The number of single-family homes and condos in contract to be sold across San Francisco has dropped around 15 percent over the past month, including a 6 percent drop in the seasonally adjusted pace of sales over the past two weeks.
At the same time, the average asking price per square foot of the homes which are in contract in San Francisco is one (1) percent lower, not higher, than at the same time last year; around 2 percent below pre-pandemic levels; and over 10 percent below its pandemic-driven peak with inventory levels having effectively held over the past month and now inching up.
Several units at 301 Mission are selling <$1,000/SF. This one (namelink) is selling for less than $500/SF (about half its 2015 sale price). I have been wondering for several years if lenders would stop lending on that building. Has that happened?
Traditional lenders haven’t been making loans against units in Millennium Tower since at least late 2016. From May of last year, in the S. F. Chronicle article by J.K. Dineen headlined Millennium Tower: Sale of $14 million penthouse is first huge test for S.F.’s famous leaning building, sixth ‘graph:
I have no idea what happened with the sale of that referenced penthouse apartment, but Ph 1D (2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 2,230 ft.²), which has been on and off the market since that same time frame, is now again on the market asking $4,495,000, or a 25 percent decrease from the asking in May of 2023.
My layman’s reading of what I think is the listing of the property described in the aforementioned S. F. Chronicle article at realtor dot com leads me to believe Grand Penthouse A (i.e., Apt Gpha— 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 5,009 ft.²) on the 60th floor of the Millennium Tower had its listing removed earlier in July 2024 without a sale after fourteen months on market.
“…buyers either need to pay all cash or get a private, high-interest ‘hard money loan.”
Why would anyone bother? There are plenty of buildings that are not leaning!
I think that was asked and answered in Katherine Clarke’s story on the same subject penthouse apartment, published in the WSJ May 15, 2023 , Penthouse Atop San Francisco’s Millennium Tower Asks $14 Million, starting in the second ‘graph:
Obviously, it’s been a while since the Millennium Tower opened, but in 2009 it was the tallest residential tower in San Francisco. So even overlooking the discount that some wealthy, but still value-oriented, real estate hoarders will be unable to resist, the ultimate buyer will get something for their money that isn’t even available at the overwhelming majority of the “buildings that are not leaning”.
Ultimate buyer ?? I think you mean the next buyer (unless of course you’re trying to signal something ). Anyway, you’re likely familiar with “confirmation bias”? That’s where one’s perception is skewed by only seeking out – sometimes if only sub-consciously – information and views that support your preconception; in this case the view – no pun intended – is colored by (only) including someone who bought there; those who refused to do so are implicitly excluded. So while the property will be sellable as long as that first group includes at least one person, the market may bevery limited.
Personally, I don’t see the attraction of living next to a bus station: yes the building is tall, but that’s useful only at the uppermost floors – at least in most directions – and even there it’s no better than nominally shorter buildings built at higher elevations….of which SF is rumoured to have several !
So, rich guy speculated and listed the property for sale 7 years later at slightly over breakeven, assuming 5% commission.
Not to mention the HOA fees for the unit you name linked above will put you back $1974.00 per month.
And in exchange for those monthly fees, you’re getting “a 5 Star amenity” building:
• 24 hour onsite concierge and security
• indoor heated pool and fitness facility
• screening room
• owner’s lounge with bar and table service
• access to Michael Minna’s International Smoke.
Has anyone else had this as their last updated article from socketsite? Wondering if there’s something wrong with my phone or if this site has taken a lengthy hiatus?
SF real estate died.
15D, a 789 ft.² 1 bedroom, 1 bath unit at 301 Mission St. sold a little earlier during the month of September for $615k, 5.2 percent “under asking”, or $779 per ft.², a closing prices that represents an equity eviscerating 44 percent decrease from the amount the same unit closed for in June of 2014. According to the inflation calculator on the BLS website, the sales price in 2014 had the same buying power as $1,480,342 in today’s money, so the sale earlier this month represents an inflation-adjusted loss of about $12,035 each month during the approximately ten year holding period (assuming a straight-line basis). For comparison, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom units in the same building were and are available for for lease for $6,300 monthly.
We once went to a reception in that apartment. Perkins was a very gracious host. The views were spectacular, and the main space was huge, and the food delicious. But both of us, and other friends, including Perkins’ peers, felt it was not a home. It was more like a modern hotel, albeit with excellent objects and furniture. We were happy to have been invited. Given his wealth, we would certainly not live there. Of course, he had other places too.
Warcho… Just dropped the Mic
In other news, mid-market office building at 989 Market, sold at 80% discount.
Would that support office to residential conversion?
At six stories, the building at 989 Market would in my view be perfect for live/work lofts. But I don’t expect that to happen. The new owner will probably position it as less expensive offices, given their lower cost basis. I’m cynical about how real estate operators go about their business.
From the article headlined Half-empty downtown S.F. building to be purchased by L.A. investor at a major discount, by Laura Waxmann, posted yesterday, third ‘graph:
The percentage of discount for acquiring the building is kinda irrelevant, isn’t it? Whether or not a residential conversion “pencils out” depends on current construction and conversion prices. At $115 per ft.² for a cost basis you’d have to add in the cost of conversion, marketing expenses, and legal fees to get a gross cost for the completed units, then compare that to the $900 – $1,000 per ft.² you’d presumably be able to obtain for the completed units, which itself assumes that we are currently near the bottom of the price decline. As this site’s editor likes to point out, the building/site for 100 Van Ness, which is the ur example of a successful office to residential conversion, was under $200 per existing square foot back in 2008.
From what I’ve read (as a layman), a general rule of thumb is that the ideal profit margin for a property development project should be 15–20 percent or more of the project’s total cost.
which itself assumes that we are currently near the bottom of the price decline.
Yeah, this is probably the single most important statement here. And although by no means a crazy assumption, it’s easy to disagree with it.
I don’t think developers try to time the market. The time frames are too long. Who knows $/SqFt for condo sales in 2.5 years?
The thing is, lease rates for office space are also declining, just at a much slower rate, in large part due to the duration of leases and the ability of lucky tenants to sublease space they are vacating prior to the end date of their commercial lease.
As a pre-war building, 989 Market St. should be considered a prime candidate for conversion to residential. $200 per existing square foot back in 2008 is about $290 in today’s money. As it stands, however, it was renovated (and seismically upgraded) in 1991, so the listing agent for the just-completed sale was marketing it as “High-End Creative Office Space” (even though its still categorized as class B). With about half the building currently leased, BH Properties will probably tell themselves that if they just work a bit harder, they can manifest a new high dollar tenant into the currently vacant three floors and make the building cash flow positive based on the new, lower cost basis, making more money for their company than they would by converting to residential. This is, for practical purposes, what this site’s editor means by “a matter of the relative value of each use”.
Last week, the developers proposing the conversion of The Humboldt Bank Building at 785 Market St. from a vacant vintage office building into housing, thus creating 120 residential units, told The Chronicle that their project “is financed and ready to pull permits.” See the article bylined by J.K. Dineen, S.F. wants to make it even easier to convert empty offices to housing. Will any developers bite? for details.
ICYMI, The S.F. Standard published a story by Kevin V. Nguyen on Oct 1 (“How SF’s first post-pandemic office conversion finally came together”) with some interesting details about the conversion of the Humboldt Bank Building at 785 Market St. to housing. The most interesting is that Forge Development Partners couldn’t secure a conventional loan package to fund the conversion project, so:
The other thing that was enlightening is the fact that only floors 3 to 14 are being converted, so the building will retain some commercial tenants at the end of the process.
Is this the end of SocketSite? The site hasn’t been updated in two weeks, and there’s been no advertising for quite awhile.
Kick itmention “office>residential conversion” and see if it movesI’ve been wondering the same thing …
Me2
Kind of a weird way to go out though… Wouldn’t the editor at least want to write some sort of goodbye note? After all, it’s been quite a long ride. Maybe something happened unexpectedly?
‘specially given that the dependably sarcastic respones to charges of “cherry picking” and bias were one of the highlights of the site. Given my druthers, I’d pick snark over boosterism any day (well, maybe not Sunday mornings.)
Let’s try this:
“I think the real estate market in San Francisco is strong because I see a lot of over asking sales!”
This is the longest I’ve seen this site not updated. Love the content but stay for the comments. Hopefully Socket hasn’t been taken out by the NAR mafia. This would be the ripe time to be reporting since the markets are probably softening even more. Hopefully it’s just a much-needed vacation.
There was an interesting take in Financial Samurai, and while I don’t agree with its premise that “The reason why SocketSite’s traffic has tanked is because SocketSite has been overly negative on San Francisco real estate since its founding” – OTC I think any “tanking” reflects the broader RE market (particularly CRE) – there was some interesting backgound info.
An announcement that this site is going away would at least end any speculation. What are the best remaining sites for SF real estate news?
Ess-Eff-Y-I-M-B-Y, if you just want RE news, or perhaps I should say unfiltered boosterism. The RDA of snark and skepticism will be harder to satisfy. While sad, it is rather ironic isn’t it: the one story that caught plugged-in readers by surprise…
Well, the domain name expires today and has not been renewed, though there are still 11.5 hours left. I’ve looked and looked, but couldn’t find any evidence of what happened to the editor.
“If you think you know the contemporary Domain Name market and comps, now’s the time to tell.”
Warcho, yours is my favorite post of the week; made me laugh out loud.
This is Brahma (incensed renter) fault. His low value posts have suppressed traffic.
Is this really the end? If so, I’m really gonna miss it.
Well the domain name renewed. At least the domain name will continue (possibly due to an auto renew setting at the ISP), even if there is no content. Now we have to figure out what happened to the Editor.
Really bad news. I am not a real estate worker, nor an SF investor any longer. I have enjoyed socketsite for many years and will miss it, especially the postings about houses in northern SF, and the comparisons to other cities. At least it was frank and honest.
May SS Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory!
I fondly remember Burbed from down in Silicon Valley and Marin POS. Socketsite never reached the same level of snark but I would hate to see it go.
Perhaps the editor finally bought the dream home in SF. Nothing but cheerleading from here on out.
Maybe. Or the editor has spent the best years of their life operating this site, witnessing their friends, neighbors and acquaintances get wildly wealthy in and around the digital/startup/VC-funded economy knowing that those people are not as smart, hardworking or educated as they are, and decided to move on and do something else.
Is the editor a schizophrenic ? I ask because most people begin a statement with “I”, rather than “we”. Or maybe it’s just an editorial use of we…quite literally. Then again, it reenforces my view that there is – or was – more than one person involved with running the site.
Did the editor use a “they” pronoun? If not, what is wrong with “he”?
Going out without any sort of announcement makes one suspect something unplanned like a medical or family emergency. If it was a technical glitch you’d expect some temporary landing page or something on social media.
Or maybe the pace of sales in SF has slowed to zero and there’s nothing the write about 😉
Either way a sad ending and I hope for the best for all involved.
No, the editor uses (or used) “we”. Not saying the editor’s schizophrenic. Nothing’s wrong with “he”.
While I usually use “they” in the singular form, when the gender of the person being referred to is uncertain, or because the person uses that as a personal pronoun like Judith Butler, in this specific instance I used it to be consistent with the plural form.
I think Notcom’s almost certainly correct that there is more than one person involved with running the site, but there isn’t necessarily more than one person posting the actual content.
Maybe they got sick of reading your dumb-ass word salad like the rest of us.
I’ve been reading for many years and I never remember a break this long. I do indeed hope everybody is OK. The abrupt departure is unusual.
Miss the content. Hope it comes back.
So finally my posts are not blocked, and now it’s the end?!
Investing in RE for 20yrs in SF, has given me gray hair. It was a wild ride before and right through the pandemic – appreciable all your comments (…maybe not Brahmas). Learned a lot here about the various viewpoints.
RIP Socketsite – unless of course there’s a massive (AI) resurrection and we boom again.
Cheers folks!
I knew we were in trouble when the site crashed several months back and when they brought it back up, it was in a generic (visual) format and they never made any effort to get it back to looking like it looked before. I am thinking the editor(s) fell out of love with this labor of love.
But if it’s gone, I will certainly miss it.
Maybe the editor has a very good reason for just ghosting us (car accident, coma, serious illness?) but I for one am very upset to be left this way. We deserve answers.
I close my eyes,
Only for a moment and the moments gone,
All my dreams, pass before my eyes in curiosity,
Dust in the wind,
All we are is dust in the wind
is this site officially over? its weird there is no news about this
This sucks! Really miss the content and comments:/ Hope everything is ok for those who run the site. “Hello, hello, hello, is there anybody out there?”
Somebody is there. Saturday, I posted a reply that the moderator declined to post. Nothing offensive so it’s puzzling.
Not necessarily. My understanding is that the moderation system in WP is semi-automated, depending on what plug-ins the site owner decided to install and configure. Your reply could still be sitting in a moderation queue waiting on human approval. Or it could have been declined by a bot.
I believe certain kinds of content – links and words that suggest a link to other sites – are automatically flagged for review; so without a moderator (i.e. human) to review it, it will just be deleted. So far from suggesting a presence, the deletion actually suggests the opposite.
I wonder what happened to Adam. Hope he is ok.
Me too. Best guess is a family emergency, the kind that haves you drop everything to focus on what is truly important. If so I hope the pathway out of the agony is within range and well lit.
If there is no SS, there is no point of living in SF. I’m leaving! I hope the Editor is OK ;(
If this is the end, I am going to miss Socketsite.
I’ve been following the site since ~2005 when I was researching buying an apartment in 1 Rincon Hill. 1BR ~$630K with ~$700 monthly HOA with assigned parking. Its been an interesting ride since.
Thanks for all the work Adam!
In close to two months, has no one spoken to Adam, the owner of socketsite? What happened to him? Abandoning a project of this quality and duration must have been related to severe medical or financial problems. Surely he has not just disappeared. The fans of socketsite should find out what happened and what is going ot happen next.
I agree … I’ve googled a few times but found absolutely nothing new. Just makes the whole thing stranger.
I miss this site! Adam, hope you’re ok.
I’ve also been following this site for 20ish years. My theory is that there are behind-the-scenes negotiations for the sale of the site in some uncertain stage of performance.
Oh, so then we’re going to read that it “quietly traded hands”?
Or sold “Above Asking!” after just one “official” day on the market…
Why cease operations during negotiations?
I’ve been reading for years, hope to see a return soon!
Four Seasons Hotel going up for auction on the steps of SF city hall. Mayor breed is smiling.
So you’re trying to say that every time a business fails in San Francisco, it’s the Mayor’s fault? If Ellen Lee Zhou were Mayor during the last few years, I think the outcome for that hotel would have been the same, barring some kind of taxpayer bailout (which would have been unwise).
“Offices in San Francisco’s Financial District are at the highest risk of default in the nation, due to a combination of high vacancy, days on market and rents, “indicating a significant financial burden on property owners,” a new study shows.”
Still don’t understand the point you’re trying to make here. Commercial land investors like Westbrook Partners, which is the Florida-based firm that owns The Four Seasons Hotel, are supposed to understand how to handle their financial responsibilities, and this is not their first time at the rodeo. When they decided to stop making payments on their loan In December (according to the May 31, 2024 story in The Real Deal) they should have expected this to happen. Same goes for the current and soon-to-be former owners of Hilton Union Square and Parc 55.
What is going to happen to The Four Seasons Hotel is quite easy to predict. The property will change hands (one way or another), the cost basis will be lowered following the transaction, and the new owner will probably re-brand it and then continue to operate it as a hotel under more favorable financial terms. Whoever currently owns that $72.5 million loan Westbrook took out to buy the hotel in 2019 will be left holding a big bag of odorous excrement.
So does anything meaningfully consequential, or punitive, happen to Westbrook?
As a privately-owned company that offers securities unavailable to the general public, we can’t say conclusively, but if Westbrook is anything like its peer companies, the answer is: Nope. The deals to purchase properties like this one depend upon complex ownership structures to shield companies such as Westbrook from any general liability.
According to the Sep 24, 2024 story in The San Francisco Chronicle bylined by Laura Waxman (“One of S.F.’s luxury hotels is scheduled for auction. Here’s how a sale could go down”), Westbrook is being sued by the limited partnership that owns 345 California Center for its alleged failure to pay nearly $400k in rent and other fees owed for a shared space connected to the hotel and I don’t expect there to be meaningful consequences to either that lawsuit or the default on the hotel’s $72.5 million loan. Since interest rates are supposed to be going down now that The Fed is cutting rates, they could potentially work out a deal with creditors that will make both of these issues go away.
If that doesn’t happen, Westbrook can and most likely will just wind down the fund that is involved, inform their LPs that the investment didn’t work out, and the partners at Westbrook will be be laughing their way up the back nine on a very nice course in Florida because they will still collect their management fee from the institutional investors that put up the money to purchase and remodel the building prior to the pandemic.
Has Socketsite closed without saying goodbye? I think I’ve been following the site for 15 years or so.
Clearly it has stopped, but there appears to be no information about the owner and principal writer. Even if Adam suffered a devastating illness or financial ruin, one would have expected the site to report something. Surely there is some friend of his who knows what happened. People who have accomplished so much do not ordinarily disappear without a trace.
SF facing LOST DECADE. Elections have consequences.
Yes, they do, but even if Ellen Lee Zhou wins the upcoming election, the occupancy rate in downtown office buildings won’t bounce back to pre-pandemic levels during that term in office. Because of San Francisco’s sky-high prices for real estate, combined with the tech sector’s unsurpassed ability to thrive using remote work, The City’s office market is unlikely to get back on stable footing for a decade or more unless a substantial portion of it gets converted into other uses.
unless a substantial portion of it gets converted into other uses
but certainly you must realize that conversion makes no sense for the overwhelming majority of commercial property in SF ? I read that, in dozens of places – or was it maybe dozens of times in one (particular) place? – well, anwyay, I read it somewhere.
And speaking of things I used to read about: the latest figures show 36.9% of SF’s nearly 90M sf of office space is vacant. for the math challenged, that comes out to 33.1M sf or
The original comment that contained that oft-repeated phrase, said “…to residential use currently makes no economic sense for the vast majority of downtown San Francisco buildings”, with the emphasis on currently in the original.
There probably are uses other than residential that owners could decide to convert office buildings to. Second, if enough time passes (Fact’s “lost decade” would suffice, I hope) and office buildings stay vacant long enough, existing office space will have to be marked to market and “the relative value of each use” will change to make conversion, even to residential, make more economic sense. Lastly, owners can make a meaningful reduction in the supply of currently vacant office space by converting a minority of downtown San Francisco office buildings.
Thanks ‘Brahma’: I just knew I’d read that somewhere!
But back on point, I’m not really sure what other uses that office space could be converted to: light industry? (probably not) heavy industry?(even less likely) biotech? (eh…) It might be recalled the White House was converted into a parking garage (some 60 years ago) but I doubt DTSF needs that much parking space. And most importantly – and I believe this supports the point you were making – all theory aside, nothing is being done: a couple of Safles Force Tower’s worth of space has been added since the previous udate in Spring.
re: “nothing is being done”
https://www.sf.gov/news/mayor-breed-proposes-eliminating-office-housing-conversion-fees-advance-30-x-30-plan-downtown
An estimated $70k to $90k in fees waived per unit, quite a chunk.
I concede that all manner of regulatory concessions have been legislated into being over the past two years, but they all amount to carrots (not sticks; nothing is going to force reluctant office building owners to convert if they want to sit on their hands reaping tax losses) and don’t amount to much if they don’t produce actual conversions. I believe the point ‘Notcom’ was making is that very few actual conversion projects are underway compared to the volume of vacant office space, which is growing. The press release you linked to confirms this, only being able to cite 2 projects. Better than zero, though.
And btw, the conversion of the Warfield Building at 988 Market St. has been in the works for eleven years or so. If I were Mayor, I’d be working on policy “sticks” to get developers to proceed to the building permit stage faster, and disincentivize flipping of entitled properties.
As far as “what other uses that [more modern, yet currently vacant] office space could be converted to”, at the beginning of this year commenter Philip suggested that “they’d be great for mini storage…with no shortage of demand in SF.”
That made me laugh out loud, but then I remembered that for many years, the tallest building in Los Angeles was The Hollywood Storage Company building at 1025 N. Highland Ave, in Hollywood. Opened in 1926 and the building is still there, now owned by Iron Mountain, shaming more modern, generic concrete sarcophaguses.
Speaking of the Southland:
“https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-09-27/insatiable-demand-for-data-centers-reported-as-ai-and-cloud-service-expand”
Per the article: One Wilshire one of the early post height limit skyscrapers – I think it may have actually been the earliest – has been converted into a data center.
Ironically Wilshire Blvd is nearly set up for a complete mega datacenter vertical integration. It already has the oil wells to supply the fuel (yes, they exist and are well hidden within fake buildings). All it needs now is a small refinery and power plant.
Oakland office tower has just sold for 82% discount from 7 years ago. Oakland office vacancy rate 20%, compare to 40% for SF.
If you’re referring to 180 Grand, the story is a little more complex: the “buyer” didn’t buy it , per se, but rather obtained possession by buying out the loan (“similar to foreclosure” according to the news article).
So assuming the math was done correctly – 30M vs .175M paid in 2019 – that’s the effective rate…but it’s not an arm’s length transaction….or – dare we say it? – perhaps not quite “apples to apples”.
Compare that acquisition (however it took place) of the 15-story 180 Grand Ave. and its neighboring 370-stall parking garage in Uptown Oakland in exchange for the roughly $30 million in outstanding debt (or about $109 per ft.²) with the April 18 sale of the empty 16-story tower at 995 Market St. in S.F. to Florida-based real estate investment firm LNR Partners, LLC at a public auction for just $6.5 million, representing an 89.5 percent drop in value from when the building last sold in 2016, for roughly $62 million. You could also describe that one as “not an arm’s length transaction” since the new owner was previously appointed to oversee the tower’s distressed loan.
And btw, the San Francisco building’s recent price of about $72 per ft.² is 64 percent under the previously-mentioned inflection point where the existing building adds little to no value to the land. As a reminder, 100 Van Ness, the old AAA headquarters, was a successful office high rise to residential high rise conversion, the cost basis for which was under $200 per existing ft.² and described as an “outlier” at the time.
S(mall) S(ample) S(size) was the gist of my qualifying: clearly CRE has entered a territory few would have thought possible – and which many still refuse to accept – but how to parse the numbers? Is a 90% decline over 9 years better or worse than 80% over 5 years? How efficient is the Market really?
While it was only one data point, what I was going for was to suggest that with an 89.5 percent drop in value, we’re probably at a point where much higher discounts are unlikely, and that we’re either at or very near the bottom of the market. But I’m not a CRE broker or market participant.
As far as parsing the numbers, I did a back-of the envelope calculation assuming (just for comparison purposes) the decline was linear over each relevant time frame and the slope of the decline for 180 Grand Ave. in Oakland is an order of magnitude greater than that for 995 Market St. in San Francisco, so the percentage discount can be deceiving as a metric.
I fully expect that the new owners of 995 Market St. will shortsightedly attempt to “lease it up with office tenants, once demand returns” instead of converting the building to a new, non-office use.
the decline was linear over each relevant time frame That, of course, is the complication since the peak likely came in the middle of the period(s)….so one doesn’t have a steady decline, but rather some parabolic shape.
Sure. But as private entities, I think it’s safe to assume that the funds and/or partnerships that KKR and Oakland-based Harvest Properties and Bridgeton Holdings used to purchase those assets did not mark to market on a regular basis, so we can’t know what that curve looked like.