Can someone explain the legality of this listing? Home for sale with single address that comes with tenant
I viewed this house on a whim today, and found it very interesting, but there are a couple of things about it that are confusing to me. First of all, typical sale prices in this neighborhood are $1,100-$1,200 per square foot - this house is asking $760 per square foot. So I knew there had to be some sort of a catch. In person, the house was impressive, but viewers at the open house were not able to go down to the bottom level (levels?); there was a gate (not even a door) that explained that there was a tenant downstairs. Apparently the home comes with this tenant, and they are able to enter the home from a different entrance. But how is this possible, if there is only a single address being sold, not multiple units? And what would be the legality of someone buying the house, then having someone else living in it? There wasn't even a door to the downstairs unit, just a small, waist high gate - its like you're buying a house and getting a roommate with it. Seems very strange to me - maybe its the reason for the price. I also find it interesting that this is not explained in the zillow listing, but only in the printed materials that I picked up during the open house.
It also seemed extremely likely to me that the downstairs tenant was a caretaker for the previous owner who lived in the top two floors. So I'm thinking that maybe they could be grandfathered in to some extremely cheap (or even nonexistant) rent.
Zillow listing: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/601-Corbett-Ave-San-Francisco-CA-94114/15129898_zpid/