Blockbuster $71M Home Sale Ranks as SF’s Top Deal of Year

It was a hot summer in the city after a few years of slow San Francisco sales at the top of the market. The top three sales of 2024 all closed in the summer months, led by Laurene Powell Jobs’ $71 million off-market buy on Billionaire’s Row in Pacific Heights.

Luxury agent Neal Ward of Compass told TRD in the fall that the record-breaking purchase had a positive impact on buyers’ psychology. A sale that high, with a famous buyer attached, “in a very significant way filters down through all the price points,” he said.

“It signals that that buyer is willing to commit to live here in a prime Pacific Heights wonderful home like that,” he said. “It says that San Francisco is strong and vital. We’re a boom-and-bust city, and we’re booming again.”

The year hasn’t ended yet so another high-end sale or two could pop up, including a close on Robin Williams’ former home in Seacliff, currently in contract with a $20-million asking. But if the stats stay the same, the other top sales this year were less than half the price of the Jobs property and no other sale topped $30 million. Here’s a closer look at the most expensive residential deals in San Francisco this year.

2840 Broadway | $71 million

Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, bought the most expensive home in San Francisco history when she purchased 2840 Broadway on Billionaire’s Row. The previous record was set nearby at 2920 Broadway, which sold for $43.5 million at the height of the pandemic market in June 2021.

The sellers were Sloan Lindemann Barnett and Roger Barnett. They bought the 17,000-square-foot home for $33 million in 2011 but had been quietly shopping it in the $100-million range for several years, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sloan is the daughter of billionaire George Lindemann, and Roger is the CEO and chairman of health-supplement company Shaklee.

The Willis Polk-designed property was built in 1916 in a Spanish Revival style but had undergone a three-year Peter Marino-led remodel that ended in 2020. Marino had already redone the Lindemann’s New York home when he was tasked with the Broadway reno, according to a feature in Architectural Digest. He was able to preserve the home’s glass-roofed Spanish Revival courtyard and reuse other original features, while also making major updates such as putting in four stories of glass on the north side of the home to better take in the Golden Gate Bridge views.

He was also friends with the previous longtime owner of the home, Georgette “Dodie” Rosekrans, a movie theater heiress who lived in the home with her husband John, a toy manufacturer and an heir to the Spreckels sugar fortune, from 1979 until her death in 2010.

“I always imagine she’s up in heaven, drinking martinis and looking down at us. I hope she’s happy, because we love it as much as she did,” Sloan told the magazine in late 2020.

2799 Broadway | $29.15 million

The second-biggest sale this year, also on Billionaire’s Row, went for just over $29 million. That’s far less than the sellers, Battery social club and social networking co-founders Michael and Xochi Birch, wanted for their Gold Coast home — complete with a British pub in the basement — when it first came on the market in 2019 for $39 million.

Instead, they got little more than what they paid for it in 2008, before they undertook a complete remodel with famed interior designer Ken Fulk. That first asking price later dropped to $35 million and then dropped again to $32 million before it sold to Stone Real Estate Holdings. The company shares a Redwood City address with CPA firm Baker Tilly, which often represents family offices and high-net-worth individuals.

The buyer was represented by Dan Dodd at Inspire Real Estate, a Side partner, and the sellers were represented by Deborah Svoboda of Sotheby’s International Realty.

When Svoboda relisted the home in 2022, she told TRD the Birches wanted to downsize from their six-bedroom San Francisco home as two of their three children were out of the house, but they would always maintain a home in the city to stay close to their business.

290 Sea Cliff Avenue | $26 million

The house at 290 Sea Cliff was early tech venture capitalist George Sarlo’s 7,900-square-foot four-bedroom and five-bathroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Sarlo had stated that all proceeds would benefit his family’s foundation, which writes grants for mostly Bay Area nonprofits that concentrate on youth mental health, youth political organizing and breaking the cycle of trauma, according to its website. Sarlo bought the Seacliff property in 1993 for $2.2 million, according to public records, and it was transferred into the foundation’s name just before it came to market.

Tania Toubba and Debi DiCello of Sotheby’s International Realty listed 290 Sea Cliff at the end of May and TRD broke the news that it was in contract about one month later. Compass agents Yulia Mitchell and Michael Plotkowski represented the buyer, 290 Water LLC.

3630 Jackson Street | $24 million

Prior to the blockbuster summer sales, the biggest sale of the spring season was Hotwire co-founder Karl Peterson’s Presidio Heights home. It made headlines during the marketing process when Peterson and his wife Holly contended that noise from a nearby pickleball court was lowering its property value. Pickleball lovers cried foul when it was discovered that the Petersons had their own private pickleball court on the property.

Whether it was the noise or the controversy or simply the slowdown in the luxury market, the home, which originally listed for $36 million in 2023, didn’t sell until May this year. It went for $24 million to 3630 Jackson LLC, which appears to have Texas ties, as both the real estate attorney listed on the deed and the principal address for the LLC are in the Dallas-Fort Worth market.

Steve Mavromihalis of Compass represented the sellers and Neal Ward of Compass represented the buyers.

2350 Broadway | $23.8 million

Coming in just behind 3630 Jackson was 2350 Broadway, a Pacific Heights home that sold in an off-market deal in April and was the first big sale in the city at that early point of the year.

Davide Pio of BCRE represented the seller, while Neill Bassi of Sotheby’s International Realty represented the buyer, 2350 Broadway LLC. The LLC is registered at the same address as Apercen Partners, a tax firm that has represented tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker on previous deals in the Bay Area and across the country, according to state business records.

Pio is normally a commercial agent but the seller hired him on the residential listing after they had worked together on some investment deals, Pio told TRD when news of the sale broke. The sellers wanted to downsize from the nearly 9,100-square-foot home as they are now empty nesters, he said.

Property records show the seller as Michael Bykhovsky, founder of the mortgage analytics company Applied Financial Technology and, since 2019, an executive at wireless technology company Artemis Networks.

Pio started out with a $26 million list price and decided to bring in an invited list of agents for a tour before putting it on the MLS, he said, reaching out to “basically anyone and everyone that has touched anything over $10 million.” Approximately 75 people turned out for the February tours, Pio recalled.

A few private tours followed and the turnkey six-bedroom, eight-bath view home — which was built around the turn of the century, but had undergone a major renovation under Bykohovsky’s watch — ended up with two offers close to the list price.

After the home went into contract, it was discovered that the house was not anchored to the foundation — though it had been advertised as such — which is why the sales price ended up a few million off from the asking, Pio said. He dealt directly with the agent, and never met the buyer, he said.

825 Francisco Street | $22.1 million

It’s rare to see a San Francisco home that’s listed for $22 million sell for over the asking price, but then there’s a lot of unique features at 825 Francisco, the decades-long home of financier Sanford “Sandy” Robertson.

Built in 1849, allegedly by a ship captain using wood from his former ship, it’s the oldest home still standing in San Francisco, according to marketing materials from listing agents Stacey Caen and Joseph Lucier, both of Sotheby’s International Realty. The Russian Hill sale also set a new record for the neighborhood and is one of the few San Francisco homes to ever break the $20 million mark outside of Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights and Seacliff.

There were three offers on the property in its first week on the market, Caen told TRD after the home sold in November. The winning bid on the 8,400-square-foot home, on a third-acre lot with a lap pool and an internal “hill-a-vator” from the two-car garage to the lower and main levels of the four-level house, came from 825-845 Francisco LLC. It is connected to Eric Mathewson, founder and former CEO of WideOrbit, maker of software to help media companies manage their ad revenue, according to the deed, state filings and Mathewson’s LinkedIn.

3621 Washington Street | $22 million

Coming in just behind 825 Francisco, and wrapping up the list of San Francisco homes that traded for over $20 million this year, was 3621 Washington, a Presidio Heights home that sold for $22 million in August. The deal appears to have taken place off market but Neill Bassi of Sotheby’s was involved with the pocket listing, according to his website.

Sellers Pink Sand Beach LLC bought the home for $7.5 million in 2015, which was $2.5 million over the asking at the time, according to property records. The LLC has both New York City and San Francisco addresses associated with it that match those of Volcano Capital, according to state filings and the investment firm’s website.

Just this year, the owners wrapped up a series of years-long renovations to the 1925-built home, according to building permit filings. They include remodeling the kitchen and bathrooms, building out the basement, adding to the rear and east side of the home, relocating and reinforcing retaining walls, adding a new patio and landscaping, and putting in all new wiring and a sprinkler system.

The four-story home doubled in size, according to public records, and is now just shy of 8,000 square feet with seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms.

The buyer of the newly expanded and renovated home was Johnny Chung-Yi Jiang, a trustee of the Magnolia Highlands Trust, according to property records.