From a plugged-in tipster: 2679 California was purchased on 10/21/2005 for $2,850,000, listed on 2/21/08 for $2,995,000, and closed escrow on 4/2/08 for $3,005,000.
Assuming all work was permitted, the only major improvements from 10/05 to 4/08 consisted of a few new windows and siding, and the average annual appreciation over the past thirty months for this six bedroom, three and one-half bath single-family home in Pacific Heights weighs in at around 2.2%.
and the commission at 5%, or 150K, coupled with other selling expenses means our sellers lose money on this deal.
Shoulda been a FSBO?
You guys are too much. Does this or does this not show market appreciation? LOL.
Seriously. I rarely agree with Fluj, but that’s some real spinning, fsbo. There was appreciation (even if the owners did lose money).
Now if annual appreciation on the highest-end properties (which I believe were expected to weather the storm best) is only 2.2%, they make absolutely no sense as an investment, especially factoring in inflation, opportunity cost, and rent/buy ratios. So this house isn’t exactly an argument for buying.
However, it is certainly a sign that the sky hasn’t fallen here. Yet.
It shows very slow appreciation (2% per year– less than CPI inflation), in a prime property in the best neighborhood of San Francisco during a period (’05-’07) when real estate in the Bay Area generally was rising at double-digit rates.
Does that about sum it up?
@ fluj,
As I believe you have mentioned in the past, individual properties by definition cannot show “market” appreciation or depreciation. The market is the aggreagate of many transactions.
Agree that it cannot be denied that this place appreciated from 10/05 to 4/08. Note, however, that most of the analyses show that the SF market peaked in early ’07 and has been hit hard since late ’07. So the likely story is that this place appreciated a fair amount from 10/05 through mid-’07, then dropped somewhat after that. It does show that for very expensive SFRs, we’re not quite back to late 2005 prices yet. But we’re clearly on our way there (and beyond).
@ fluj,
As I believe you have mentioned in the past, individual properties by definition cannot show “market” appreciation or depreciation. The market is the aggregate of many transactions.
Double digit post October 2005? I think not.
JBR,
Was sf real estate really going up at double digit rates in 05-07? I thought the market was topping out by late ’05.
@ Happy Renter,
I was being facetious in response to fsbo’s statement. In my opinion all these nice houses have shown recently are two things: a relative plateau, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Why is it improper to consider commissions when evaluating how the seller made out on this transaction?
If we are to consider housing as an “investment,” then we should also consider the transaction costs.
Hard to say, fluj. That kitchen looks newer than 1982, and there aren’t any kitchen or bath remodel permits back to 1982. I’m guessing there’s something inside the downstairs they don’t want a building inspector to see. All the permits are for exterior work.
Maybe the market is ON FIRE, or maybe they sunk 100K+ into a remodel last year and lost their shirts.
Maybe they gave the buyers 3% cash back, and lost even more.
It’s really not possible to say.
Better luck next time!
Tipster, I looked at the property history pictures of the kitchen. It’s the same. Thank you for inserting a conspiracy theory into the fray, albeit a mild one by your standards.
Foolio, evaluating an investment and looking at a property’s appreciation are not the same thing. And you know that.
There is some serious nit-picking going on over this and the Noe property.
Its clear what they both show is that things have been basically constant for good quality SFHs in The City since the end of 2005.
But we kind of knew that anyway. Yes, there may or may not be downward pressure on SF prices to come, but it really hasn’t happened yet..the Dataquick price numbers shows this too.
When did California Street become one of the best locations in the city?
“Foolio, evaluating an investment and looking at a property’s appreciation are not the same thing. And you know that.”
Well that seems a little disingenuous coming from a poster who consistently promotes the increase of property values over time as being a reason to purchase (i.e. ‘invest in’) a home.
But back to the house- nice place with great curb appeal. Went to a dinner there several years ago. The interior wasn’t anything to write home about, but a nice place to raise a family in the city.
Fluj,
Yes, of course there is a difference. But both measures are relevant. Especially when SF real estate has been touted as a “good investment” for the last 5+ years.
Yes, there was some minor appreciation for this prime property since 2005 (though likely outpaced by inflation), and yes it seems these sellers may have lost a bit of money once you factor in transaction costs.
“Well that seems a little disingenuous coming from a poster who consistently promotes the increase of property values over time as being a reason to purchase (i.e. ‘invest in’) a home. ”
No, not from me. I just don’t talk like that whether in real life or on RE BBS’s.
“Its clear what they both show is that things have been basically constant for good quality SFHs in The City since the end of 2005.”
Three years of flat for good single family homes? That’s a FAR cry from what any industry sources have been spewing since then.
This might be good news if we were at the bottom but I haven’t seen any signs that things are turning around anywhere in the city.
Just as info, fsbo at 4:01PM (lower case fsbo) was not me (upper case FSBO).
If SS’s search function were better, I’d find more examples, but it takes forever, and I’m heading out to enjoy the weekend. But here’s one from the vaults by fluj:
“By the way, the owner of this Bay condo bought it 10 years ago for 435K. Think he/she will make any money, if and when this sells? If this is a married couple, at least s 500K gain will be tax free. If you buy and hold for the long run, in California, you usually wind up doing just fine. Is that why everybody is so mad? All the wanna be flippers missed the boat?
“aahhhh. the hatred. i’m basking in it.” — john brown, VH1’s “the white rapper show”
Posted by: fluj at September 25, 2007 2:33 PM
Location, Location, Location
Right. Ten years. Long term. I still believe in this. And that is very much not what you said about me, foolio.
AVERAGE US homeowners stay in their resident for 7 to 8 years.
AVERAGE SF homeowners stay in their resident for 10 years.
Just a little bit fact into this discussion.
prop 13
I really don’t think that California Street is a prime part of Pacific Heights. Personally, I don’t consider the south side of the street Pacific Heights at all. I think these people were extraordinarily lucky to sell at that price. Ditto for the two properties across the street that sold earlier this year. I’d never, ever buy anything on a street that busy and certainly not for 3+ million. What will be more fun however is the flip happening at 2700 California. It sold last spring (I think to some McGuire agents) for around 2 mil who fixed it up and added a garage (with a somewhat questionable sidewalk encroachment). It should show up any day now. What will the price be I wonder!
OMG the market is on fire again. Honey, let’s get the checkbook out and hit some serious open houses this weekend. With any luck we’ll be running into Fluj who will give us the lowdown on this hot market…….
yet again, it’s amazing to me how many houses are bought and sold quickly
I look forward to the time when people buy a home in which to live.
buy sell buy sell…
these aren’t houses, they’re stocks.
It is odd.. and it always seems like it’s the same properties that keep cycling through buyers. Like 1900 Green sold three times in five years. I wonder if some of these people bought one home and bought another, better, property to remodel? I think this is fairly common in district seven. I know a few families that own multiple properties all within a few blocks. As a result, you see the interim properties showing up on the market with some degree of regularity.
Too late ‘mean anon’, you missed fluj. I was running too hot for you and your “honey.” Better luck next epoch.
fluj can certainly take care of himself, but come on, Foolio. “If you buy and hold for the long run, in California, you usually wind up doing just fine.” That is your example of a SFRE cheerleader gone wild?
I’ll bite on the comparing to rent question. Assuming 5% down, your total cost of owning would be about 18K/mo assuming you got an IO-only loan. (It would be 22K/mo at 6% fixed.) Only the 1M of the mortgage is deductible so at 45% tax bracket (35% Fed + 9.3% CA), that’s equiv to a 2500/mo reduction. So we’re looking at after-tax PITI of 16K/mo.
Going by what I’ve gotten in bland index funds since 2005, renting at 10K/mo would give me a current balance of 440K. Subtract out 5% down and we have 300K which is 150K more profit than latest closing price. Add in sales commission and closing costs, the difference becomes 300K-350K. “Slumming” it at 8K/mo rent, it becomes an extra 500K-550K from renting.
Now for me, another half million dollars is a nice amount of money to be keeping around relatively liquid accounts. But I suppose the people who buy these homes at 5:1 price/income ratio could conceivably pass it off as just a year’s worth of pre-tax income. After all, they could just tighten the belt and catch up in a year or two, right?
Don’t forget property taxes. about 0.1% per month. That adds another $3K to the cost of ownership.
Also, the income bracket required to own this house would mean your deductions are limited. Not by the AMT, but the government stops letting you deduct stuff as you get into more and more income. My rule of thumb is to deduct the mortgage interest up to $1M, but not any of the property taxes, and you’ll hit it about right.
So add $36K per year to the above analysis, and you can see how it really makes practically no financial sense to buy anything at these prices, when you can rent from someone whose property taxes have been capped so heavily because they bought well before the boom.
For a half a mil, I think I can do without the wall painting I’d be able to do on my own.
tipster – the property tax doesn’t get factored in.
I can tell you from my tax situation, that usually the property tax that you pay to the county of SF is offset by an equally large decrease in federal and state tax liability (AMT or no AMT).
However, using that method of analysis, the mortgage interest deduction is limited somewhat, and the true amount of mortgage interest deductible ends up being closer to 20-25% even for a 35% tax bracket filer.
So in summary, ignore the property tax hit (either the County or Feds+State would get it in the own vs rent scenario respectively), and the mortgage interest deduction for the first million is closer to 20-25% of the mortgage payment – that is the real offset.
And finally, for most cases where the company is the second mortgage holder, the mortgage payments are usually forgiven or deferred, but the deferred/forgiven interest must be reported to the IRS as interest income, thus it is above the line taxable income, and it may be (in the case of interest on mortgages less than 1 million- which this is NOT) a below the line deduction.
Taxes are complicated, the analyses above are nice attempts but are very likely pretty far off one way or the other.
It doesn’t matter whether DNA took the hit or those who lived there. The point is that the comp is real and shows the market for this type of property in this location is more or less flat to slightly negative. Save the schadenfreude for another topic.
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned that when you factor in leverage, 2-3% annual appreciation yields a very good return on equity. At 20% down, that’s 10-15% annual return; double that for 10% down. Of course, any ninny knows you must hold long enough to cover transaction costs.
All the discussion is meaningless.
Anyone paying 2M for a property did it not for the tax deduction. Rather, they like the house and they want to live there.
Calculating the tax deduction (or even “monthly cost”) from the sideline is like saying “Those stupid millionaires spent $500 each time dining out? I could have done with $5 at In-n-Out and just as good”.
@john thanks for putting things in their proper perspective.
video of sidings being installed at property.
video of sidings being installed at property:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOU8GIRUd_g
Calculating the tax deduction (or even “monthly cost”) from the sideline is like saying “Those stupid millionaires spent $500 each time dining out? I could have done with $5 at In-n-Out and just as good”.
I’ll agree with this with one huge caveat.
in my LIMITED experience the people I know buying $1-$3 million properties in the city aren’t super wealthy. They are more moderately high income, but low wealth.
(example: making about $300-400k/year but buying $2-3M homes)
In your example a millionaire can easily afford $500 meals. I’m still not convinced that many of the $1-$3M homes are bought by people who can afford them. (actually, I”m very convinced that significant amounts of those buying in the $1-1.5M range can’t afford it… hence IO teaser rate ARMs and all that… but I have my doubts about the $1.5-3M range as well…)
I’m sure others have noticed this, but there is not much inventory out there. The inventory that IS out there is often a property bought and held less than 4 years. I wonder if some of it is that people overbought, and now with reset of their loans they have to sell to get out?
anyway, just rambling
I’m not going to bore people with stats on how few millionaires there are in this country — especially bonafide liquid millionaires who can live that lifestyle. But even at 1M, shrugging off 500K in 3 years is a big deal. That’s the equiv of spending 33% of your net worth for the pride of ownership. My personal comfort level would be 15% max which would require a 4M net worth.
There are estimated to be between 2.9 and 9.3 million millionaire households– those with over a million dollars in assets excluding the value of their primary residences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaires#United_States
As of 2005, there were about 32,000 millionaires living in metro San Francisco.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/10/BUG2VD678F1.DTL&type=business
I think part of the frustration many feel about San Francisco real estate is expressed in the selling price of this house.
Is the San Francisco market still on fire?
No.
Is it flat?
Probably.
Is it declining a bit (say 2% to 3%)?
Maybe. (though this seller actually sold for a gain.)
But for most “normal” people who aspire to buy a house in the city (those who make anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000) a 2% decline is meaningless. Hence, our discussion of how many millionaires are in the Bay Area.
The middle class is still locked out of the housing market. I lived in San Francisco for seven years and finally had to leave in order to even think about buying a home that was two or three times my income (the range that used to be considered comfortable.)
I have a friend who makes $50,000 who is leaving the city on May 1 to move to Maine where he believes he’ll at least have a shot at owning something someday- though the job market isn’t nearly as good.
Maybe prices will drop further in the city and the “prime” suburbs. They’re dropping pretty quickly in the non-prime areas like Vallejo, Concord and parts of Oakland.
But even with the price drops in places like West Oakland, if you make $50,000 are you buying a house for $150,000? I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.
This house on California is lovely- but it is so far removed from the reality of 99% of homebuyers that it’s laughable.
Did someone really mention 5% down? Not even WaMu does that anymore.
This owner made $155,000 after buying at “the height” in end 2005, early 2006. I’ve been renting a house for $4,500/month since then, and although it was cheaper renting, I still spent $150,000 in after tax money on rent. Donno how good that is.
I think it’s great Vallejo and the outer areas are going down. A lot of renters in SF can finally own and move out of the city, making things better for all.
zachary
How one could move out of the city once living in the city is whacky. I wouldn’t do it. $4500 a month will have you thinking would shoulda choulda.
I wouldn’t say this to all, but at rent price point I must decidate this song to your rent – all in good fun…
In time it could have been so much more
The time is precious I know
In time it could have been so much more
The time has nothing to show
Fluj,
Infer this. Buying and selling inside of three years is a crap shoot. (even with improvements)
Jerry, your post makes the often-repeated “rent = expense but homeowner costs = equity” logic error. While you’ve spent 150K in rent since 2005, the owner of this house has probably spent about 625K after mortgage interest deductions during that same time to keep the bank or the city from taking the house away. Add in 180K in realtor commissions (perhaps 150Kish if the fee was negotiated down) and I’ll leave it to you to make your own conclusions.
“As of 2005, there were about 32,000 millionaires living in metro San Francisco.”
so as of 2005, there were about 32,000 millionaires living in metro San Francisco. One must also remember a sizeable chunk of those people are ELDERLY (so it took their entire lives to save up a million bucks). The elderly millionaires already have homes, and also are often “fixed income” (as they are at or past their peak earning income), even if their fixed income is relatively high for now.
There are only 5% of SFers that are millionaires, and I’d argue that it would take that kind of weath to afford a Million dollar property.
and yet the average price in SF is somewhere between 750-850k depending on your source of info.
does anybody know how many houses and condos are in SF (total number, not number for sale)?
it would thus seem that SF prices are not supported by the local economic fundamentals.
obviously, Some RE valuation is supported by local millionaires (5%), some is supported by foreigners, some by non-SFers who have second homes there, some by businesses (like the Genentech couple)
but one can hardly deny there is a speculation element, especially given the explosion of IO and Option ARMs in the city since 2001.
again, I have a limited experience, maybe 200 friends/family who own homes in SF. almost all are stretched thin due to housing, especially those who bought in the last 10 years.
**stretched thin by my definition… I consider someone stretched thin if they have emotional distress due to their financial situation-regardless of their actual income or the tchotchkes they have… as example: one of my exes owns a place… she’s a specialist and makes about $450k/year. but her house cost her around 3.5mill… and so she is way overexposed there and has very little in the bank.. most of her money goes to the mortgage, but also to her BMW and her kid’s private school tuition and medical school debt. We reviewed her financials, and she has less than $20k in savings, and NOTHING in retirement. finally I convinced her she needs to sell that house, she cannot afford it. If you look at her life you’d think she’s rich. I see her as struggling.
@ ex sfer:
I appreciate your insights, but I disagree with a couple of things. First of all, you don’t need to be a millionaire to afford a $1M home. There are many people who make in the $200-$300K range, and they comfortably afford a $1M home.
Secondly, SF has relatively few speculators, and people who buy homes here are generally doing it to LIVE in them. That’s a very different situation than places like Las Vegas where appreciation was mostly fueled by investors. You can argue that home prices are not supported by the local economic fundamentals (i.e – salaries), but those people want to live here and will pay to do so. I think that adds an element of stability that you don’t get in places were flipping is rampant. As an example – rents in SF are also not really supported by salaries (compared to other cities), but people make it work.
Finally, the store about the executive at work is pretty sad. She is obviously living above her means, but I wouldn’t use that to infer how most other home buyers in SF are living. Buying a home is a sacrifice, but this woman is spending 7x salary on a house and still paying for a BMW, private school for the kids, and med school loans. I think that’s pretty uncommon.
ex-SF-er,
Many people (most) who live here may own a home “worth” a million or more, but paid much, much less years ago when they bought it. Turnover of SF real estate is very low – if a larger percentage of homes were on the market at any one time, you would probably see economic fundamentals like income come into play more. As it is, pricing now is more determined by lack of supply.
There are many people who make in the $200-$300K range, and they comfortably afford a $1M home.
this is where we disagree. I make more than that and would never feel comfortable with a $1M home. I could do it of course… but it can end up a strain. partly because as you make more money your other expenditures often rise with that.
That’s why I bring up the fact that my ex also has the BMW and the private school and all that… because that’s just what people in that income bracket do. (there are exceptions, of course). How many millionaires in the city do you know of who drive Honda civics? who go to Sears for their clothes?
now of course, if she had only the home and gave up the cars and the clothes and the private school and all that it would be completely doable… but she “needs” to dress a certain way for work, and she is terrified of public schools and all that…
kind of along those lines, did you see the story in the SF Gate yesterday?
SF gate story
this is sort of what I mean. This guy is obviously high income. he is going to be able to pay $75k cash for his landscaping now that his HELOC was denied. So he’s not hurting.
That said, he also now will only vacation to places he can drive to, and needs to forego a new car for his wife and so on.
so he is somehwat stretched despite high income and being “rich”
FWIW:
I’ve never claimed that SF RE will crash… I only claim that it is out of whack with itself. It’s always been expensive to live in SF, but only recently has it been THIS expensive to live in SF. I can’t find a good fundamental reason for the rapid rise in RE here, except that there was a rapid rise in RE EVERYWHERE. now everywhere else is falling, so I anticipate RE pain here eventually. (mostly in the way of stagnant home price growth combined with inflation… so nominal mild price losses with larger real price losses)
ex-SF-er, as has been shown time and time again, the runup in SF was MUCH, MUCH, MUCH less than in surrounding areas in percentage terms.
Does anyone know recent stats for SF on types of mtges used? I remember an old chronicle article that cited a 60 something percent number in 2004 using IO ARM’s but I can’t find the reference. It would be interesting to see these numbers over the last decade, but I don’t know where to find them. . .
the runup in SF was MUCH, MUCH, MUCH less than in surrounding areas in percentage terms.
yes, but we’re starting from a high valuation so even small percentages matter when it comes to SF Real Estate.
SF started this current runup after the dotcom runup. so you had a back to back runup.
The median home price in SF per Dataquick in 1995 was $254k. (this was after the downturn in the early 90’s)
1995 median
it was $422,500 in 2000
2000 median
now it is $757,500
2007 median
It’s tripled in 13 years.
I’d call that a runup.
again, some is explained by fundamentals, I don’t argue that. but much is not.
People say “it’s always been expensive in San Francisco”. And I know this. I’m born and raised in SF. But in the past it was never THIS expensive.
We pay a premium to live in SF. One study done not that long ago and it appeared on this site showed the percent of SF residents that pay different percent of their income to housing. For both renters and owners the amount of income that goes to housing was pretty high, close to 50% for a large percentage of residents. That is just a reality of the bay area. If someone cannot feel comfortable buying a $1 million home on over $300K in annual income does not have housing as a priority. And I do know of a few millionaires that shop at Ross and Target, and Safeway, it just makes sense sometimes.
@ anon,
Well if that is how you really feel, great. It seems to be the common sentiment. All the better for me, and mine.
“We pay a premium to live in SF”
yes of course. but that premium has raised considerably over time.
I posted here (but it’s being reviewed by socketsite because I linked to the data points) that
-the median price here in 1995 was $254k (admittedly, this was after the last downturn)
-then in 2000 it was $425.5k I think (so that would reflect pricing due to dot com bubble…)
-Now it is $755k+.
so it’s tripled in 13 years.
Premium to live in SF, yes. but that premium has exploded recently.
“the runup in SF was MUCH, MUCH, MUCH less than in surrounding areas in percentage terms”
uh… i’d hardly call tripled MUCH MUCH MUCH less.
SF saw a terrific runup over the last eight years. What was weird was that it was bookended. You had parts of areas 7 and 8 doubling and tripling in value, and similarly you had areas 3 and 10 doing the same thing. The properties in the middle saw siginificant appreaciation too. But nothing like the top and bottom. So that’s why there isn’t that much change in the middle, and again “middle” is pretty darn well to do around here, but it’s mid Richmond, Potrero, Glen Park, Noe, Bernal, etc.
I shouldn’t really say Noe. It is sort of its own animal. Think in terms of the smallish Noe house or flat only and my point stands.
“middle” is pretty darn well to do around here, but it’s mid Richmond, Potrero, Glen Park, Noe, Bernal, etc.
Is Noe still considered the middle tier ? Certainly 10 years ago Noe may have been middle tier. The latest spate of gold plated renovations seems to have jacked Noe up quite a bit. Perhaps that’s just a reflection of properties that have been hitting the market in the last few years rather than a reflection of the state of the actual stock present in Noe.
If the reno-speculators start dropping out, could Noe fall back towards the middle tier ?
Yeah, I had to back off that one and qualify it a bit due to the high end in Noe going bonkers. It still is not Pacific Heights south though. An illustrative case in point is the home in this thread. California street is maybe the worst addresss in Pacific Heights but it still sold for $3M. Noe doesn’t really have $3M, with only two ever north of that threshold. But six years ago the $2M sale was uncommon in Noe.
All that said, the run of the mill Noe flat was probably worth 650-700K six years ago and is now usually in the high 8’s and low 9’s. Or a small stick Victorian might be worth 1.1 – 1.2 now opposed to 800 or something. That’s kind of what I’m talking about in terms of middle run-up. It wasn’t a doubling or a tripling.
fluj – I was thinking the same thing as I drove by this place today. Yeah, it’s technically Pac Heights – but that block of California seems busy and noisy. But this house sold quickly for over $3M and over asking. Square footage wasn’t listed – but assuming, say 3,500 or so, price per sf would be about $800. Many Pac Heights houses sell at $1K+ psf – but recall 215 Westgate near St Francis Woods that was discussed recently. That was a comparable size, looked in great condition, but sold last month for 1/2 the price ($1.525M or $440 psf). Doesn’t seem like there should be a 2X differential between these two properties.
I agree that it is expensive and the triple increase is huge, but I also think of another financial rule-of-thumb in investing. Usually money will double every 10 years on a decent performing asset. At 254 x 2, the 2005 price should have been 508K, add another 1/3 for the 3 years and that puts the value at roughly $660, so at $755K there is only 14% that needs to be explained beyond the rule-of-thumb. Not bad for a housing boom driven by all sorts of hysteria. I also agree that incomes have not risen by this amount, but not all home purchases are done with just income cash-flow, and that’s been true before it got this expensive. There apparently was lots of money created in the past to support where we are now.
Usually money will double every 10 years on a decent performing asset.
this was true for EQUITIES. But not RE… Home prices have never consistently doubled over 10 years.
RE typically tracks at 1-3% above inflation.
Adjusting ONLY for inflation:
a $254,000 house in 1995 dollars is the same as $352,821 in today’s dollars.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
if we take that 2008 adjsuted number and tack on “above average” home appreciation of 4% per year over 14 years we get:
$587,482 in 2008 dollars
So I disagree with your math.
But regardless, there is hardly a metric that one could use that would support the idea that SF RE is “cheap” or “undervalued”
it is even SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive now than during the height of the dot com boom. there has never been a time in SF where there were that many people making that much money… and still the house prices were way cheaper.
IMO, SF real estate did exactly what almost every other place did. Appreciate for a long time rapidly. It was so long that people take it for granted, and think it’s “normal”. It wasn’t until the mid 90’s
ex-sf, I agree that equities and real estate are not related, however, many postings on this site usually refer to ROI and the like. Glad to see that you do not think that way, but still the equities and RE market have been linked to some extent. I believe that there was a flight away from equities into RE due to the busting of the dot-com bubble for a more stable investment instrument. Ironic.
The math is simple, but even with your math, the delta is 587/755 or .78, still only leaves 22% unexplained by the hysteria of the cheap money days. And your number does not consider the hysteria factor that was present all over the country. Prices on a national level also experienced quite dramatic gains. The peak housing average was around $240K and it was below $100K during the mid nineties, from what I remember.
Sf was not alone in the frenzy appreciation. However, the fact that this market has proven to be a little more resiliant than even the surrounding Bay Area would indicate to me that there is more money here than meets the eye. With the new underwriting standards, buyers now are not the same ones that fueled the appreciation of the last few years, the ones now have to have the ability to buy and there are still sales happening in SF that surprise me as well.
With sellers not willing to take big hits and buyers having to prove their worth, I just don’t see the crash happening here to the extent that it would ever make SF “affordable” for any body other than the well to do. Just like Manhattan. And no, I don’t see this as a good thing. I have missed the zany character of SF since the dot-com bubble, but I don’t see it coming back, sadly.
fluj,
i was just poking fun in my original comment: “Infer this. Buying and selling inside of three years is a crap shoot.” When I wrote it, I had just read the previous piece on the house on Duncan. Those were your words that you wrote on the Duncan house. On this house which has appreciated after some minor improvements, you are laughing at people for not realizing that this house’s selling price clearly shows market appreciation.
Actually, I think everyone is guilty of selective interpretation. There are too few sales going through, so bears can point out the places that sit on the market forever and get marked down/trade lower. Bulls cite that those places are mispriced or problem properties and they selectively cite properties that trade higher/over asking.
but regardless of anyone’s views, it’s always appreciated when there are tangible examples. but data . . . wish we had more granular data . . .
Where are all the millionaires to save this buyer from their stupidity?
Hopefully, the buyer of this place didn’t think any of the millionaire discussion above was going to save him from a $400,000+ loss in 2.5 years, because he probably doesn’t believe that any more. Sucks to be him. He’s out more than $400K and it isn’t sold yet.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/2679-California-St-94115/home/572322
Great thread. Owners here are getting killed. Propertyshark shows a construction loan or something odd on that 2008 sale. sf.blockshopper lays out the personal side of this one.
Surprised I didn’t comment on this thread back in 2008. But I would have given my Lower Pac Height speech.
One of the better buys on Californa was 2217 California.
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/2217-California-St-94115/home/1968715
Has a same sale comp price in 2006 as 2009 (not clear on apple status).
UPDATE: Apples To Apples To Apples At 2679 California.