Marina home sells for $20M, eclipsing previous neighborhood record

An 8,000-square-foot Marina home with panoramic bay views and a lap pool has broken neighborhood records by closing at $19.75 million, the fifth-priciest sale in San Francisco this year.

The 1938 home at 490 Avila Street has seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms and sits on almost a quarter of an acre, the largest lot for a single-family home in one of the city’s northernmost areas, according to listing agent Neill Bassi. The large lot allows for a black-bottom heated lap pool with a hot tub. Mature olive trees and a walled-in garden
hide it from people headed to the nearby Marina Green or Yacht Harbor.

The only Marina sale anywhere close to that price came in February, when a five-bedroom, five-bath home adjacent to the Palace of Fine Arts sold for $12.5 million.

The Avila sale is among several, ranging from Mission Terrace to Cole Valley, that have shattered city records in recent days. Luxury home sales typically peak in the second quarter, drop in the summer, and then return in the fall amid a surge of new listings, said Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at Compass.

That said, home sales above $3 million “ran well above” historic trends in the second and third quarters of this year, Carlisle said. Low interest rates and stock market gains helped push prices higher.

The city’s most expensive sale is still more than double the price of the Marina home. That record was set in June, when a Pacific Heights home sold for $43.5 million. It previously changed hands in 2018 for $39 million — another record at the time.