Purchased for $7 million at the end of 2013 and then completely renovated, with custom millwork, Venetian plaster, Italian marble, and high end finishes throughout, the 4,320-square-foot, two-level penthouse unit #1002 atop the Park Lane at 1100 Sacramento Street returned to the market priced at $12.495 million in June of 2020.
Reduced to $10.495 million in September of 2020 and then to $8.995 million in January of 2021, the TIC unit was briefly in contract but never closed escrow.
Relisted for $8.995 million this past March, the asking price for the prestigious Nob Hill penthouse has just been further reduced to $7.995 million, a sale at which would be “at asking” according to all industry stats and aggregate reports and would appear to represent “a million dollar gain,” ignoring the seven-figure budget for the renovation.
If you think you know the high-end market in San Francisco, now’s the time to tell.
Fresno may soon overtake San Francisco as a more valuable and in-demand residential market.
I don’t think there are many $8 million condos in Fresno, nor would there be much demand for one. The most expensive listing in Zillow is for an estate on the very edge of the city with 100 ACRES, and it is just over $5 million.
Property values are actually going up in Fresno, not crashing in free-fall.
And theyll go up even more as commodity prices outpace inflation. That $5mm property Chris cites is full of Almond and other nut trees with years of productivity. Huge upside.
Any idea how much water almond trees need? Good luck with that “upside”.
Orange juice prices are at all time highs, have people stopped drinking orange juice? Gas prices are at 8 year highs, have people stopped driving?
Fishchum – If that property owns water rights, they’ll receive plenty of budget priced ag water. Water rights were mostly divvied up about a century ago and if your allocation is high enough and your acerage low enough, you plant thirsty crops. Use it or lose it.
My point exactly that property prices in SF are not anywhere comparable to property prices in Fresno. Even with the prices coming down *significantly*, $8 million still gets you ONE condominium in SF, while $5 million gets you 100 ACRES of an active almond farm in Fresno (including two residential rental properties on the land), which shows property values are significantly less than in SF, and that SF real estate is far more valuable.
Chris: my interpretation of the original comment comparing property values in Fresno to San Francisco was that it was hyperbole. It probably originated from the sense of remorse that the OP, probably deep in the S.F. real estate “game”, felt when they purchased their most recent property and didn’t get a chance to cash out their “winnings” and depart for other parts of the country, or even the world, where they could continue on the property ladder, flipping, buying and reselling for ever and ever greater amounts) until they realized their wildest dreams of avarice.
Inflation took hold in 2022, The Fed stopped the music and there was no chair left for ‘sf’, so they are pretty perturbed and want to express their displeasure. The same explanation could be applied to the numerous “SF just can’t be trusted now” comments we’ve been seeing with increasing frequency over the past several weeks.
My intepretation:
bait
verb
gerund or present participle: baiting
deliberately annoy or taunt (someone).
I think Fresno was picked for a combination of practical and symbolic reasons
(1) Some people are willing to think of it as one of SF’s suburbs (delusional as that might sound, it should be recalled that just a year or so ago there were [apparently serious] comments about how the ‘Bullet Train’ could be used by commuters)
(2) McCarthy replaced Pelosi as SOTH, so politically they’re sort-of-on-par; The former is really more Bakersfield than Fresno, but B-town is more SoCal than NorCal, and Fresno has a more impressive skyline (much like SF, some kick-ass towers from the Twenties and some newer…duds.) Valley vs. Coast, anyway.
And speaking of electric trains: Caltrans is finally almost ready to flip the switch (SS was all over this earlier…not sure why they got derailed recently)
There is a HUGE difference between saying property values in Fresno, or for example, Indianapolis, are currently increasing, and claiming that Fresno (or Indianapolis) real estate will become more valuable than SF real estate. Your suggestion is not based in reality.
The delta will shrink considerably that’s for sure.
And Fresno can be so nice in the summer. You don’t have to put up with 65-70 degree days and you can enjoy a balmy 100 degrees for months on end.
In his/her own weird way, the OP may be on to something:
…4,130 apartments and condominiums will be created through conversions of office space this year in Los Angeles alone. Another 1,000-plus new units are planned this year in Fresno, with more than 500 more coming in San Francisco, 450 in Sacramento and about 200 in Oakland.
Putting those numbers in relative terms, it seems like the Raisin Capital is miles ahead in the CRE>RRE race. This maybe shouldn’t be surprising, since DTF has been largely abandoned for decades, and it’s filled with the kind of older, small-floorplate buildings that (supposedly) developers love, but it might be something to keep in mind.
Love the foyer ceiling. Is the dining ceiling copper?
Or maybe gold leaf?? (It seems too ‘yellow’ for copper, tho I’ve no idea what the influence of the lighting might be). An intersting space, a mixture of really breathtaking – like the vaulted ceiling in the living room – and kind of plebian-looking (the stacked double hung windows in the same room).
As for the frequent references to “two level”: for years this was known as a duplex…..has that term completely gone out of use or is the level of knowledge in SF just low ??
If you’re in NYC, duplex typically means two stories. Elsewhere, it generally refers to a building with two units.
Apparently, the two-floor apartment a British usage, too. Weird. I’m afraid to look up semi-detached…
Thanks! I’ll put the answer as “some combination of the two”. Out of curiosity, I did a quick newpaper search (1910-1950) and got ~500+ hits; some of them were references to New York – don’t ask about the giraffe story! – but there was some local usage (2179 Pacific, for example).
But basically I think you’re correct: a lot of duplex (houses) and few duplex(apartments) made the term largely peculiar to NY (and maybe Chicago and a few other eastern cities)
I recall hearing that either Frank or Walter Lembi paid top-dollar for this building when it was apartments because he wanted the penthouse for himself.
Built for a world that no longer exists. I’d redo the living room in black mirrors with neon trim. But that’s just me.
“Asking price” has dropped by a third. Not the price.
So you think the seller and their agents have set the price too low deliberately to incite a bidding war and that if someone submits an honest bid at $7.995 million it’ll just be ignored?
To be able to afford this unit on one’s salaried income assuming a 30-Year Fixed at 7.349 percent and a 20 percent down payment (20%) at the asking price, a buyer would need an income of about $2.4 million per year. That would place the buyer among the top 1 percent of income earners in the entire United States. More likely, they have derived their wealth from an inheritance, for example.
I don’t think I know the market for Nob Hill Penthouses in San Francisco, but I don’t think that asking price is going to generate a bidding war that substantially increases the ultimate closing amount. There simply aren’t enough people who can submit a credible bid.
My point is that the “asking price” is not the “price”.
I can say that my house is for sale for twenty million dollars, but that doesn’t make it a twenty million dollar house.
UPDATE: The list price for the prestigious Nob Hill penthouse unit #1002 atop the Park Lane has just been further reduced to $7.495 million, a sale at which would be “at asking” according to all industry stats and aggregate market reports and would appear to represent “a half-million dollar gain!” but would actually be a loss when accounting for the $7 million purchase price and subsequent seven-figure renovation.
UPDATE: Prestigious Nob Hill Penthouse Traded at a Loss