Purchased for $650,000 in March of 2016, the 545-square-foot, one-bedroom unit #206 at 870 Harrison Street, which was built by JS Sullivan in 2015 and features “floor-to-ceiling windows with an open layout creating a modern and open living space,” along with a Bertazzoni range in the kitchen and “abundant closet spaces throughout,” returned to the market priced at $699,000 last September, a sale at which would have represented total appreciation of 7.5 percent since the first quarter of 2016 or just 1.3 percent per year.

Reduced to $675,000 after a month on the market, the “well designed” unit was listed anew for $675,000 this past February, reduced to $649,000 in March and then to $639,000 in May.

And having just been relisted for $629,000, an “at asking” sale would now represent a 3 percent drop in value for the contemporary SoMa/Yerba Buena condo over the past six years on an apples-to-apples basis while the widely misreported index for “San Francisco” condos is up 36 percent over the same period of time.

If you think you know the market for new construction and/or SoMa condos in San Francisco, now’s the time to tell.

24 thoughts on “Contemporary One-Bedroom Condo Slips Below Its 2016 Price”
  1. The extent of deterioration of the façade in just 7 years seems like a big red flag for a condo. The two plywood panels in the glass garage door are really choice.

    1. Given the stretch of neighborhood, may be the best they can do – for all we know was a quick fix for homeless / crank damage just a day or two before.

      That said, the underlying critique is why an architect would do glass doors on a garage anywhere, let alone a, er, sketchy part of the city.

      1. I live in a large condo complex that is like 90:10% glass to steel beam ratio. Lots of crazies like to shatter the glass or break the side doors. Sometimes it just takes a few weeks to get a vendor out there.

        Though, just as an architect has to make some concessions to the structural engineer, maybe SF projects need to bring in a “local nuisance advisor”.

    1. Great walkability to everything. With gas prices at $7 this is going to be a prime selling point over the next few years.

        1. It’s great, if you like the constant humdrum of the 80, your view staring directly into a highway/freeway, and homeless people taking a dump directly on your front door.

          Sorry, I lived very close to here for years. Def facts… and bitter ones.

    2. Yeah, these are essentially glorified studios in my mind – they’re nothing like the one-bedrooms of mid-century buildings where you had separate kitchenettes and, often, an entry hall, which can actually make it feel like multiple spaces. With units such as this, you essentially have 2 rooms … whether in “the kitchen”, “the dining area”, or “the living room” you’re in the same space and could swing the metaphorical dead cat and hit all the same walls…

      1. If that’s a gas range, you might have some yellowing of walls and any exposed paper materials – as I did in my shared large kitchen and studio space. Finally shut down the stove and now use hot plate with Le Creuset enamel iron pots, switching them back and forth, Aga style.

        Agree that even in the best of times, the face-on view of the freeway might be a bit challenging.

  2. This is an example of why there should be a class action public and private nuisance lawsuit against the City. This stretch has been allowed to fester with drug tourist encampments and is nearly uninhabitable. I know this because I walk and ride my bike past that a lot. It’s a part of SOMA that the city has literally ceded to these crime camps, and it’s hurting property values along with quality of life and small businesses. It’s just absurd.

        1. Truth. Apparently having a building with lights turned on and having tax paying citizens in your city is the cause of disparity in a total crap block of SF.

          1. SF is full of delusional malcontents that champion decay, to theoretically keep their precious rent controlled flop houses.

          2. Sue, your invocation of “flop houses” brought to mind that Tendernob home whose bedroom and office were cut up into a warren of 12 shared bunk beds without the benefit of any building, group housing, hotel or short-term rental permits, so that owner could call the home a “co living space” and command more rent.

            That in turn should remind you that S.F. is full of flippers, AirBnB “hosts”, two-bit mom and pop landlords and all manner of other hangers-on in the real estate “game” who have arrived here from elsewhere with dollar signs in their eyes, ready to exploit S.F. workers by jacking up the pricing of housing so they can escape with their “winnings” to other places.

            To a large degree, the “malcontents” you’re calling “delusional” are understandably reacting to the runaway gentrification caused by this group of capitalist malefactors of real estate, and the rent controlled units you decry are “precious” precisely because they are the only way to shield ones self from the onslaught. Members of the class of malefactors driving up the cost of housing can’t understand this, because, as Upton Sinclair famously said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

    1. These are serious problems that fester, but nothing has been ceded. The camps are fairly regularly disrupted and swept away. Pretending that these problems are easy and simple and exist only because of political weakness contributes to their endurance.

  3. Redfin today reported that the San Francisco Bay Area housing market is the fastest cooling in the nation.

  4. Or, you could read it and see that SF is #10 on that list. Others: Seattle (#4), Boise, ID (#6), Denver (#7), San Diego (#8) and Tacoma, WA (#9).

  5. Well Saleforce just announced that they are placing 50% of 50 Fremont for lease. Expect more condos for sale – as people no longer have to travel to downtown SF on a regular basis.

  6. “runaway gentrification caused by this group of capitalist malefactors of real estate”

    There must be an awful lot of these “malefactors” since every major city in the country and in western Europe has evidence of them. Almost the whole of central London has been “gentrified” as has huge portions of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, even the 18e to 20e. Perhaps there may be some other reason for improving residential areas other than evil capitalists?

    1. “Gentrification” is just a pejorative way to slander community improvements. It’s a meaningless dog whistle.

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