Purchased for $6.6 million in 2013, the 7,138-square-foot home at 15 Buena Vista Terrace, which was built on a double lot, with panoramic views and luxury finishes throughout, including a proper home theater and a 500-square-foot “party room” that opens to a 567-square-foot roof deck, returned to the market priced at $12.75 million in August of 2021, a sale at which would have represented average annual appreciation of 7.5 percent per year.

Reduced to $11.95 million in November of 2021, to $10.95 million last March, and to $9.975 million last May, 15 Buena Vista Terrace was then relisted for $8.9 million this past September and briefly in contract.

Having just been relisted anew, with an official “0” days on the market and a further reduced asking price of $7.95 million, an “at asking” sale would now represent average annual appreciation of 2.2 percent for the high-end home since June of 2013 or 20.5 percent in total versus a 142 percent increase in the frequently misreported index for Bay Area home values over the same period of time.

If you think you know the market for high-end homes in San Francisco, now’s another chance to tell.

15 thoughts on “Buena Vista View Mansion Drops a(nother) Million”
  1. hm.. many home are back down to less than their 2014 vales. (see Linear, Lumia etc). So they bought in 2013 for 6.6. They want almost double the value? Good luck with those dated finished. I think they would be lucky to get around as their purchase price.

    1. Its all about location and views. Whatever the dated finishes, new owner can customize and add value if they want. Its good buy now unless there’s something not obvious from the marketing that is turning off buyers?

    2. What’s dated about the finishes? The reddish wood? The beigey color palette? Instead of having everything gray and white?

  2. Do people use home theaters? I don’t know of any families who gather together to watch a movie or even a TV show. The preferred method seems to be games on a phone and streaming on a laptop. It seems sort of dated to have all that equipment and space dedicated movie watching. Am I just out of the loop here?

    1. Given that going out to movies is becoming passe, I wonder if the idea of a dedicated “home theater” that mimics the commercial experience will go out of style. The large screen, high-quality audio, and sound dampening are nice but there are seating options that would encourage more interaction during the presentation.

      1. My goal is to have a dedicated TV room so that TV becomes an active choice you have to make – “let’s go into the TV room and watch X” – instead of just droning on in the living room.

        I agree the movie theater schtick is done, but I do think a small sized bedroom plus a comfy couch and a 85” TV has value.

        1. You’ve clearly never watched love island with a group of friends. Living with 4 other roommates and watching reality tv together during the height of covid led to a lot of discussion/ yelling at the contestants during our nightly viewings

    2. Walking down any residential street and if curtains are open, I still see every house has at least one big screen TV. In our house, there are plenty of little screens, but the big screen is still there for family gathering watching – whether it’s the HBO show that dropped (e.g. Last of Us) or watching the best player in the house play a story-based video game (uh, Last of Us again?). I actually push our kids to use the big TV often because I think it’s better for eyesight as well; they sit further away. I think it depends on the family.

      With 70″ TVs going for under 1K at Costco, pretty much most households have what would’ve been called a home theater in the 90’s now. In the past, whenever I saw a home theater in a real estate listing, I never understood why they replicated the crappy theater seating, thought the whole point of having enough money to have a home theater is that you could finally have a super comfy couch to watch from. Of course, we can never replicate the mezzanine experience of an opulent single-screen theatre…

      1. There are 85” TV’s going for ~$1K at Costco now. It’s incredible how cheap they continually get. I see the movie theatre room evolving to just be a regular bedroom repurposed with a big flat screen and couch.

    3. The setup does seem slightly dated and I personally would have gone with something cozier than individual chairs, but my family always games together. Gaming separately on little handheld devices sounds awful. As does watching a film on a laptop. If you have 7k sqft “all that space” gets lost in a corner.

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