425 1st Street #2307
Originally seeking $849,000 as a resale, the listing for One Rincon Hill #2307 was reduced down to $749,998 and then withdrawn from the MLS after 200+ days.
Returning to the MLS 21 days ago asking $699,000, the list price for the northeast corner and 819 square foot 425 1st Street #2307 was just reduced to $649,000.
∙ Listing: 425 1st Street #2307 (1/1) – $649,000 [MLS]
One Rincon Hill (425 First Street): Secondary Market Stumbles [SocketSite]

50 thoughts on “Trying To Catch The Market Over At One Rincon Hill (425 1st #2307)”
  1. Only two interior shots, both of which show the same view. I am forced to assume that this is a typical SoMA soul-sucking shoebox.

  2. Still too high. It’s a good step in the right direction, but with 709 HOA fees the rent/own calculation is still way ahead for renting.

  3. Umm thanks, but no thanks. 800 square feet. 23 floors, $700 HOA dues. WTF were these guys thinking in the first place?
    The neighborhood is also in BFE. And yes, I will argue that. B.F.E. Not a grocery store, restaurant, or bar in sight.

  4. 3 blocks to Whole Foods, half a block to Local, 2.5 blocks to South Park, 3 blocks to Anchor and Hope, 3 blocks to Town Hall, 2 blocks to 83 Proof, 3.5 blocks to Salt House. The micro-hood right around 1RH sucks but it’s a short walk to something nicer.

  5. Agreed, Jeffrey. There’s nothing immediately outside your door here, but it’s a few blocks from tons of restaurants and bars, etc. I’m a Soma guy, and this is not the ideal location in the nabe, but it’s not the worst one, either. And the views look fantastic.
    But still priced too high. I think you really need to be around (or under) $700 per square foot to move new Soma places quickly these days. Which implies the value of this unit is under $600K. But $649K is close. Maybe somebody bites.

  6. the proximity to amenities is not too far. it’s the cars at flying speed in that neighborhood that make an otherwise relaxing walk become stressful.

  7. I too saw a 1/1 on MLS for 550k, but that was a stack 4, the JR. 1/1 not nearly as desirable, but I do think it was on a higher floor. Does anyone know the original contract price on 2307?

  8. Obviously they failed to find a tenant at $3400/mo. No surprise there. 07 does sport the best views, though the second tower and the Californian will block some, if they ever get built. Somebody loan me money so that I can try a low ball offer?

  9. This plan and outlook are actually rather nice. The bedroom looks out onto the balcony and the views are include the city core and bay bridge. The entrance hallway is kind of dark and nasty and the the kitchen is a bit far from the light, but it is still a bit better than the usual condo fare.
    The whole point of Rincon Hill is to be in a rarified spot that is arms length from everything else.
    At this stage $650/sqft would probably seem like a deal, but probably the $500s are not far off.

  10. I don’t care if it’s on the 75th floor or located in the Garden of Eden; a 1 BR should be no more than 300K.

  11. Those are very poor views. You basically look at a bunch of ugly buildings. The view of the Bay is a partial view, blocked by more ugly buildings.
    And a balcony on a floor that high is just plain creepy. Too easy to take the plunge when you get your first HOA bill.

  12. This raises the interesting question. I’m curious to see what the large number of people that purchased at One Rincon and the Infinity will do now that they are under water. I suspect most can pay their mortgage, but should they?
    Those who support the efficient breach model would say they should not.

  13. Yes, 2-3 years out of college and know that I don’t want to buy next to a freeway. Let’s be serious here though, I’m a homeowner, and checked this place out. Is anyone really surprised by this? The HOA dues are absurd. Absurd. The location is not ideal for a number of reasons mentioned previously. What about a corner store in case I just need to pick up milk? Forgot that I need to to go down 23 floors first…and need to bring my mace. There’s not a chance I would walk home those five blocks from 330 Ritch after a few drinks and after hours – and that’s the same if you’re at Paragon, Momo’s, Bacar – whatever.
    All I’m saying is that people continue to be surprised by stuff like this. If you’re actually in the market and walking through these places it’s fairly obvious what is a deal and who got caught with the hope of making a quick buck.
    You can give me all the amenities you like, but it’s not going to make up for a poor layout and location.

  14. “There’s not a chance I would walk home those five blocks from 330 Ritch after a few drinks and after hours”
    Huh, you gotta go hang out in some more interesting places if you find Harrison/1st area “threatening”. I recommend doing a few laps of Howard and 6th after dark… Seriously, I rented at Baycrest the first month I was in SF, and the area is in good striking distance from a lot of decent places. If you feel unsafe here, then the City is probably not the best place for you…
    As for 1 RIncon, I’d do short-term rental there, but that would be about it…
    ps – not wanting to derail the thred of course, but being an admitted “loft-guy” – I’d be more interested in deals like this than 1 Rincon:
    http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/164-Townsend-St-94107/unit-2/home/1057868?utm_source=myredfin&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=listings_update&utm_nooverride=1

  15. I’m going to have trouble accepting real estate tips from anybody who considers 330 Ritch to be a local appeal.
    Soma sucks. Let’s just admit it, everyone.
    Soma was built for young couples who commute to jobs in Mountain View and value proximity to the highway more so than any other factor.
    It looks and feels like almost any city in America, and has somehow accomplished the staggering feat of being (a) in San Francisco (b) devoid of any charm or character.
    If you had a friend visiting you from out of state, and they only had two days to spend in San Francisco … would you even tell them that Soma exists, let alone show it to them?
    By the way… “up and coming” is realtor code for “I can’t believe you’re buying this, but who knows what might happen in ten years.”
    And Soma is not only a joke itself. No, it’s actually a holding company for a portfolio of jokes: South Park, South Beach, Mission Bay, Rincon.
    Has anyone here actually eaten in South Park? Has anyone here ever had to endure the torture that is Rincon Center — a food court that has only one tolerable restaurant (Yank Sing) and few open seats? You don’t need the Michelin Guide to tell you how mediocre Soma’s overpriced restaurants are. But if you have one, it will tell you they suck.
    And the Ball Park? That is not an attraction.
    Ball Parks are the sort of things that you want to be close, but not THAT close. You want to be within walking distance, but not have your traffic grind to a halt 81 days a year.
    Oh, and Mission Bay feels like a soulless, cold vision of the future. If that’s what America will look like in fifty years, then perhaps we don’t need Genetic Engineering to extend our human existence. I’d rather OD on a pharmaceutical called Arterra, then live in the building with that name.
    Some is a joke, and I can’t believe that anybody would choose to make it their home when there are so many other parts of this city that are amazing and full of life.

  16. chris, 2002 pricing for the 164 townsend units was ~$250,000. I’m not sure anyone will want to pay 3.5x 2002 in this market.

  17. Taking up SortaNewBuyers rant, there is something almost suburban about Soma-MissionBay. It has the architecturaly vocabulary of edge city corporate parks, and little of the street energy Jane Jacobs would gush over. Irvine around Orange County airport now has 40 towers over 20 stories of offices and condos, is that urban? At least down there the streets are clean, well landscaped, and the residents of those condos do not pretend they are living in an urban neighborhood. The only thing that would make SOMA attractive would be if it was far less expensive than established neighborhoods in the city. I have to laugh when people bash me for living in Cow Hollow because it has no “flavor” or “soul”, and then I find out they live in a stucco box in Soma!

  18. I don’t think SOMA and its adjacent neighborhoods are that bad. It’s true that there is no neighborhood there. But being able to walk to work in the financial district would be a big plus. And it is still right in SF and a quick muni or cab ride to lots of great places.
    That said, I agree that it is absurd that these places are priced as if SOMA is an established, desirable neighborhood in its own right. Prices would have to be cut in half to get the pluses and minuses in sync. But we’re heading there — give it about two years. The neighborhood will still (and always will be) “up and coming” but at least it will be priced to properly reflect that.

  19. I think South Beach, South Park and Mission Bay are great. I moved into the neighborhood 6 months ago from Cow Hollow. I was somewhat skeptical about the neighborhood at first but must say it has far exceeded my expectations.
    The restaurants in the area are great (bacar, oola, mochica, south, fringale) just to name a few. Most are in walking distance or a very short cab ride. And yes, it’s really easy to get a cab when I call my concierge and ask him to order me one. I leave my dry cleaning with the conceirge as well.
    I think living next to the ballpark is exciting. Yes, traffic gets tough during game days but once you get 2 blocks away its back to normal. I don’t think anyone can give a fair opinion of a neighborhood until you’ve actually lived in it.
    I know I had very different “views” of SOMA before I moved in but now that I live there I think it would be hard for me to call any place but this home.
    Just my 2 cents

  20. Well, I for one love living in South Beach, and love living in a loft. It seems quite a few people who hang out on socket site can’t comprehend either of those… But just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean that you should insult it…

  21. 811.25psf, getting back in line with what it should have cost in the first place.
    Past resident Mission Bay, new resident South Financial or what ever they are calling it now. Being on the city side of the bridges and over passes makes a world of difference in how connected one feels with the city. Still have the luxury being close to the embarcadero, of being in a small neighborhood/community however. Best of both worlds. Same idea being in the Bay Area, access to all – beaches, mountains, city, vinyards, etc. I would venture to guess Market and Spear area will be the new center of the Fin. District in the next handful of years.
    I knew I would love the area before moving here, but my expectations have been blown away.
    Pleasantly surprised also at how many kids I see in the area, even at hip little places like Local for Sunday morning breakfast.
    I am also starting to run into people I know who live in Nob Hill, Pac Hts who venture to the area for Farmers market, good eats, jogging on the water front.
    I can understand people saying areas toward Rincon Hill, and definately past the ball park are a bit grimy. Honestly I see no similarity to where I am at now, not even close.
    All good signs.

  22. I’m going to back Karl (as I did the same thing), while SOMA/Mission Bay isn’t The Mission, NB, Marina, or any of your other “gems in the city” you older folks like it’s got a fair amount going for it. I agree with the commute and location more than the neighborhood feel. Hopefully the feel comes in time. I for one appreciate the quiet (yes I have to deal with construction), clean streets, and easy location.
    “The ballpark is not an attraction.” – That’s my new Gmail status message for the next year. You have obviously NEVER been to Fenway or Wrigley. Those parks are attractions and the neighborhoods around them some of the finest. Hopefully businesses will continue to invest in SOMA; Ball games are amazing, a piece of American culture, and if that’s not an attraction then I have no idea what is.
    And Tsunami just moved in off 5th and Berry, that place has been slammed for the past 3 weeks. Good stuff, terrible service.

  23. Everytime there a posting about a building in SOMA/rincon hill, it degenerates into a neighborhood bashing session where everyone seemingly scractches their heads about why anyone could possibly want to live there. This is pointless and far from helpful.
    Yes, SOMA, like every other neighborhood, is not for everyone. People who like SOMA generally share one or more of the following attributes:
    1) they like the amenities of living in a fully catered high-rise
    2) they work downtown and like to be able to walk to work
    3) they work in the valley and like to be able to get on the freeway with no hassle
    4) they are only in SF parttime and like having a turn-key home in SF
    as for “bernie lomax’s” post about picking up a quart of milk, there is a whole foods or safeway within 3-4 blocks of just about every soma highrise. Besides, you an everyone else keeps forgetting the profile of the typical SOMA resident. Many of them are busy younger professionals and eat every single meal out, whether at the goolgeplex cafeteria, or around their downtown office, etc. Some of my other friends in SOMA don’t have a single thing in their fridges!
    Yes, it’s true there aren’t small hole-in-the-wall eateries every 2 feet, but there are a plethora of wonderful restaurants within just a few minutes walk (local, town hall, South food and wine, 21st amendment, ozumo, boulevard, chaya, oola, azie, waterbar, Epic, tres agaves, district, etc, coco500, etc.). Yes, they are all mid-range to pricey, but again, consider the resident profile–they typcially have more money to spend on dining. Sure, if I do want to go to a cheap sushi/vietnamese/mexican/korean, etc dinner, I will have to take transportation, but that is more than offset by the fact that my commute is a 6 minute walk to work! I can even go home for lunch and play with my dogs!! How many of you folks that can’t possibly believe someone could enjoy living outside your precious noe/mission/castro/russian hill/nob hill/whatever neighborhood can say that you walk 3 blocks to work?
    And I really don’t get all the comments about safety, carrying mace etc. Are you kidding me? have you been in the area? I’ve lived in SOMA for 7 years, often walking home very late at night from work or bars further up SOMA, and not once do I recall ever feeling unsafe or threatened. I can’t say the same for everytime i find myself anywhere in the mission.
    Look, the point is, every neighborhood has tradeoffs. Even though some folks might only see the negative aspects to any particular area, and might not have enough creative thiking power to recognize and imagine what the beneficial aspects are, it would be nice if they could just accept the fact that they do exist, as evidenced by the fact that certain people actually want to live in that kind of neighborhood.
    How nice it would be to click on a SOMA posting on this site and get useful information on price trends, how the prices are fluctuating in relation to the rest of the market, what’s going on with the projects in development, etc., without seeing the discussion degenerate into this kind of useless commentary on why any given poster can’t imagine himself/herself living in SOMA.

  24. Re SOMA quality of life, the sidewalks have finally been installed along 2nd Street under the bay bridge approach. They’re nice and wide, no longer requiring the 20,000 per day pedestrians walking to/from BART to totter single-file along a wavy ridge of asphalt. Why this couldn’t have been done years ago is beyond me, but on-topic, this may make the 2nd street amenities feel more accessible to ORH.

  25. I agree with SOMA resident. There are pluses and minuses with every area.
    Places near a freeway are frequently inhabited by low income people everywhere, and they are perfectly happy.
    I suspect over time that will be true for ORH, and pricing will, over time, reflect its location. I can easily see it dropping to $500 psf some years down the road.
    The hope was that the new residents would drive business to the area. But of course, that isn’t going to happen in a downturn, and so, instead, the residents will, over time, switch out and it will revert to affordable rental housing, just like buildings next to freeways everywhere else.

  26. Also it seems most people don’t know the area well enough based on the comments. Just like any part of SF, the entire area most people describe as “SOMA” is really broken into little hoods, all with different, character, qualities, and lifestyles. Just like you have Pac Hts, Lower Pac Hts, and such – very different yet very close in proximity. Living in the area the past 5-6 years I personally see for example, Soma Grand, the Beacon, the Brannan, Rincon, St. Regis, and Infinity all as being in different neighborhoods.

  27. Many other Soma defenders on here, so no sense in repeating what they’ve already said. So instead, I’ll engage in some embellished counter-propaganda of my own to goad the “north of California” crowd:
    OMG, who could ever live in any neighborhood outside of Soma? I mean seriously, the best restaurants in the city are clearly in this neighborhood, many of which are consistently on the Chronicle’s Top 100 list. Lots of cheaper budget places as well. How horrible would it be to live in Cow Hollow, where you can only eat crappy tex-mex at Lefty’s, then go play “beirut” at Bar None with Johnny Frathouse and Suzy Marina. Bleh. College was a great 5 years. But it’s over – let it go.
    I have a 15 minute walk to work instead of having to stand on some raggedy old bus for 30 minutes. Can you imagine commuting like that every day, especially in the winter, when everyone is sick and coughing/hacking on you the whole bus ride? Disgusting.
    And the entertainment – aside from plenty of restaurants and bars, Soma has night clubs, pool halls, theaters, museums, ballpark, etc. Plenty to do. Who would want to live in the Marina, where all you can do is go watch pasty yuppies drinking latte while petting their golden retrievers? BOOO-RING.
    Shopping? We’ve got a large Safeway and Whole Foods. The new Westfield mall is technically in Soma, and Union Square is an easy walk. A walk with no hills. Can you imagine humping it up those hills in Pac Heights carrying groceries? And where can you even walk to from the Marina or Pac Heights? Nowhere, that’s where. If you’re tired of playing beirut or staring at those pasty yuppies, time to get back on that germ bus!
    And can you imagine paying all that money to live in some creaky old wooden box? Who would want to live in those ancient neighborhoods? Terrible insulation, cold in winter, hot in summer, noisy, bad layouts, etc. For less money, I get to live in a BRAND NEW condo, with concrete floors and walls, pilings to bedrock, modern finishes, full amenities, and expansive city views. How depressing it would be to stare out onto an old prison all day…
    But have fun burning yourself cooking on that old Wedgewood stove, and stumbling in/out of your clawfoot tub. But keep it down! The neighbors can’t sleep because they heard you farting through the floor!

  28. “I don’t care if it’s on the 75th floor or located in the Garden of Eden; a 1 BR should be no more than 300K.”
    Yes, in Vallejo. in Manteca. in Dubuque. in Little Rock…. Perhaps even in Bayview/Hunters Point. You should probably live somewhere like that. Bye Bye

  29. Back to the subject of the article, the 07 one bedroom stack at $649k (have we finished ranting about SOMA yet?)…
    My boyfirend was in contract to buy an 07 one bedroom on a similar floor on Day One of sales at ORH. It was substantially more than this price two and a half years ago Thank God he bailed!
    When prices go below opening night 2006 you know there’s trouble.
    Question for all you experts: How do you get a mortgage when over 50% of the building is now rental? I thought the lenders checked that sort of thing. Isn’t the HOA required to disclose?

  30. Agree with Dude…particularly w.r.t the restaurants. Back to the unit in question…Skip the view and simply buy a lower floor 2BD unit @ SF BLU and pocket 50-60K in change. That building and location is sweet!

  31. grr, just take a look at one one can buy in Vallejo for $300,000. You will be stunned. I’m not saying SF is equal to Vallejo at all. Just pointing out that $300,000 is a lot of money for a house nearly everywhere. There is an SF “premium” over neighboring areas, but SF prices are quickly falling to put that premium back in line with recent historical norms. I suspect you will see pretty decent SOMA 1BR condos for $300k in the not-too-distant future.

  32. “Question for all you experts: How do you get a mortgage when over 50% of the building is now rental? I thought the lenders checked that sort of thing. Isn’t the HOA required to disclose?”
    I second that question. It’s been awhile since I bought/sold my condo in the late 90’s, but IIRC, the lender I worked with made a very specific stipulation about the property being at least 80% owner occupied. Did that sort of thing go by the wayside during the ” Roaring 2000’s”?

  33. While comments on this post did take a detour, MBPioneer managed to get things back on track. We’re going to honor that effort by not letting this devolve into yet another One Rincon versus Infinity debate. Now back to One Rincon Hill

  34. I have lived in SOMA for the past 6 years. I don’t understand all this intra-hood fighting. You gotta love the fact that there are lots of different types of neighborhoods in the city – each of them all with their own things to offer. This is a good thing – diversity amoung the neighborhoods. I like the fact I can hop on muni /hike around the city/take a short drive and visit the beach/land’s end in the richmond, great restaurants and parks in Noe, cool bars in the mission, golden gate park in the sunset – it goes on and on. We live in a great city. There is no one “it” neighborhood – and people in SOMA aren’t snobby about it. I have never heard anybody that lives here say they wouldn’t consider living anywhere else – or that their neighborhood is 2nd to none.

  35. I’ve lived in SOMA/Southbeach for about 6 yrs; been looking at other neighborhoods the entire time but have not found what this hood has to offer. Now that I’m partnered we’d like more space but we love so many things about the location its hard to compromise. Different people have different needs and we should celebrate that.

  36. The Chronicle yesterday printed that #2307 closed for $560K.
    It seems possible to “reverse engineer” the prices paid for ORH units through the tax collector website, by pulling the “Supplemental Tax” bill here: http://www.sfgov.org/site/treasurer_index.asp?id=98446
    It looks like the original purchaser paid $715K (I’m guessing that’s a preconstruction price). That sure was a quick way to blow up about $190K (after typical transaction costs)!

  37. Is everybody in San Francisco rich? Paying over 600 K for 800 Sq feet is just dumb. Then $700+ HOA fee’s are you kidding me?
    People love throwing money in the trash.

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