A century-old single-family home in San Francisco listing for less than $500,000 has drawn a media stampede over the condition that a buyer may not move in until 2053.
The backstory: behind the bargain is a tale of a family at war over money and property rights for the 1,100-square-foot home at 30 North View Court in Russian Hill, the San Francisco Standard reported.
A spotlight was shown last week on the mysterious home valued at $1.8 million — and listed for $488,000.
The single-family home is an “investment opportunity for just the right buyer,” according to the listing by Park North Real Estate. It said the property is tenant-occupied and will be sold as-is.
And that a buyer might not be able to change the locks until 2053.
The listing went on to explain that an unidentified tenant had “protection class status” under city rent laws, and would pay $416.67 monthly rent for the next 29 years.
The other disclaimer: the real estate broker couldn’t “guarantee access” to the powder blue, three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a red tile roof, blue front door and single-car garage. The Edwardian house, built in 1924, has a driveway and a fenced-in backyard.
The Standard revealed the tenant as Sandra Lee, 83, along with her 66-year-old daughter, Cheryl Lee. The sale comes amid a rancid relationship with her son, Todd Lee, owner of the home, who listed the house as-is — meaning whoever buys the home will be his mother’s landlord.
Sandra’s parents, Florence and Kenneth Goo, bought the house in the 1970s for $52,000 and lived there until they died in 2006 and 2018.
“We had a large family,” Sandra Lee told the Standard. “Now we’re destroyed.”
If she had it her way, she said, the home would not be for sale.
Sandra Lee accused her son, Todd Lee, and her brother, Cedric Goo, of taking advantage of her and her daughter, commandeering her adopted stepfather’s trust, fabricating lawyer fees and listing the home for sale while she lives in it.
Todd Lee and Cedric Good did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the newspaper.
Through a lease that she said was written in secret by her stepfather, Kenneth, in 2018, Sandra is granted long-term rent rate restrictions at $416.67, in addition to paying her own utilities until 2053.
“If it wasn’t for the lease that [my son] didn’t know about that was made in 2018, I don’t know where we’d be,” she said. “It’s unfathomable, the deception, the betrayal — this is my son doing this to me.”
— Dana Bartholomew
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