House on SF’s Billionaire’s Row goes into contract weeks after $10M price chop

A Gold Coast home formerly owned by Zynga founder Mark Pincus and his then-wife, One Kings Lane founder Alison Pincus, has gone into contract only three weeks after it dropped its asking price by a third – from $30 million to $20 million.

Even with the $10 million markdown, if the house sells at or near asking price it will be among the top single-family deals in the city so far this year. So far in the fall selling season, the San Francisco ultra-luxury market has gone quiet after the back-to-back off-market sales of Mark Zuckerberg’s Mission Dolores home for $31 million and the billionaire Glazer family’s purchase of a Pacific Heights home for $34.5 million in July. The combined $29 million all-cash deal for a pair of Russian Hill penthouse suites owned by former Secretary of State George Shultz also closed in July.

The $20 million price tag represents an ask of $1,000 per square foot for the 20,000-square-foot home, as well as the opportunity to spend millions more to expand it, courtesy of approved plans for a complete renovation of the 1907 property. The Albert Farr-designed Dutch Colonial had been held by the same family for over a century until the Pincuses bought it for $16 million in 2012 and it is in largely original condition.

2950 Pacific Avenue in San Fransisco (Compass)

The former couple put the eight-bedroom, 13-bath estate at 2950 Pacific Avenue on the market for $18 million in 2015. It sold to developer Troon Pacific for the same amount that they paid for it three years earlier.

For over five years, Troon has made its way through the city’s onerous planning and permitting approval process and the 115-year-old home is now “shovel ready” for a major renovation with approved architectural plans and building permits, according to listing notes from Compass agent Neal Ward. The permits allow for two additional floors to be built below the structure, for a total of six stories, according to city documents.

2950 Pacific Avenue in San Fransisco (Compass)

Plans from architecture firm Snohetta, which also designed the expansion of the SFMOMA and the September 11 Memorial Museum, move the home’s entrance from the end of a long driveway on Pacific to Broadway. That would officially put the property on “Billionaire’s Row,” a three-block stretch of Pacific Heights with some of the city’s best views and most expensive real estate. A Billionaire’s Row home owned and extensively renovated by the founders of The Battery social club recently came to market asking $35 million.

Ward did not immediately respond to questions about the price cut or the property’s buyer, but it is not the first substantial drop for one of his super-high-end listings recently as the market softens across the city, according to Redfin’s chief economist.

At the end of August, Ward also cut $10 million off his Pacific Heights penthouse listing, saying via email that he and co-listing agent Malin Giddings wanted the now $35 million property to be “present and ready for the fall market.” At the time, the penthouse was still the most expensive residential property on the market in the city, but it has since been topped by a $45 million listing, also in Pacific Heights, from billionaire cloud company co-founders Mark Armenante and Young Sohn.

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