388 Fulton Street

Listed for $998,708 in June, with the sales office having been open for three months and prices adjusted accordingly, the price for the two-bedroom unit #413 at 388 Fulton Street was reduced to $968,000 in July as a wave of price cuts quietly rolled across the unsold inventory of the Hayes Valley development.

Relisted in September and then further reduced to $934,000 last month, the sale of the “bright SE corner” unit with “floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, large bedrooms and courtyard views,” has now closed escrow for $925,000, a mere $9,000 below asking according to all industry stats and reports, but $73,708 below the price at which the 743 square foot condo was listed five months ago.

And while still not “cheap” at $1,245 per square foot, that’s 7.4 percent cheaper than the $1,344 per square foot at which 388 Fulton #413 was priced in June.

43 thoughts on “Still Not Cheap but 7.4 Percent Cheaper Than Five Months Ago”
  1. Yeah but still…$1245 psf is very good for that area. Going from super high to “only” very high sale is still a success. i.e. Sky ain’t fallin yet bro!

    1. We’re not sure the buyers of unit #213, who paid $1,284 per square foot in September, for a unit in the same stack but two floors below, would echo your sentiments, bruh.

        1. Who cares about one person. It’s the price for the area and building type that counts, brah.

          We’d guess the other buyers in the building, especially those who paid an average of over $1,300 per square foot when sales began.

          But you’re right, while the price of that “one” unit dropped by 7.4 percent over the past five months, a bigger picture index for new condo values in San Francisco has actually dropped by 7.5 percent, so it’s not a perfect anecdote of the market as a whole.

  2. 745sq ft is tiny for a 2bdroom. Still hard to imagine paying this much to live in that neighborhood in a tiny tiny space.

      1. 745 isn’t tiny, but it is small, but doable if it’s a 1 bath. Our Sunset tract home top living floor is about 900 and is spacious enough.

        1. But 900 is (a) quite a bit bigger than 745 (whole extra 10×15 room!) and (b) your house likely has unfinished areas that can be used to store things. So your 900 sq ft house is effectively a lot bigger.

          We’ve done a 800 sq ft condo with infant and dog. The living space is actually fine. It’s the (lack of) storage that kills you.

      2. i think its tiny for a 2bdr. 437 sq ft is a studio size. if i were to buy a 437sq ft 2bdroom, id just knock the walls out.

    1. You’d think there would be an upper limit to these prices of sorts predicated in part on the quality of what one gets in SF for 900K or for several million dollars. One may have the money to pay uber bucks for a little unit/home with virtually no yard space, but at some point some buyers might start thinking really, this is all that 900K, or several million dollars, gets you.

      1. Some people will pay close to anything to live in SF. Homes in the Sunset, many of which haven’t been touched since they were built back in the 1940s, are going for $1M…very little yard space and guaranteed cold, wind and fog 90% of the time.

        1. True. Which is why I referenced some people. As (if) prices keep going up – IMO – there is a point at which a subset of folks just say no. I’d be among those folks. 1 million for the Sunset? Me thinks not. I’d look for other options. Especially as couples start families there is a desire for larger homes, a backyard for the kids and all. A good number of the homes put up for sale around me have been from couples having their second child and wanting more space. Often moving to the Lafayette area or mid-Peninsula. And getting quite a bit more home for the same buck.

          1. Who cares about the subset of “just say no”, when the subset of “just say yes” no matter how small/expensive space gets is growing faster. Like I have said in the past, SF is a bargain compared to many other international gateway cities. Hell,in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc. 745 sq ft is considered rather generous space.

          2. Sure, some people will say San Francisco has become too expensive and decide they want more space and a backyard. So what? That’s been happening for the last 100 years. It’s hardly news.

    2. Yes, 745 of well laid out* sq ft ain’t bad, ain’t bad at all for a practical 2BR unit.

      * denotes low/no wasted hallway space, enterances, etc. and no awkward room layouts.

    3. I rented a 625sq ft 2bd/1ba apartment in SOMA. It was tiny and presented some issues particularly since some of those feet were a hallway. Made moving into my current 816 sq ft place seem palatial (it is also better laid out with almost no wasted hallway space).

  3. “SF is a bargain compared to many other international gateway cities. Hell,in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc. 745 sq ft is considered rather generous space.”

    I agree with you. Even though this cycle is clearly either taking a breather driven by election/interest rates/seasonality, I don’t think there is a better asset out there than prime SF real estate (SFH and 2 units) over the next 10 years.

    This cycle has seen virtually every remaining parcel snapped up and built on. There was still some slack in buildable land between 2007 and this cycle, but now we are truly out of “inventory” for new development. There will be many losers in unicorn-land, however the winners (Uber, Airbnb, FANGs, etc.) will continue to grow exponentially and land here is fixed. The only way you will be able to build will be parcel assemblages as in New York, but the political environment here (as evidenced by the 1515 S. Van Ness debacle at the BoS meeting) makes it almost impossible to get a “big” project approved. The City is overcrowded by most measures already and I think entrenched property owners (and their elected reps) will be killing more development going forward than they did in the 2012-2014 building boom.

    1. SF makes up a smaller relative part of it’s metro area than any other “big” city I can think of

      There must be some disincentive for cities (prop 13?) like San Bruno or Milbrae not having the political will for developing mid-rise clusters of housing and office around their BART stations. San Bruno in particular has a huge amount of land around BART and Caltrain stations dedicated to malls and parking lots and where development would not impact much older middle class neighborhoods. It sort defies logic how the tide has not turned

      1. It indeed defies logic. El Camino is mostly 3 lanes in both directions from SSF to Millbrae. With a wide planted median strip. There are miles of one and two story older commercial buildings fronting most of this stretch. Plus a lot of one story malls and parking lots. I drove it yesterday and there are maybe 10 newer multi-unit buildings in all that stretch. Newer as built in the last 5 years. I saw no new construction taking place. Close to BART, CalTrain and a hop from 280 this area should be ripe for moderate scale development. The potential for thousands of new housing units in a more open, green and accessible location than many parts of SF.

        1. Some of El Camino is adjacent to middle class areas of SFHs so like you are anti-development in SF so are these people. But east of El Camino there are areas that are underdeveloped

        1. Sure that is part of it but the whole Peninsula does not have the same demographics

          I am surprised in particular in San Bruno and Milbrare with the larger immigrant populations that the city counsels can’t be more easily influenced. San Bruno has a huge BART adjacent area that is not really near the middle class residential areas which are all west of El Camino. They went ahead and rebuilt a mall. You would think if nothing else they would consider intensive office development

          1. Yep, Millbrae in particular is NIMBY central. Lots of older white people who oppose any development because they want to “preserve the character” of a totally nondescript suburb. Housing at the BART/Caltrain is an absolute no brainer, but it’s been successfully blocked for 4+ years. I wish the SFBARF folks, as annoying as they are, would go after the Millbrae city council and get them to move on developing that area.

    2. “SF is a bargain compared to many other international gateway cities. Hell, in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc. 745 sq ft is considered rather generous space.”

      I think the holding costs (i.e. property taxes and HOA) for a standard unit in the aforementioned cities do not come close to what you pay in SF. In at least one of those cities, when you’ve paid off your mortgage you really feel like being in the free and clear, whereas here you will always have a substantial perpetual payment.

      1. I can’t believe dem fancy towers in Asia ain’t got HOA dues. Cmon. And surely they have property taxes too. Here at least we have good ole prop 13. And if you own 2-4’s with a low tax base (like moí) then it’s basically like free and clear. Git yourself a few of ‘dem, and you’re livin life high on the hog!

  4. The neighborhood is quickly changing. Wait for the Goodwill, Honda dealership, donut shop and union building on Market and Franklin to be knocked down and rebuilt. This neighborhood is in the beginning of a transformation. I believe even Western Addition may be razed at some point in the future. Never say never. The new tech bros will not bat an eye lash to redevelopment

    1. True that. That’s why even if some buyers “over paid” by a bit, in 5-10 years time nobody’ll care. Called long term thinking and is especially common among numerous and savvy long term SF RE investors, as well as most local minority investors. Something our anglo SS editor is wont to understand, let alone take advantage of. Oh well.

      1. Either you don’t know what it means, or you intentionally used it incorrectly. Regardless, you used it wrong.

        Right, race only enters into it because you injected race into a discussion in which it is irrelevant. Precisely my point.

  5. International gateway cities? Have you tried to get a meal at midnight? Hail a cab? Take a train somewhere? See a first run play or movie? Find a Fortune 50 company that’s not based in Cupertino or Mountain View? If this is your idea of New York, Hong Kong, LA or London you need to step around the pool of piss in front of your apartment and see what’s beyond this one industry Omaha by the Bay.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *