This is totally insane. The structures of that first home should go for 25k. The land on which it sits regarding the locale for perhaps 75k.100k max for this shit. I would buy it, pillar that home abd build a commercial prison according to the principle of just-in-time supply chain management.
I am not familiar, I just took a glance at Google maps and for me it's just another banale American illusion that is sold to some newly rich who have no sense of monetary value. Even calling that remodeled bathroom "nice" as the author in the article did tells you everything about the average sense of beauty over there. I am much rather interested in seeing who bid for this crap.
Rockridge shares a border with Berkeley and College Avenue is a top shelf high street with a good mix of restaurants, coffee shops, avant-garde retail shops and most importantly a BART station. Besides Rockridge is probably much more affordable than buying in Piedmont, Oakland Hills or Montclair.
I'd put it right back up for sale.... (like tomorrow) ...... for $935K. And give it two months before I did what I originally bought it for in the first place.
So, even if you bulldoze the entire place and build a new home there it might take 3 weeks before it will be broken into. A nice home in that neighborhood looks completely out of place. How that neighborhood looks like reminds me exactly of my impression I got of Columbus OH, not today but 20 years ago. Run down, crappy houses, an attempt at reviving the neighborhood but kind of stuck in the attempt.
If you own a similar house in the area and someone offer you 3/4 million would you sell? Now if all the oldtimers sold, the area go through gentrification and double in value. It's happening to many city cores. Look at Manhattan, San Francisco, Vancouver and Toronto for example. That shack in Vancouver would be 1.7 million, may be more. Here's an example from Vancouver suburb ; https://www.rew.ca/properties/R2146...ver-bc?property_browse=kitsilano-vancouver-bc