The sugar saturation began Saturday night at the Champagne and Chocolate party.

Picture this. I’ll have to draw you an imaginary picture because this silly girl forgot her camera (bad blogger!).

An eight foot round table covered in trays of chocolate.

A platter of chocolate covered raspberries and one of chocolate macadamia nuts.

Honey-comb covered chocolate. Chili-chocolate peanut bark.

The list goes on. And on. My all time fave was the dark chocolate truffle fudge. Oh my. *swoon*

I woke up a little fuzzy headed and I blame the chocolate. Not the glasses of champagne. But I could be wrong.

Sunday was my family Christmas get-together brunch. Loads of yummy food and I may have sampled the peanut brittle we gave Uncle Dan (thanks Dan!)

I’m going to fast this week. Honest. (well, maybe not but it sounds like a good idea)

I did do a little pro-active damage control and embarked an exploratory run through the city. I left the safety of my Noe Valley/Glenn Park loop and headed over to Bernal Heights. It was cold and windy and I was under-dressed so it maybe wasn’t quite as fun as it could have been.

On the horse front Now Voyager was doing so much better but he had new shoes put on and the process re-irritated something. Poor baby. I’m packing his hoof with Magic Comfort and may need to lock him up in the stall again. We’ll see how he’s going tomorrow. One day at a time.

Hope you all had a great weekend and thanks for all the house name suggestions!

Travel / Escapes
Seeing San Francisco From a Different Angle
By NAN K. CHASE
Published: November 27, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — As fires raged downtown after the 1906 earthquake, residents of this city fled to two nearby districts to the south, Bernal Heights and Glen Park. Though part of San Francisco, both areas looked more like countryside then, with open ranchland, vineyards and orchards, dirt roads and wetlands, and a few houses.

Seeing San Francisco from a Different Angle

please come to Bernal Yoga for the

opening of

interlude : actuate

new mixed media works by Faern…

November 21, 7pm

snacks and stuff…

looking forward to seeing you!

some more info here ;

http://faern-in-the-works.com/interlude-actuate/

A couple of listings hit the market during the past few days that got us feeling blue.  Here, have a look:

115 Nevada in Bernal Heights

115 Nevada is a cute little 1940’s home located in Bernal Heights.  The 2 bedroom, 2 bath home is listed at $799,000.  We’re partial to the paint job, which reminds us of the house in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  Throw in a few Ionic columns, marble statues, and a fountain, and let the bids roll in!

The actual house from My Big Fat Greek Wedding (note the blue and white Greek paint job-- classic!)

Our next blue home belongs to a condo at 1170 Sacramento in Nob Hill.  Somewhere on the 14th floor, you’ll find miles of blue carpet leading up to rock star views of the city skyline and bay.  The 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath home has nearly 2,000 square feet of living space and is listed at $2.38 mil.  If you can stomach the $2,704 monthly HOA dues and the electrified carpet, this may just be the place for you!

See, we weren't kidding... miles of blue carpet.*

Hey look, you can even see where the furniture is supposed to go!

It's electric... boogie woogie oogie

Carpet can be changed, but this kick a** view will not

Wow, not feeling blue anymore...

*Yes, we know that’s a mirror back there.

For articles about other Public Listings, click HERE.

On Saturday, 18 July, we will meet at high noon at the Martha & Bros. café at 745 Cortland (cross-street Ellsworth) and embark on a photostroll in lovely Bernal Heights!  We have some public transit suggestions, thanks to Art and David:

Via BART, get off at the 24th Street station and walk 1 mile uphill (15-20 minutes) or take the 67 Bernal Heights bus to Folsom Street and Cortland, then walk 2 blocks west to the café.  Please note that this option will require separate fares for BART and Muni.

Via Muni, take the K, L, or M to Castro station and transfer to an outbound 24 Divisadero bus, which stops at the corner of Cortland and Ellsworth. You may also take the J to 30th Street and Church, then an outbound 24 Divisadero.  Alternately, at the Embarcadero station, take the T south to 3rd Street and Palou, then transfer to an inbound 24 Divisadero bus. If you are coming from the Park or thereabouts, take the 28 19th Avenue bus south to 19th Avenue and Sloat, where you will pick up the 23 Monterey bus east to Crescent and Ellsworth, and walk 4 blocks north to Cortland.

Hope to see you there!

Map | RSVP at Upcoming

[Photo credit: jackfrench]

Met Kate and Nick (oh, and Fozzy) at their house in Bernal Heights on Saturday, and went on a little adventure. Lots of fun, love, and laughter. Spending the day with them was a total blast. Here are some pictures. Enjoy!

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Carl Nolte has written today about a project in which Bernal Heights residents have taken content about their neighborhood from the San Francisco City Directories of 1907, 1915, 1922 and the 1933 city phone directory, and posted it on the Bernal History Project website. This is the first instance of which I’m aware in which this content is being provided in an online format – previously it was available only in print and microform at repositories such as the Magazine & Newspapers Center of the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. While increasing accessibility, this project also highlights some of the challenges involved in designing a content delivery system. In this instance, the online content exists in the format of PDF documents that are organized by year and street name. While a researcher is able to do a full-text search within a single PDF, there isn’t a search capability to allow searches across PDF documents. That more robust kind of searching would have been possible if the content had been input into an online database built using FileMaker Pro. In spite of this limitation, however, the project represents a considerable improvement in access.

For any San Francisco resident interested in researching the construction or former residents of their home, the San Francisco History Center has created a website entitled How to Research Your San Francisco Building.

Within about a week of coming on the market at $750,000 in March, 76 Montcalm in Bernal Heights garnered a whopping eight offers. This was the 2BR/1.5BA with one of the bedrooms accessed via a ladder.

Well, apparently our real estate market is not in dire shape, as eight potential buyers stepped forward for a shot at living in Montcalm. Only one walked away, to the tune of an $810,000 selling price.

Reportedly attracting 200 visitors at last Sunday’s open house, 76 Montcalm on Bernal Heights’ east slope has spent the past few days charming the masses with its modern-yet-quirky layout, views, and, most importantly, $750,000 list price.

The only issue I had with Montcalm was the fact that there’s only one easily accessible bedroom. The second bedroom is not for the vertigo challenged. You can only reach it via a steep ladder that extends from the main bedroom. (The staircase pictured above leads to what’s been deemed a “meditation” space.) So you’re essentially looking at a one-bedroom home with a few additional “spaces” that could be used as an office, hiding place, or bedroom. My guess is that the house will be purchased by a very young couple that’s not concerned about sore knees or a practical floor plan at this point in their lives.

Bernal Heights is a fantastic neighborhood.  It has an eclectic mix of homes, flavors, and views.  Spend some time there and you’ll find that Bernal grows on you more and more.  Single family homes make up the bulk of Bernal’s inventory.  They run the gamut from small and affordable to artsy, luxurious, and even risqué.  That’s why we’ve taken the opportunity to do a floor, median, and ceiling comparison for the ‘hood.

We tracked the minimum sale, median sale, and maximum sale over a 14 year period (dating back to 1995).  2008 was the last full year of data we have, so the analysis stops there.  We considered including an incomplete 2009, but there have only been 7 sales thus far… not very telling as how the year will shape up.  This is the first analysis we’ve done on our blog of this sort, so we’re still pondering the things that can be learned from this information.  Here is the chart and some initial thoughts:

Floor to ceiling in Bernal Heights (click to enlarge)

• First and foremost, all figures were adjusted for inflation.  This controls for the changing value of the dollar over time and gives us a more accurate view of market behavior
• The floor shows four peaks in our analysis, with the highest one occurring in 2005.
• The ceiling shows four peaks, the highest one occurring last year in 2008.
• It appears that the ceiling peaks lag the floor peaks a little.  Maybe this is our mind playing tricks on us because we’ve seen this trend in other analyses.  It very well could be another indication of the high end lagging the low end in any given market.
• The median shows 2008 prices ended up just a little lower than 2004’s posting.  This is great news for people buying in the neighborhood — not so great for those selling.
• Interestingly, the floor showed an uptick in 2008.  We’ll follow this to see how it takes shape in 2009.
• The ceiling broke new barriers in 2008 with the sale of 306 Mullen Avenue, an architectural gem that busted all the comps for the neighborhood.

Final Thoughts:

This analysis was a bit of an experiment.  We’re putting an awful lot of stock in those high and low sales painting some type of picture of the marketplace.  For all we know the floor and ceiling could be completely useless, unless of course you are remodeling your home.  We intend to take this analysis to other neighborhoods in the near future to further develop our opinion of its merit.

For now, the floors and ceilings may not serve so well in trending as they do simply by giving us a spread.  We’ve seen the gap between the lowest sale and the highest sale increase over time in Bernal Heights.  The gap itself may just be the interesting info we’re looking for in all of this.  We’re now eager to find out how polarized different neighborhoods around the City are, and why.

Oh, and for those of you curious about the comp buster at 306 Mullen, here are some pics:

For more articles analyzing San Francisco’s neighborhoods, click HERE.

If Bernal Heights were still how it was 20 years ago, we might be seeing a needle exchange here. Or if it were closer to the Financial District we might find a stock exchange. Today, though, this sweet neighborhood – my first when I moved to San Francisco in 1995, and which I still want to call “home” – is host to the Bernal Heights Sock Exchange, and it’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect here.

Next time you’re looking for that missing sock – or have a few to offer – head on over to the Bernal Bubbles laundromat on the south end of the Cortland Avenue main drag. You just might have some luck!

Bernal Heights and Glen Park exhibit some very similar characteristics.  We wanted to share with you how each neighborhood has performed over time, and thought the best way to do it would be a good old fashioned showdown.

Bernal and Glen Park, it's time to reveal those cards

The first chart we’re looking at shows median prices for single family homes, trending over the last 14 years.  Here’s a peek:

Median Values for Single Family Homes (click to enlarge)

Looks like both neighborhoods are in a bit of a dip this year from last, and at or near their 2005 levels.  Over the long term we see good growth.  Glen Park seemed to be more affected by the dot com crash.  Perhaps this means more techie commuters lived in the area, as it is a bit further south.  Glen Park is consistently priced higher than Bernal.  We believe the reason is that Bernal is a larger neighborhood, encapsulating many different scenes within.  Glen Park is smaller, more quaint, and more consistent.

How about those appreciation rates and hold times?

Appreciation and Hold Times (click to enlarge)

Bernal appears to have been hit first by the downturn.  Both are down from last year, but Glen Park is showing nice 3-year appreciation trends.  Both are solid in the long term, and Bernal starts to win out percentage-wise the further back you go into our 13 year analysis.

Results of the Showdown?  We’d have to say that Glen Park wins this hand, but not by much.  We’re putting them as the winner due to their nice 5 and 7 years numbers, which is more in line with the duration of typical home-ownership.

And the winner is... Glen Park by TKO!

For similar articles, click HERE.

Here in Bernal Heights, a high concentration of Latinos and a history of lefty politics can only mean one thing: murals! Naturally, they cluster on the walls of schoolyards and other public areas where children can be exposed to the thriving, pre-literate tradition of pictographic pedagogy. Here is a nice one from some elementary school or some shit where you can hear a lot of screaming during the day:

San Francisco. November 2008.

Since it doesn’t seem to be about Oz, I can only conclude that it’s the dead who are in sepia. A closer look bears this out. Estelle Getty is depicted as Sophia Petrillo.

San Francisco. November 2008.

There she is, clutching the pickax with which she would be ultimately be murdered on July 25, 2008 after a long struggle with it. Hopefully, she and Sal are having manicotti at the early-bird in that big Shady Pines in the sky. I have never been so upset with a celebrity death.

Thank you for being a mural!