled after a village in Imperial Japan, they're worth much less than the $173 million assessed. Officials agreed that the property is unbelievably tacky, and lowered the assessment to $70 million. Ellison will receive a $3 million refund on previously levied taxes — costing school districts county-wide $1.4 million. More »

8:40 AM on Thu Mar 27 2008
By Jackson West
1,474 views, 8 comments

Latest by matto: Has the San Mateo county provided $173 million in services to Larry? $70 million? Have they even provided close to $1m? Fuck the bay area fifedoms and their property taxes. more »

josh quittner

Ex-Business 2.0 editor dumping Fortune for housing blog?

What is Josh Quittner, the former editor of Business 2.0, doing for his next act? Since September, he's had an unhappy career at Fortune, the Time Inc.-owned corporate sibling which took him and a few other refugees from the magazine in. He's been earning what we hear is a mid-six-figures salary playing Scrabulous, and then writing about it. (Actual quote from a recent column: "Clearly, I had too much time on my hands.") The latest I'd heard on Quittner, my former boss, was that he was leaving Fortune to return to Time, where he worked before joining Business 2.0, as its Marin County-based tech correspondent. But he may have another exit strategy in mind. in 2006, Quittner registered roofmagazine.com. More »

3:40 PM on Wed Mar 26 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,065 views, 6 comments

Latest by 26footjasontaylor: It's funny b/c Business 2.0 cheerled the housing boom even well after it had burst. In fact, their final issue was about "how to play the housing bounceback." [rangelife.typepad.com] more »

real estate

Billionaire Philippe Kahn moving into Santa Cruz trailer home

Entrepreneur Philippe Kahn, who made a fortune as Borland's founder and currently serves as CEO of Fullpower Technologies, is trailer trash. Okay, make that eco-trailer trash. He's had a 3,200 square foot home from Marmol Radziner trucked up in eight pieces from the Southland to his property in Santa Cruz. The ultra-modern, prefab manse comes complete with fixtures and appliances, and cost the yachting enthusiast somewhere between $300,000 and $1 million. Personally, I'd prefer one of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Automatic concrete block designs which can be built on-site from local materials, but hey, anything's better than living in a tent city these days. (Image by Santa Cruz Sentinel) More »

7:30 PM on Thu Mar 20 2008
By Jackson West
2,102 views, 10 comments

Latest by marciabling: he has 7 other homes...including a $15M one going up in belvedere.... more »

real estate

Google Street View won't show Google's new San Francisco digs

1,200 Googlers moved into their new office at 345 Spear Street San Francisco this week. We thought we'd use Google Maps Street View to show you what the place looks like, but the little yellow man won't go there. How embarrassing for him. Fortunately, Curbed SF will. Check out what $20 million can buy in four photos, below. More »

2:20 PM on Thu Mar 6 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
3,687 views, 7 comments

real estate

Giant middle finger in the sky gains human inhabitants

Locals are surprised when I tell them that One Rincon Hill, the 641-foot building jutting up like Barad-Dur over the Bay Bridge, is a residential building, not an office tower. "Who's going to live there?" Rincon Hill is walking distance from both SoMa and the Financial District, so it would seem to be an ideal vertical dormitory for San Francisco's tech startups. Frank Ng, an engineer at HP's Snapfish photo-sharing site, is one of the first to move into the still-unfinished building. He'll have a one-block commute, but realtors expect most of his neighbors will be distance drivers. San Francisco hipster startups don't pay One Rincon Hill mortgages. Googloids, Yahooans and Oraclers are the target market. That's one way to sell living above a freeway onramp as an amenity. (Photo by Curbed SF)

3:40 PM on Fri Feb 29 2008
By Owen Thomas
945 views, 6 comments

Latest by bluecat9: Just remember, there's a 2nd tower slated for construction. Even if it is only during the day, that sucker will be LOUD for at least a year. more »

real estate

Microsoft VP always has a hot seat

Microsoft executive Steve Berkowitz, head of the MSN online division, got his house featured in this month's 425 magazine, a fancy lifestyle magazine about Seattle's eastern suburbs. Want to live like a high-powered VP? Berkowitz's home has five bedrooms, a luxury spa bathroom with soaking tub, media room, large gourmet kitchen, wine cellar, and a stunning view. My favorite part? Berkowitz's wife Carol explains:
The tile around the tub and throughout the bathroom warms toes — and more. "He leaves his pants there," Carol said. "At first I thought he was just being lazy ... but he likes to warm his clothes."
Catch more pictures at 425. (Photos by Dane Meyer and Michael Walmsley for 425)

4:00 PM on Wed Feb 20 2008
By Jordan Golson
1,273 views, 5 comments

Latest by Dweezil: @ck209: Gourmet kitchen = kitchen that is never used. more »