Listed for $539,000 in late 2008, the list price for Arterra (300 Berry) #417 was increased to $579,000 last August. Reduced and last asking $459,000, the sale of the 660 square foot one-bedroom closed escrow today with a reported contract price of $415,000 ($629 per square foot).
Industry reports will reflect a sale at 10 percent under asking. They won’t reflect the 23 percent drop from original list or 2008 expectations ($817 per square foot).
Four To Go At Arterra (300 Berry) At Up To 33 Percent Off [SocketSite]

37 thoughts on “415 For 417 At 300 Berry (Arterra)”
  1. If I recall correctly, this unit does not include the deeded parking space which most others have. When I first started property hunting in SF, I was surprised by how much this affected the potential pool of buyers (even in this neighborhood, which is very good for public tranportation).

  2. Interesting… I dont think there is anything left in the Arterra, aside from two penthouses. The 2/1 they advertised went into contract this weekend.

  3. PS: I wish that SocketSite would be this story in context by listing the last 6 or so sales at Arterra, which I think would show a price higher than $629psft (which I think is high, especially for a unit that may not have parking).

  4. I saw a 660 sq ft 1BR(w/pkg) on the 9th floor that they had a few weeks ago.
    They didn’t even have a set price for it. The sales lady said 530k would get it done she said someone offered 500k and they countered at 510k, but that was too high for the customer and it fell through.
    So, either they really closed out the last few units, or 5 floors and a parking spot cost $93k+.

  5. Arterra is sold out. The last 15th and 16th (top floor) 2 beds were amazing values. Sometimes it pays to hold out until the bitter end.
    This was a 4 year sell out, the longest in new construction in SF that I can remember.

  6. Historically, units without parking have sold faster than units [with] parking in SF. This was stastically demonstrated statisically by at least one study in the 90s done by UC Berkeley researchers. The main factor here is price. So, contrary to popular mythology, not having parking increases the potential buyer pool, because lower prices by definition increases the buyer pool. Parking adds anywhere from $30-100K to the price of a unit, which is very significant at the lower of end of the unit price spectrum. As a rule, if you’re looking to buy a place that comes with parking you always have to deduct $50K on average (more in the denser parts of the central city) from the purchase price to see what you’re really paying per square foot for the purpose of comapring apples to apples. I constantly find it shocking when people think that parking is somehow a free bundled bonus amenity in the cost of a purchase price (i.e. that it’s somehow a better deal to get a $650K unit with parking than a $600K unit without parking), as if they weren’t paying directly for the luxury. The City is rightly moving in the direction of requiring that parking in all new buildings to be “unbundled” and sold as a separate addition to the purchase/lease cost of housing. That way prospective buyers/renters can see the costs that they’re paying and make more conscious decisions to take on that expense and to create more of free market for parking, not to mention ensuring that the 30% of SF households without cars aren’t forced to buy/rent parking spaces they don’t want, which often happens. Plus, as I mentioned, at the lower end lots more people can qualify for homes if the price is $50K less.

  7. I think I mentioned recently that a friend of a friend made a lowball offer at Arterra several months ago, and they accepted. Don’t know the details beyond that, though. In any case, this sale doesn’t surprise me.
    I believe I saw this unit #417 last April. If I’m not mistaken, it was the 1BR “townhouse” with two floors. The floorplan was horrible, with the kitchen and main living area on the entry level, and the bedroom downstairs. I thought it was a poor use of 660 sqft. Of course, I just might be thinking of another unit.
    So, either they really closed out the last few units, or 5 floors and a parking spot cost $93k+.
    This doesn’t surprise me, as the street parking in Mission Bay north is horrible. A while back at 829 Folsom, they were asking a $69K premium to include an assigned (not deeded) parking space. Plus, five floors can make a huge difference when comparing 4th vs 9th floors.

  8. “This was a 4 year sell out, the longest in new construction in SF that I can remember.”
    Yeah, it was funny when the sales lady was talking about how they came on the market in 2008.
    Does anyone actually know if this particular unit had parking or not?

  9. I somewhat liked arterra when I fist went there and got the tour about 2 years ago, I almost laughed out loud when the sales agent at the end said and you will be pleased to hear this is a smoke free building. Yes I’m a smoker, and so are 20% of adult americans. I think this rule is crazy as for resale that rules out a huge amount of potential buyers. People need to understand that even Doctors, CEO’s and other professionals sometimes have bad habits. Also I read that in bad economic times people pften take up the smoking.
    Also it seems crazy to buy there when the Beacon even with all its faults is so much cheaper. High HOA’s yes but closer to Muni above a safeway and better ammenties granted one is paying dearly for them.

  10. Not the best of the Berry Street condos in terms of location. You’re essentially at the base of the 280. I prefer 235 Berry…Arterra is the Rincon Hill equivalent of ORH in that respect.
    A two level one bedroom would be really interesting though…

  11. “This was a 4 year sell out, the longest in new construction in SF that I can remember.”
    For bigger projects I am not surprised to see the sales office open 12 months before the first move-in and stay open 18-24 months after the first move in…
    But wait and see how long the Millenium tower is going to take….5+ years?

  12. I think one rincon hill will beat all records as longest selling new construction, I mean they haven’t even started tower two yet and correct me if I’m wrong have they even a plan start date ?? The One Rincon I think had to have the worse sales team, they were way to expensive even when the whole world was talking about real estate doom. I like the building in many ways but it so needs the second tower. When I went there 2 years ago the sales girl treated me like I was ruining her days plans when I asked to view a few 1/1 condos !!

  13. This is not a townhouse unit. It’s in the mid-rise wing that fronts the 280 ramp. It could be on the ramp side, in which case it’s pretty low in relation to the road. Or, it could be on the courtyard side. In which case it would have a small encosed patio in the courtyard.
    TCO and first occupancy were in July of ’07. At that time about 50% of the units were pre-sold. This translated into about 40% closings. The remaining 60% have been sold in the 20 month interim.
    This is not a no smoking building. There is no smoking in the public areas and I’m not sure how the HOA’s read regarding smoking on your balcony or patio. But, you can smoke in your unit.

  14. @OneEyedMan you sound confident about the building allowing smoking, I’m only telling you what I was told when I went there, they told me that you could not smoke in your condo or anywhere on the property, I’m just saying what I was told. Maybe the changed this it has been two years or maybe the sales person was just a very anti smoking type person.

  15. Well if the no smoking policy also included no “medicinal” smoking that that would likely rule out a lot more than 20% of SF residents.

  16. Smoking is technically allowed in the individual units but not in the common areas, although some more anal residents have sent out snarky emails regarding people smoking in their units.

  17. “not having parking increases the potential buyer pool, because lower prices by definition increases the buyer pool”
    LOL. Another Socketsite post from a high school kid texting while on the bus ride home (i.e., no one who can sell RE for a living would quote a 15-year old Berkeley study to make a point). Ask Alain Pinel about their listing in Glassworks that has no parking in the building to start your own research. Selling a condo without parking in this area takes triple the effort even with credits for parking fees thrown in. (And who do you know who was “forced” to buy a parking space in this area — are you seeing spaces sitting empty somewhere in the SOMA/Mission Bay developments?)

  18. ^^^ The difficulty of selling a unit has nothing to do with parking or not but rather how realistic the seller is about the actual value. It sounds like the seller of that glassworks unit has their price too high.
    intheknow does however have a good point that because parking has value, units without parking have lower value and therefore are reachable by a wider market.
    … assuming that the seller adjusts their expectations according to the actual value of their unit.

  19. Most people who are in the market to buy a condo in SF want at least one parking space. Ask anyone who’s bought or sold more than their personal residence.

  20. This is not a townhouse unit. It’s in the mid-rise wing that fronts the 280 ramp. It could be on the ramp side, in which case it’s pretty low in relation to the road.
    @OneEyedMan:
    Actually, this is a townhouse unit. I just dug up the price sheet as of Dec 4, 2009, and it lists Unit #417 as having floorplan TH7 (TH=townhome). The two-floor 1BR floorplan can be seen here:
    http://www.arterrasf.com/pdf/City_Townhome_7.pdf

  21. There is a limit to how much I’d pay for a space.
    When you are paying $30k+ for a space, $20k-$40k for a car, insurance, maintenance, and registration, personal limo service starts to look cheap by comparison, unless you drive every day.

  22. Reduced and last asking $459,000, the sale of the 660 square foot one-bedroom closed escrow today with a reported contract price of $415,000 ($629 per square foot).
    @Socketsite:
    According to the price sheet I mentioned in my previous post (dated Dec 4, 2009), Unit #417 was one of many Featured Homes, with an asking price of $415,000. It was also listed on the MLS at that price since Nov 18, 2009, according to redfin:
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/300-Berry-St-94158/unit-417/home/18274634
    So it basically sold at its last asking price.

  23. Happy in SF – most people want a 3br+3ba 2000+ sq.ft. home in a prime neighborhood as well. I know I do. Yet “lesser” properties sell all the time at lower prices.
    There’s often a gap between what one wants and what one can afford. Fortunately there’s a variety of options out there.

  24. joh –
    My humble apologies. I had forgotten they were calling these grim little units townhouses. The entrance on the upper level is on the 4th floor. The single BR is down on level 3. No balcony or outside space and directly overlooking ramp and train yard.

  25. We’re ships passing in the night, Milkshake.
    If I showed a unit without parking to 100 SF clients, 85 of them would look at me and say, “But I told you I wanted parking.” That’s why a unit without parking is so much harder to sell. They’re not flippers or retired Econ profs looking at price elasticity demand graphs. They want parking and they’re not interested in looking at units without parking.

  26. My humble apologies. I had forgotten they were calling these grim little units townhouses. The entrance on the upper level is on the 4th floor. The single BR is down on level 3. No balcony or outside space and directly overlooking ramp and train yard.
    No need to apologize. During my first Arterra visit, I was quite surprised to learn what they meant by “townhouse.” I was expecting something nicer in the low-rise building. Grim indeed, especially the bedroom.

  27. First COE and move in was 8/1/08.
    Sales office took first reservations 6/06.
    Last sale 3/1/10.

  28. Townhouse 417 is complete crap. But even being crap, it’s at least 100x better than anything in that POS Beacon. Beacon is just a steaming turd.

  29. Oh brother. Beacon has properties > 2x the size and a location with less train noise. The lawsuits are the main problem.

  30. We’re the lucky couple who snatched the last condo, unit 1513. Surprisingly, it is the quietest unit out of the three which includes Soma Grand and BLU.
    1601 was available until the guy fell out of escrow from unit 1513 to steal 1601.
    We were very lucky because 1513 was available on 2/26 on Craig’s List only, and we saw it on 2/27 and made an offer on the 2/28.

  31. @J. Beacon is a steaming turd. It is loud, units maybe larger, but what good is a larger piece of crap?

  32. We’re the lucky couple…
    arterra is sold out…
    yeah, never ever going to get another “lucky” chance to buy in this building now that it’s sold out.

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