As we outlined earlier this year, the “luxurious, high-style corner unit” #405 at 1450 Franklin Street, a 1,325-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath unit with two private decks, storage and parking in the building’s garage, returned to the market priced at $1.349 million this past August having been purchased for $1.399 million in August of 2017, which was $91,000 under its list price at the time.
Featuring an open floor plan, walls of windows and central air, along with high-end finishes throughout, the list price for 1450 Franklin Street #405 was reduced to $1.339 million after a few weeks on the market and then removed from the MLS in December.
Relisted anew in January, with an official “1” day on the market and a further reduced list price, the resale of 1450 Franklin Street has now closed escrow with a contract price of $1.25 million, which is officially “at asking” according to all industry stats and aggregate reports but 10.1 percent below its 2017 value on an apples-to-apples basis, while the frequently misreported Case-Shiller index for “San Francisco” condo values is “still up 8.0 percent” over the same period of time (but dropping fast).
Unit #602 in the same building (profiled here last week) is the *same square footage* and sold for $1.5 MM. That unit is a much better floorplan. In a bad market, design matters. It would be interesting to know if the original sale prices of these two units reflected a 20% price difference.
I’m not a r/e person so I’m sure others have better info. But on zillow, #602 sold on 3/30/17 for $1.635mm and was listed on 8/12/22 for 1.595mm. It was off and on the market before selling on 2/21/23 at 1.5.
I have no idea to know if work was done on the place in the interim.
That’s a great price for a new buyer. But I have to note: those ceilings are really low.
Some developers have been building with (low) 8′ ceilings in order to squeeze in an additional floor. Although 8′ ceilings were once the norm in many areas, they feel really low to me too, I probably wouldn’t buy a place with such low ceilings. But to each their own!
Assuming that the seller put 20 percent down on the above-stated purchase amount in Aug of 2017, and using the lowest benchmark 30-year mortgage rate of 3.86 percent around that time and assuming no additional payments, the Mortgage Calculator at Bankrate indicates that the amount of the loan still outstanding in Mar 2023 would leave about $254,164 from the sale price. Subtracting just the 5 percent commission (i.e., ignoring all other closing costs) grosses the seller a dollar amount representing a more than 31 percent decrease from the down payment in nominal terms.
That living room coffee table looks like a solid block of lucite/perspex with some rods of wood embedded. Is it? If so it must be heavy and expensive.
As a recent homebuyer this is what I’d say when looking at the MLS listing: absolutely terrible layout of the open concept living/dining/kitchen; not a lot of storage space; both bedrooms look into the building next door; private decks are narrow and can’t really use them to entertain. Kitchen is certainly bright and not a bad galley-like layout.
However, someone else might love it and it checks off everything on the list.
UPDATE: Epitome of Luxury Living Trades (Further) Down