How much will buyers pay for a Bay Area home that teeters on the edge? This property is going for $850,000

A spacious, four-bedroom Bay Area home listed for sale at $850,000 seems like a bargain in a neighborhood where homes go for more than $1.5 million. But there’s a catch, and it’s “not for the faint of heart,” the seller’s agent says.

The home in Lafayette, Calif., is teetering perilously on a hillside that partially collapsed during a landslide in February, wiping out the backyard, said the home’s listing agent, Valerie Crowell.

Any buyer who can see the potential and is willing to fork over the cash will have their hands full, because the one-story home is red-tagged — meaning it has been determined to be uninhabitable.

Crowell was upfront about the state of the Chapel Drive property in her description on the real estate website Redfin: The “Grand home on a quiet cul-de-sac has met misfortune.”

“Do the hard work and benefit from a incredible view of Mt. Diablo,” the listing reads. “Home is priced to reflect the cost of repairs. Will you be the one to restore this majestic home to it's prior glory? Nice flowing floor plan.”

The home may be a deal for the Bay Area, where affordable real estate is hard to come by. The average Bay Area home runs between $895,000 and $899,000, according to the California Assn. of Realtors’ latest price report.

The home is one of three properties that were damaged by heavy rains this winter, she said. The backyard of a neighboring home also crumbled amid the storms, but that homeowner is rebuilding the hillside.

Crowell said the optics of the listed home are not ideal, but it has garnered at least one offer, as well as some interest from engineers who “are just licking their chops.” “They love that stuff,” she said.

Since Crowell posted the listing last week, she said she has been fielding three to four calls a day from prospective buyers. That’s down from the five to six calls a day she had been getting.

She thinks the description of the Contra Costa County home might dissuade buyers.

But that’s OK, Crowell said, because she is looking for serious buyers who will use some “imagination and creativity” to turn the 2,385-square-foot home and crumbling hillside into a fortress.

Built in 1961, the home is nestled on a half-acre lot that offers a clear and direct view of Mt. Diablo, a popular 3,849-foot summit east of San Francisco.

Crowell’s clients purchased the home in 1968 and raised their children there. They were forced to move out after the home was damaged and deemed unsafe.

The husband and wife, who are in the 90s, had planned to “live in the home for the rest of their lives,” she said.

“This is a really nice family that something happened to, and we are just trying to do the best thing for them,” Crowell said.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA

ALSO

What $1.5 million buys right now in Oxford Triangle, Redondo Beach and Westchester

Q&A: Is the real estate market about to crash? No way, says this CEO — and here's why

New gated enclave to rise in Malibu after $50-million land deal