The Market
The human species in general has a very short-term memory. We will forget about ‘that time we weren’t allowed to be within 6 feet of each other.’
A recent uptick in the San Francisco market is showing properties with certain features: outdoor space, private patios, and roof decks are back to selling at a familiar pace: Less than a week on market.
An inflection point is nearing in the condominium market in San Francisco. Values can only drop for so long, or more appropriately said, the select group of buyers in the market could only retain their exclusivity for a certain period of time.
6 months into the pandemic, some obvious trends have become clear. Most notably, we are in an established Buyers Market for condos in San Francisco. Learn what that means for both buyers and homeowners trying to sell.
What if we've hit the peak? We’ve been accustomed to there being no such thing as the Top Of The Market in the Bay Area, California for a very long time. Desirability has been at an all-time high since the dot com boom, the quality of life in the Bay is better than most other parts of the country, and 18 of the world’s Fortune 500 companies have their HQ in the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), your individual situation will determine your eligibility, whether your monthly mortgage payment will be reduced or paused, and how long the relief will last.
One Mission Bay hit sales maturity in early 2019, with the majority of homes being sold by developer CIM. The building was an instant hit. The resort-style living is still hugely appealing to the young family and pied-a-terre ownership demographic in Mission Bay, featuring a pool deck, cabanas, and adjoined gym.
The landmark of luxury in SOMA had another stable year. Sales were down in 2019 with only 8, but the average sales price and $sq/ft remain as predictable as ever.
It is imperative that listing agents fight to retain pre-coronavirus values in all properties selling this month and next. All it takes is one listing to sell for 5-10% below BC value to set the trend of a devalued real estate market.
I wrote a piece in 2018 that questioned ORH’s value resilience in the face of new development swarming the local neighborhood. In 2019, One Rincon Hill answered all those questions. The building saw 19 sales averaging $1,545,118, which was roughly in line with the average sales price in 2018. Despite this, price per square foot jumped up nearly $150.
The Metropolitan was subjected to some difficult news at the turn of the new year: California’s statewide rental restriction policy AB 1482. Will rents be affected over time?
When the market is on fire and there are multiple offers on nearly every property, getting a ‘deal’ may mean getting your offer accepted at all. There are no gifts in this market.. the bright side of these rapidly appreciating values is that, from the time you get your offer accepted to when you close escrow, you may have already gained some equity.
Radiance saw 5 total sales in all of 2019. With 99 units in the building, this ~5% turnover rate is not unusual. Once a building hits maturity; when all original units are sold by the developer and the first wave of resale is well underway, it is standard to see a 5-10% turnover rate each year.
Madrone had a less-than-stellar year compared to its own typically superb standards. From studying the data of condo sales in 2019 it’s almost ironic that the sales prices were lowest during the months leading into Summer and the grand opening of Chase Center; September 8th, 2019, whereas after the opening toward the latter end of the year, the price per foot steadily increased again.
Arden had 9 sales in 2019. Each and every sale exceeded a $1.5M price point, something no other building in San Francisco has done (to my knowledge) in a single calendar year. The average sales price was $1,989,633, also an extravagantly high number. The simple takeaway: everyone loves Arden.
With the internet dictating how people find homes, there is a baseline amount of exposure the home will get simply by being on the market and the listing is published on the big sites buyers use to search for homes. But is it turning heads?
Mission Bay has seen extraordinary growth over the past decade, incomparable to anything San Francisco has likely ever seen before. The massive redevelopment that took place from 2005 to the present has seen thousands of new residents move to this coveted neighborhood.
The market in 2019 also wasn’t favorable to Infinity owners; IPO pay-days never saw cash flood the market as many experts predicted, and condo values across the board were virtually flat no tangible appreciation was seen in any building built prior to 2016. Those two factors alone made it challenging to sell homes in all local buildings, let alone a building facing an uphill battle to compete with local development.
The Watermark (501 Beale Street), a long-established waterfront icon on San Francisco’s Embarcadero, has had bad luck recently: a temporary navigation center has been established next to the building.
There are major companies being financed to attempt to swallow up the home buying and selling market-based solely on how much (or how little) they are charging. As margins for agent services become increasingly razor-thin, we’re seeing a trend in which agents don’t really care about clients - because they increasingly deal in volume. Thus, who is really winning in this situation?
January 2020 has been a predictable month in District 9. With 44 sales, we are on pace with a typical start of the year based on recent years of sales data. Experts are predicting the economy to remain mostly stable through the end of 2021 now, which will more than likely reflect transparent prices in the real estate market.
The Harrison showed continuous growth in 2019, increasing both gross sales price point as well as price per foot. The building itself reached a maturity point in 2019, where the remaining inventory available to be purchased off the plan from developer is all but sold-out.
LUMINA appreciated 5.5% per year from 2016 through 2019, a $245 per foot jump. Read more..
2019 was poised to be the year of the IPO, yet cash never flooded the real estate market as most experts predicted. Lyft, Uber, and Slack all stumbled, and WeWork, well, you know how that turned out. The ripple effects of struggling IPO's were seen in the real estate market in Q3 and Q4, with fewer transactions than initially expected.
What properties are about to hit the market in downtown San Francisco.
THE CROWD: diverse and funky
THE MUSIC: Motown and other oldies
DRESS: casual
AMBIANCE: dive bar meets disco club
November and December are typically slower months in Real Estate sales with the holidays, but November /19 in San Francisco saw some big domino’s fall.
Located at the top of the Proper Hotel in Lower Market, this lounge boasts incredible 360º views of San Francisco. You’ll also have a steady stream of smooth house and hip hop jams spun live in the corner and top-notch craft cocktails (the spicy margarita is a must!). Charmaine’s was an ideal place to transition from afternoon to evening.
Mission Bay is a cream of the crop success story in which cities around the country will study and try to emulate in their own expansion plans. The best part, Mission Bay isn’t done yet. The Mission Rock project is the final phase of Mission Bay’s master plan, breaking ground in 2020.
The Cliff House, San Francisco. The city’s most westerly point at Land’s End.