Jim Gardner
Managing Editor- San Francisco Business Times

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Some real estate developers collect yachts. Others dabble in winemaking, heli-skiing or competitive cycling.

Jesse Herzog sells hot dogs.

A vice president of development for Avant Housing and AGI Capital, Herzog is also the proprietor of Zog’s Dogs, a gourmet hot dog stand at 646 Market St.

Real estate development was dead in the water back in 2009 when Herzog (nicknamed Zog) was looking for a revenue-generating opportunity and stumbled across a classified advertising a hot dog stand for sale in downtown San Francisco. He had always wanted to own a hot dog stand, so he bought it.

“My family came here in 1850 — they were wholesale butchers downtown and had a corral where they kept cattle in the Dogpatch,” said Herzog. “Six generations later, I’m entitling a property in the Dogpatch and selling meat downtown. So the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

Zog’s sells an average of about 125 hot dogs on a decent weekday. Best sellers include the Moral Conundrum (a veggie dog wrapped in bacon), the Prop 8 Dog (two dogs in one bun), and the Bobo Dog (for the Bourgeois Bohemian).

Indeed, Herzog has turned his hot dog stand into an expression of his interest in art. He offers what is certainly the world’s only Hot Dog Stand Artistic Fellowship (deadline March 1) where artists are encouraged to make hot dog-themed art. Winners include a group who made a video about the launch of the first hot dog into outer space, a woman who painted ketchup and mustard portraits of customers (including Avant Housing executive Eric Tao, who ended up looking like Michael Jackson), and a performance piece on “love and loss in the context of hot dogs.”

“It’s been interesting to me to understand what the San Francisco consumer wants, which can be very complicated,” said Herzog. “San Franciscans have a lot of opinions, whether it’s about hot dogs or real estate entitlement.”

Jim Gardner oversees print and online news coverage of the vibrant Bay Area economy.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/02/san-francisco-real-estate-developer.html

“In Walnut Creek, we haven’t seen the big rent increases that we’ve seen in other areas,” says David Fiore of Mill Creek Residential. “There’s some room for growth.”

Apartments remain the darling for Bay Area housing development, but condo conversions and new construction are poised to make a comeback.

Sticker-shock-inducing rental rates — such as $4,000 for a one-bedroom — in San Francisco have made outlying areas such as the Peninsula and the Interstate 680 corridor more attractive for renters and developers.

About 2,500 apartments are expected to hit the San Francisco market in 2013 with hundreds more under construction in cities such as Redwood City, Foster City, Dublin, Emeryville and Berkeley.

Next year, developers in Walnut Creek plan to break ground on numerous apartment projects such as Mill Creek Residential’s 126 units at 1960 North Main St. and Laconia Development’s 141 units at 1500 N. California Blvd.

“In Walnut Creek, we haven’t seen the big rent increases that we’ve seen in other areas,” said David Fiore of Mill Creek. “There’s some room for growth.”

Mill Creek recently broke ground on the 105-unit Mission Piers in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, which will probably start leasing in the first half of 2014, and Walnut Creek will finish in late 2014. Like many developers, Mill Creek projects rents to keep growing or at least remain steady by the time units hit the market, Fiore said.

Soaring apartment rents are also making buying a more palatable alternative. New for-sale housing, whether condo or single-family, is finally on the upswing. Homebuilders with units ready and on the market have seen brisk sales at their developments, and many say they can’t find enough development sites in the core Bay Area. It’s a function not so much of a booming economy but the result of a lack of inventory across the board.

J.K. Dineen covers real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2013/01/04/residential-real-estate-balance.html