San Francisco real estate is not for the faint of heart. When James and Zara Rowbotham first toured their new listing right next to Kite Hill in Eureka Valley, they were not deterred by the boarded up doors, tagged-over windows and hypodermic needles strewn along the walkway to the three-unit building, whose only residents the last five-plus years have been a rotating crew of squatters.
Instead, they clocked the panoramic views, prime location and approved entitlements to demo the existing 1908 structure and build three new 1,200-square-foot apartments. Vanguard agent Zara is the more experienced of the brother-sister duo, with 16 years mainly working on developer-focused listings. She felt justified asking $1.3 million — $150,000 more than what 121 Yukon St. sold for in 2021 when it was in run-down, but pre-squalor, condition.
That bottle of prescription pills on the living room carpet? Just added charm, joked James, a Compass agent who was, until two years ago, an Oakland cop. The poop bucket on the deck outside the top-floor solarium, mentioned in one of the numerous complaints from neighbors?…