Originally priced at $11.495 million, to which a $1.55 million “buildout incentive” was subsequently attached, prior to a series of outright price reductions, the sale of the 5,700-square-foot penthouse shell #41A atop the LUMINA tower at 201 Folsom Street has finally closed escrow with a contract price of $6.0 million.

In addition to an 18-foot ceiling in the living room, the three-bedroom shell features over 290 linear feet of windows in the common areas, three private outdoor balconies and three parking spaces in the garage below with HOA dues of $3,670 per month and some rather spectacular views.

At the same time, the adjacent 5,223-square-foot penthouse shell #41B, which was priced at $10.495 million in September 2019, reduced a few times, and then listed anew for $5.995 million earlier this year, is back on the market with a $6.8 million price tag having quietly traded for $5.0 million in March.

20 thoughts on “Penthouse Shells Finally Trade, One Intended as a Flip”
  1. Again evidence that on the high end San Francisco has great bargains versus other “global” top tier cities.
    That sort of property in New York would go for many multiples of this $1000-ish a sq ft price. After things settle that will easily sell for much more. Great deal for the buyer.

    1. SF certainly punches above its weight in terms of restaurants and other urban comforts, but you need the size of an NYC-to-Tokyo to really support the marginal luxuries that truly global top tier cities offer. I don’t think anyone outside SF actually considers SF to be in the same global tier as New York.

    2. Puhleez the bay area megalopolis is huge and San Francisco is it’s Manhattan. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise just needs to revisit their Tennessee Williams.

      1. Manhattan has more than double SF’s full-time residential (overnight) population, more than 4x SF’s actual daytime population, and 3.5x SF’s population density, so really not in the same tier of ability to support every niche whim or luxury.

        I don’t agree with your spin on the apocryphal quote sometimes attributed to Mr. Williams with respect to New Orleans either (though it is also great and unique in its way, which was the real point of the supposed quote).

        1. And your point is ?? Other than the obvious that SF is a teat to NYC’s bosom (yes, we can all play at the ‘literati’ game, tho my recollection is that it was O’Henry that linked the Big Easy and the Big Ego in one pass).

          But back to the point at hand, it’s been clear for some time – and will become even more so after the ’20 Census is fully released – that once backwater burgs are rapidly approaching – and, even, overtaking – Terra Neara: Miami, Dallas/Ft Worth, Atlanta… at least population wise (I’ve no doubt we can find metrics – wealth, diplomas, 3 star sushi joints – where we’re comfortably ahead)

          1. SF has four 1-star sushi joints, nothing higher. LA and NYC (the only US city with a 3-star sushi bar in Masa) are comfortably ahead of us there.

            But the point is that the OP’s suggestion that NYC condo prices set a relevant near-term expectation for what someone could flip this shell for is an absurd suggestion with no basis in fact. Huge SFHs in Pac Heights don’t go for the $50M+ that multiple NYC condos sell for every year.

    1. Perhaps somebody who pays $5.5 million (52 percent) under the unit’s original asking price and thinks the unit can be flipped for (over) a million more.

      1. But we all know – due to tireless inferential lecturing – just how useless “asking” is for measuring anything other that ‘chutzpah’.

        1. Actually, there is a substantial difference between using the spread between asking and actual (let alone effective) price in order to discern market trends, and promoting asking price as actual price in order to influence market trends.

  2. $1K a square foot for that place is an amazing deal. Three balconies, three parking spots! $3,670 in HOAs is not ideal, but still, bravo to the buyer.

  3. It won’t be an 18 foot ceiling by the time they drop the ceiling to conceal the fire sprinklers and other plumbing. Unless it’s already dropped and they simply mounted the fire sprinklers below for convenience and to get the permit signed off – knowing it would be reworked with the buildout?

    1. One aspect of this place that mystifies is “why were those white drain pipes in the upper middle of the first photo routed so far away from the pillar to the left?”. Either re-route them closer to the pillar or encase them in a fake, fatter pillar. Maybe the flipper will reroute as part of their value-add.

  4. Agreed in not understanding why there are so many exposed parts. Exposed pipes and surface mounted sprinklers at $6.8M? And what IS that round hatch?

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