219 Brannan #18D Floor Plan
Purchased as new for $3,980,000 as the dotcom days were in decline in December 2000, the Brannan’s tower one penthouse #18D resold for $2,810,000 in August 2005 at which point its HOA dues were $780 per month.
The HOA dues for 219 Brannan #18D are now $999 per month and the 2,005 square foot condo is back on the market and listed for $3,310,000. Call it 17 percent ($670,000) under 2000, but 18 percent ($500,000) over 2005 at asking for the penthouse.
∙ Listing: 219 Brannan #18D (3/3) 2,005 sqft – $3,310,000 [Redfin]

26 thoughts on “From The Dotcom Days To Today As Viewed From A Penthouse”
  1. Lesson learned: you don’t buy during a dot com type boom, you sell.
    The original owner was a VC who left to start a dot com and took it public among the earliest wave. The mania took over and the share price skyrocketed. The company was worth over a billion dollars, so the founder bought this place and probably didn’t much care what he paid.
    The company fortunes dropped back to earth, and the company was only worth about $200M in 2005. So he sold at a loss.
    Never buy during a boom.

  2. You’d think that for the money you’d get a living room large enough so that you didn’t have to back the sofa up against the patio doors. But there’s probably no other practical way to configure that small space.

  3. Third bullet under “Listing Information”:
    • Transfer of Possession: Subject to Tenant Rights
    …so I don’t think it’ll go for asking, especially at $1,651 per listed ft², but I haven’t been tuned in to “the market” for penthouses.

  4. Wow, there were some real suckers buying back in 2000. I guess with Facebook going public tonite, now is abot as good a time as any to try to find the greater fool.

  5. Note to sellers hoping to cash in on the Facebook froth: the IPO lockup happens in 6 months.
    That’s right, employees can’t sell ’till Thanksgiving.
    So you’ll have to wait ’till November to enjoy your gravy and stuffing.

  6. -Subject to tenants rights did you say? Subject to tenants rights?!!
    -2005 buyer.
    -I looked and no one with the owner’s name does any thing but have a normal $125K per year job.
    Translation: NEG AM PAY OPTION LOAN!!
    The Tipster Foreclosure Alarm and Soft Serve Yogurt Machine just went off. Yogurt is squirting all over the room in fact.
    So a jump to the recorded documents search on this property appears to show the guy stopped paying the HOA about 8 months ago. I suspect he stopped paying the mortgage years ago, or he’s been paying the minimum and now wants out.
    Will he win the lottery and get out with his shirt? Stay tuned….

  7. Well if he has stopped paying the HOA plus the mortgage & property taxes while he has a renter in the unit, then I think its safe to say he been cash flow positive on this place for a few months already.
    And judging from the gleeful tone of your post I don’t think that’s yogurt that spewed all over the room. 😉

  8. Good lord, is this what this site has devolved into? Making shit up?
    The owner’s name is way too common. And just one example is an asset manager who makes a lot of political contributions, bet he makes more than $125k.
    Ed, help!

  9. @joey you can totally move the sofa 90 degrees to the left to move it away from the windows.
    I’m not getting the gist of this thread. The apartment isn’t in foreclosure and who cares what happen in the dot.com era? It’s over 10 years ago. Yes, we are experiencing a bubble right now, but it’s for different reasons. Move on.
    Although I agree the price is high, it’s not completely unusual for a 3/3 Penthouse in the South Beach area. How about you focus the discussion here rather than attacking homeowners you don’t even know?

  10. Yes, I clearly don’t know what the owner’s exact mortgage and job situation is. But the fact remains that the facts I do know aroused my suspicions enough to go look for liens, and if I’m reading it right, there is a lien on the property.
    Doesn’t look good for what it implies.

  11. tipster has found a bone to gnaw on. I don’t think he does really care if there’s an actual living human on the other end of that bone.

  12. Tipster, you do realize that your mentally ill? No one can be so bitter like you. Do you do anything else during the days then read on Socket site and getting high blood pressure. You do realize that you need very professional and well educated help? do you?
    Tipster, here is a tip from me to you, next time there is a tsunami coming this way please stand close to the water, really close.

  13. Uh oh, there’s two mikes. I need to come up with a new name. I’m the mike praising the embarcadero freeway, not the mike bashing tipster. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

  14. Not mentally ill, just a little depressed. After all, the Nasdaq fell more than 2% today.
    Apple computer down nearly 3%. In a single day! Yelp down 1.5%. Splunk down more than 1%. LinkedIn AND Pandora EACH down more than 7%.
    HP up only because they appear to be looking at massive layoffs.
    The losses are huge, the economy is clearly slowing. It’s enough to drive anyone crazy!

  15. I bought my place a few blocks away in 2000 during the boom; at the time there was crazy overbidding like this for new construction (at The Brannan #2, 246 2nd, and elsewhere) and I felt lucky to have gotten in at a fair stupidly-over-inflated price. Since then value decreased for a year or two but now it’s up ~30% – ~50% overall depending on tipster’s Prozac dosage. Not everyone buyer in the era was on happy drugs.
    I didn’t buy as an “investment”, just as a way to trade a car commute for a walk to work. I also diversified the portfolio out of high-tech and sleep better during bubble periods.

  16. Speaking of dot-com bubbles, Facebook options start trading on May 29. I hope it pops today and stays up that long, but I doubt it. I missed out on the easy short money in 2001. I’m not making that mistake again.

  17. You would think that this owner would be smart enough to higher a broker that can market a $3M property properly. What is with those horrible images and marketing text?

  18. The list price for 219 Brannan #18D has just been reduced to $3,200,000. Once again, the penthouse first sold for $3,980,000 in December 2000 and then again for $2,810,000 in August 2005.

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