As we outlined last month, the signature 1,886-square-foot end unit #203 in the three-unit building at 201-207 Guerrero Street, which was designed by Kennerly Architecture and built in 2004, features an open main floor with a double height living room and corner windows; a total of three bedrooms and three baths; an office mezzanine; a private roof deck with hot tub and views; and a private garage with a two-car lift system and additional storage.

And having traded for $2.0 million in June of 2014, the unit returned to the market listed for $2.199 million this past March and just sold for $2.05 million, representing total “appreciation of 2.5 percent since mid-2014” on a straight line basis.

But having happened to trade for $2.325 million in July of 2018 as well, a more accurate reading of the market for the modern Mission District condo would be that its value increased by 16.3 percent from mid-2014 to mid-2018 and has since dropped by 11.8 percent on an apples-to-apples basis.

17 thoughts on “When Up is Down: Apples-to-Apples in the Mission”
  1. See! The market drop to 2014 is limited to SOMA. Oh, and now the Mission, and…

    Has anyone noticed the market is slowing further? Up until a few weeks ago, listings were running about 260 per week and sales were running about 110-120. Weekly listings are actually up about 25% this week, while sales have fallen about 15%. 87 sales, 320 listings.

    Although well priced properties still sell, and some are still getting out profitably, it’s almost like the people desperate to get a bigger place have almost all found one, or decided to move away, and now it’s mostly about price. And when listings increase while sales decrease, both buyers and sellers realize the market is heading down.

    Congrats to this seller, though. Limited his losses to ~$425,000, so living in San Francisco in a condo on a corner where a now deceased Twitter engineer and one other person were shot in May, only cost the seller $25,000+ per month.

    1. Well see, that’s the beauty of home ownership in an expensive city like SF, is it? If your purchase at the right time, you might get to live in a house for free for years and be paid $150k a year to be living it. And sometimes, you’ll lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year. It’s just a matter of timing and how long you hold on to it,

      1. Keep in mind that during the “free” period from 2014 to 2018, the homeowner would have paid the equivalent of around $8,500 a month, or around $400,000 over the four years, in mortgage/capital costs plus another $140,000 in transaction costs upon the unit’s sale. But the $325,000 in appreciation would have helped offset the $540,000 in expense, not accounting for any maintenance, insurance and HOA dues as well.

          1. In effect yes, based on the likelihood of AMT and the marginal tax benefit. At the same time, we radically under-valued the cost of equity at the cost of debt (around 4 percent) while the S&P 500 increased by nearly 50 percent over the same period of time.

          2. Oh, good. Does it also take into account how much the homeowner would have paid to rent a similar place?

  2. we are definitely going down, but curious to see divergence by neighborhoods on way down. Will the outer neighborhoods with more space, and little homeless, drug havens, and more space hold up in comparison. This part of the mission, and frankly most of it, are almost unlivable at the moment

    1. The Mission has it’s issues, but a lot of people would consider the “outer” neighborhoods truly unlivable. Might as well fully commit to the East Bay suburbs life

      1. what Qol issues do outer neighborhoods have? i can see public transport, but none of the terrible street conditions

        1. As much as I enjoy Taraval Street out by the beach, are you telling me it’s comparable to the restaurants, bars, and shops of the Mission? It’s nice, but there’s not a whole lot to do and go to out there (although it is getting better).

        2. It’s not for everyone. The fog can be relentless. Getting downtown can take longer than if you were coming from the East Bay. And the character of the neighborhoods is a bit underwhelming (rows of boxy houses, a lot of concrete and no landscaping, etc…).

          It can work for those that appreciate the access to the beach and GG park, or want to be able to bike into downtown. But for most folks, you can get a better deal and/or better QOL in an East Bay or peninsula suburb.

          1. at least speaking for the Inner Richmond, the number of days fogged in is greatly overexaggerated. last 2 weeks has sucked but i would put the days fogged in at 30. we spend tons of time on our deck. June to mid-July has <5 days of fog and people think its terrible. Last year, there was little fog, so think it might be changing a bit over time. OUter neighborhoods on south side of SF (Noe and east of that) have better weather than most neighborhoods. Also disagree on character except in outer sunset and outer richmond, although they also have some good pockets of neighborhood streets. Dont forget the presidio, which i think is much better asset than GGP, especially for hiking, less tourists, biking, etc

      2. I bought a house in the Excelsior. I think it’s a hidden gem that no one has discovered because it’s the forgotten part of SF and a good alternative to Outer Sunset and Outer Richmond: Cheap (relatively) home prices, right on or before the fog line (so we get more sunny days than the Sunset but less days than the Mission), sloped hills, McLaren Park, houses with backyards, public transportation via Mission or Silver for Muni to get into downtown or the “inner neighborhoods”, or walk to Glen Park BART, views of Glen Park or Bernal hills, easy access to 280 to get south to the Peninsula or north to the Bay Bridge. One drawback is that there is a commercial corridor on Mission Street that could benefit from new developments/businesses; but there are some current ones like Excelsior Coffee and Gentilly that are great additions already.

        The Excelsior isn’t unlivable, just undiscovered.

        1. “The Excelsior isn’t unlivable, just undiscovered ungentrified.” fify

          The working class people who still remain in the Excelsior can’t wait to have techies/flippers/speculators come in and fix up all the properties and make them unaffordable.

          “Unlivable.” No, that doesn’t sound elitist, at all.

          Gentrification is racism.

          1. It isn’t unlivable. It’s very livable. For all the reasons I stated. I don’t see where the elitism is that you mention. It’s the opposite of elitism. Elitism would be calling something unlivable. Smh.

          2. Excelsior was Italian a couple decades ago. Was it racism when the Chinese replaced the Italians?

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