Purchased for $550,000 in November 2006, the market rate resale of the 1,063 square foot two-bedroom #2305 at Candlestick Point (101 Crescent Way) closed escrow yesterday with a reported contract price of $374,900 ($353 per square foot).
Last asking $399,945, the listing for the 1,063 square foot two-bedroom “Below Market Rate” (BMR) unit #2213 at Candlestick Point was withdrawn from the market in March.
This should help elucidate why the market-rate component at Hunters View (“expected to be priced around $425 per square foot”) has been delayed, and of course why the purchasing rules for some new BMR units in San Francisco are being relaxed.
I do not see how relaxing the purchasing rules is going to help. Exactly how does increasing the number of people “allowed” to pay more for a BMR then a MR unit help? As long as the market rate units are selling for less then the BMR units, the BMR’s won’t sell. They need to lower the price so the B will once again stand for “BELOW”.
This is truly poetic justice to the governerds who insist on interfering with the free market for housing. So from local city gov (who run the BMR fiefdom) all the way to fed programs like the federal housing authority, all have consistently, and sometimes royally, screwed up. Can we just give up this stupidity folks? Socialist programs designed to compete with the free market are so OVER! (note: I am not opposed to the myriad of non profits, half way houses, etc. But setting up programs to compete with the free market almost never work, certainly not for very long.)
get rid of BMR housing. rent control and prop 13 should also be canned.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I’ve long thought that this housing downturn would last a long time, and haven’t changed my view on this. Just under 2 more years to go according to my original predictions back in 2007.
Distressed properties continue to be a large part of the national RE market, and also of the Bay Area (although much less in SF proper). Many analysts expect the flood of distressed properties to continue and even increase in coming months.
as many of you recall, we had the subprime wave of resets/recasts/defaults, and then a lull, and now we are starting the 2 year Option ARM pain. also, now some of the banks are suggesting that they will ramp up their REO sales.
there are unconfirmed reports of hordes of distressed properties coming to market this year… lets see if that comes true. If so, it will be hard for the BMR units to compete.
Non-BMR units will also have a hard time competing, but they seem to have more flexibility to lower their asking prices.
Exsfer- I think for SF it’s more like a housing sideturn since mid-late 2009 (as opposed to downturn). I expect prices to more or less remain flat in the city 2010-11. Overall SF is doing a lot better than many other places, and unless you brought retail at peak and have to sell, most will hang on and do alright in the long run. The long run. Song by the Eagles. A California-esque band, hey!
One thing that might explain the slightly higher BMR prices: in many cases SF provides substantial downpayment assistance to BMR buyers so even if it’s priced 10k more, if your getting 50k (or more) of downpayment assistance (plus substantial deferred payment silent seconds that are forgiven in 10 or 15 years if terms are met) then it could make a lot of sense for the buyer.
Well there are programs that provide downpayment assistance and silent seconds to buy market rate housing, so really doesn’t make that much sense to pay more for a BMR place just because of those incentives. There are many different programs through the MOH, some apply to BMR’s and some to MR’s. But I do believe they are out of funds at the moment for all but a few programs. Also there are currently no listings for resales on the MR units that qualify for the city 2nd loan program.