Developed by JS Sullivan and completed in 2019, the one-bedroom unit #301 in the 42-unit building at 719 Larkin Street sold for $685,000 in September of 2019, establishing a building and neighborhood comp at $1,221 per square foot.
Featuring a contemporary floor plan and finishes, with an open kitchen, dining and living room combo, a walk-through closet, and a shared “rooftop retreat” (with a built-in grill and outdoor kitchen), the 561-square-foot condo has now returned to the market priced at “$498,888” or roughly $890 per square foot, an “at asking” sale at which would represent a net 27.2 percent drop in value for the contemporary unit “in the heart of San Francisco’s vibrant Little Saigon” over the past five years on an apples-to-apples basis.
And for those running the numbers at home, the H.O.A. dues for 719 Larkin #301 are currently running around $550 per month and the one-bedroom had been offered for rent at $2,495 per month prior to being listed on the MLS, with asking rents in San Francisco on the decline and the cost of capital having jumped.
I know of at least a couple of owners in that building that simply walked away form their units and mortgages in the last 3 years. Those were the lucky ones… It’s a nice building that bet on the area getting better… As we all know and see that part of town is only getting worse and it’s going to take a very long time to reach semi pre-pandemic levels of “vibrancy”
But we’ve been lectured by the intelligentsia that these properties are not losing value due to the decaying dangerous street scene but rather because of “Wall Street Speculators” and “Coder layoffs”
Exactly. The decaying dangerous street scene is also the cause of properties losing value in other notorious, drug-riddled war zones you may know, such as Hillsborough, Pacific Heights, Clarendon Heights, and the Marina. (>>**fishchum alert: this post is ironic**<<)
I believe you mean ***Sarcastic***
Picking nits in the absence of nits is a curious endeavor; the comment was ham-handed irony used in a sarcastic manner. If I’d said “irony alert,” you presumably would have told me I meant “sarcasm”?
Is the crawlspace in your head that I occupy roughly the same size as this unit?
Don’t flatter yourself. The alert worked: this time, you didn’t jump down my throat for claiming the Marina is a drug-riddled war zone, thereby saving you the embarrassment. You’re welcome. Baby steps, fc, baby steps.
Actually, it was about the Marina and Trump voters. But whatever helps you sleep at night, champ.
Last time, you jumped down my throat for obvious sarcasm. This time, you did not jump down my throat for similarly obvious sarcasm.
Now, if we can just get you to tone down the rancor a little and save yourself from further embarrassment (which none of us wants to see), we can get back to the business of enumerating the unique, in situ defects responsible for the cascading price reductions of ad hoc properties, or, just possibly, even trying to figure out the mysterious, unknowable macro reasons behind the city’s (and the state’s, and the country’s,) real estate slump as a whole.
Relax, everyone. I view this type of exchanges as “displaced hostility”, in which one’s frustration with their own personal life causes acrimony toward strangers. And, one must first like themselves to enjoy the company of others. So, instead of trying to prove how smart one is in comparison to others, better to identify your own issues and correct what is making you unhappy. Then the rest of us can avoid learning too much about you (rather than the local real estate market).
1. Interest rates double from 2019/2020.
2. Migration out of the city and population loss 2020-now. 2010 to 2020 ish had significant growth of SF population.
3. Demographics of aging millennials, don’t need 1BR condo, want suburban 3/2 with reasonable schools.
4. SF specific problems. We all know these.
5. Supply and demand , plus market mindset. Not pretty shall we say.
6. SF and California has 170 years plus of boom and bust cycles. Greed and fear. Hard to estimate the peaks and troughs. Thoughts? Need lower rates, increasing population and demand.
IMO the dominating factor that depresses this place is the deathcamp reenactment / doomsday rampage in the streets. This will not change until the City changes her MO of perpetuating rent seeking departments and non-profits. The current downturn and contraction in tax income might turn out a good thing, highlighting how they need to cut the nonsense (to the tune of hundreds of millions p.a.)
Well, you left out one key thing in your six item list: 2020 was the onset of the pandemic and it opened people’s eyes to the existence of possibilities other than overpaying for housing.
People who have jobs allowing them to purchase one bedroom condos at $1,221 per ft², largely white collar workers, began leaving en masse because if you’re going to be working from home, why not work remotely and from someplace where housing is substantially less expensive? Especially when the amenities of The City (e.g., restaurants such as Turtle Tower) were increasingly not available.
Some folks, many of whom are among the real estate agents, developers, and other hangers-on who have been trying to make their fortune in the S.F. real estate “game”, will identify the cause for the decrease in sales prices to “decaying dangerous street scene”, but not say anything about how the cost of housing, which was unaffordable to many locals even in 2019, was a major driving force for the exodus of residents. Because then that would mean assigning some responsibility to themselves, and they can’t admit they are part of the problem.
Since you mention Turtle Tower, I have to add that the owner got fed up with street conditions – she was assaulted in her own restaurant after all! – shut down and sold the building to the city last year. In what was once a thriving retail business, the city tried to sneak a homeless drop-in center. Only after neighborhood businesses and residents got wind of this and pushed back hard, that plan is now, if not cancelled entirely, “on indefinite pause” as the city scrambles in search of a “better use” for the building. Lots of bitter pills being swallowed in this much benighted ‘hood.
7. The floor plan sucks.
How’s that side alley Olive St? Has that become dumping ground?
Great job putting a toilet within a few feet of the kitchen. Will make every dinner party memorable.
It’s 561 sq.ft., what kind of dinner party do you think is going to be there?
The building amenities include a “Roof Deck Dining and Lounge Area with…BBQ and Wet Bar”, which I’d imagine any owner would strongly prefer to use to host hypothetical dinner parties with more than a couple of guests.