San Francisco home sellers aren’t riding the discount wave seen in other markets nationwide.
While sellers across the country are slashing list prices to attract interested buyers, only 12 percent of listings in the San Francisco metro area saw price cuts in August. By contrast, the national figure is around 17 percent.
At that rate, San Francisco claims the third-lowest share among major U.S. metros, behind New York and Newark, New Jersey. Overall, two-thirds of single-family homes ended up selling above list price in August, marking the highest rate in the Bay Area. Sellers in San Francisco who do slash prices usually only reduce by about 6 percent, or $100,000.
The median home price hovered around $1.2 million, or $100,000 below pre-pandemic levels. Typical homes spent a median of 42 days on the market.
Luxury sales tell an even more bullish story. Sales of homes priced above $5 million jumped 55 percent year-over-year in September, while total home sales rose 35 percent. The jump can likely be attributed to the influx of high-paid tech workers and executives, especially in the booming artificial intelligence sector.
A $42 million off-market deal for a 7,300-square-foot mansion in Pacific Heights, for example, blew past this year’s previous record of $30 million. That home was sold to HOS Pacific, a limited liability company linked to Katie Schwab Paige, daughter of famed financier Charles Schwab. The same LLC owns another Pacific Heights home belonging to Katie Schwab Paige and her husband Matt Paige.
With limited supply and deep-pocketed buyers, sellers are sticking to their numbers. Even with flat year-over-year prices, the market’s competitive streak and a record-breaking luxury tier shows that in San Francisco, waiting it out might still pay off.
Neuralink’s new digs
Neuralink is in the midst of a brain — or rather, office — blast.
Elon Musk’s cybernetic implant startup is expanding in the Bay Area with a 144,000-square-foot office at 499 Forbes Boulevard in South San Francisco. The site, vacant since biotech firm InterVenn Biosciences left in 2023, sits across from Genentech’s $5 billion campus redevelopment.
Though Musk’ moved Tesla and SpaceX operations to Texas during the pandemic, Neuralink and xAI are bulking up in Silicon Valley. Musk’s xAI firm is hunting for as much as 250,000 square feet of new office space in or near Palo Alto.
Neuralink, valued above $3 billion, is pushing ahead with human trials of its brain-computer interface designed to help people with paralysis. It has 12 test patients globally and a 10,000-person waitlist for its robotic surgical arm.
School’s back in session
The Bay Area continues to attract attention from the University of California system as well as out-of-state entities.
UC Investments bought the 331-key Residence Inn Berkeley hotel from Pyramid Global Hospitality in an all-cash deal for $175.8 million. It’s a tumble from its 2023 appraised value of $218 million, though it would align with the lodging woes that have led to loan defaults, foreclosures, seizures, bankruptcies and complete closures at hotels across the region in recent years.
UC’s plans for the property haven’t been disclosed, but it could likely turn into student housing amid a crunch for academic residences. The move follows UC’s purchase of nearly 100 acres in Belmont in July from Notre Dame de Namur University.
Meanwhile, Vanderbilt University’s plans for a satellite campus in San Francisco are coming into focus. The forthcoming 5M Project, a mixed-use development in South of Market, has reportedly emerged as a preferred site for the Nashville school to plant its flag in the Bay Area.
Newly affordable
Bishop Ranch is on its way to getting its first 100 percent affordable housing project.
The City of San Ramon gave the green light for 200 new units at 2453 Camino Ramon from nonprofit developer Eden Housing. The residences will rise on a 2.2-acre site as part of the push to turn Sunset Development’s office park into a mixed-use community.
The effort will replace Sunset Development’s former 10,000-square-foot service center with a 120-unit building for working families and an 80-unit complex for residents 55 and older. Households earning 30 to 80 percent of area median income will be eligible.
It’s a notable step as Bishop Ranch continues to grow its planned housing projects to ditch the area’s staid office reputation. Other projects in the works include the conversion of 761,000 square feet of offices to make way for 485 units across two developments, one of which will include affordable housing for very-low-income households; the replacement of a 109,000-square-foot office building with 64 townhome condominiums and nine accessory dwelling units; Related California’s planned 380-unit luxury apartment building; AvalonBay’s 457-unit project across the street from the City Center retail complex; and Sunset’s transformation of the old Chevron headquarters into The Orchards, a development consisting of 2,510 homes, 125,000 square feet of town-center-style retail and a 2.5-acre community park.
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