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San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) October 29, 2012

Real Estate Marketing Insider offered its expert opinion about a new trend of modern high-rise investment by young tech professionals in San Francisco, stating it was great news for the real estate market as the number of high-price and high-demand properties available in the city would increase exponentially as a result.

The New York Times stated that the tech industry’s San Francisco base of operations is in the South of Market area of the city; it has been there for decades, but the newest generation of young professionals in that industry have been investing in high-rise condo living, a real estate option that simply wasn’t present in San Francisco until recently. Now there are downtown glass-and-steel real estate site design condos available downtown for prices for substantially less than some New York housing options.

These downtown high-rise condos include The Montgomery, Millennium Tower, Four Seasons, and One Hawthorne. The areas outside of South of Market, like the financial district and Mission Bay have their own offerings, like Madrone, the St. Regis, and the recently-filled Infinity. The residents of these condos, while primarily employed by local tech companies like Google, Twitter, and Zynga, come from many different walks of life. They include real estate professionals, venture capitalists and even celebrities like former San Francisco 49er Joe Montana and chef Michael Mina, both residents in Millennium Tower.

The newer neighborhoods of South Beach, Mission Bay and Rincon Hill have much more relaxed zoning regulations than older neighborhoods like Golden Gate Heights or Fisherman’s Wharf, enabling investors to construct more ambitious, luxurious properties. Millennium Tower, the city’s tallest residential building at 645 feet, is a harbinger of things to come as more developers tap into these prospective markets.

The single biggest motivator for the purchases of these high-rise properties, above and beyond desire for luxury and convenient living, is the tight rental market in San Francisco. These downtown properties offer a rare chance for city living that rental does not, and other benefits, like proximity to on-ramps and train stations that ease the commute to Silicon Valley, make these sales an easy decision for young tech professionals.

The Real Estate Marketing Insider released a statement regarding the New York Times’ report that high-rise condo living in San Francisco has exploded in popularity among young tech professionals in the city. The newer neighborhoods like South of Market and Mission Bay have seen an influx of new high-rises in the last five years, and the properties contained therein are selling well among techies, as well as other wealthy Bay Area professionals.

About Real Estate Marketing Insider:
Real Estate Marketing Insider is an online journal providing hot news, trend analysis and marketing tips to real estate professionals. REMI is based out of La Jolla, CA.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/san-francisco-high-rise/steel-glass/prweb10067686.htm

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Article source: http://www.equities.com/news/news-headline-story?dt=2012-10-29&val=643723&d=1&cat=headline

The young tech crowd rented — and sometimes bought — in commercial buildings in this former warehouse area, converting them into “work-live” spaces where they operated their nascent companies and slept (once in awhile).

The boom-and-bust cycles in the tech sector move quickly, and the pace of constant reinvention and innovation is relentless.

The same is true of tastes in real estate. Today a new generation of tech dreamers is back in the South of Market area. But this time they are breathing life into a start-up wave not previously seen in San Francisco: high-rise condo living.

A clutch of new condo buildings and condo-hotels, some with stunning views of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Twin Peaks, have sprung up downtown in the past five years. For what would be considered modest prices in Manhattan, they are offering a full-service lifestyle that locals have traditionally steered away from, preferring the single-family homes traditionally available in the City by the Bay.

In the late 1990s, if someone wanted to live in a high-end condo, the options were almost nonexistent. “There wasn’t any signature building that people said, ‘I gotta have it,’ ” said Max Armour, a real estate agent with TRI Coldwell Banker.

Today there are at least two, both a few blocks south of Market Street. In terms of quality, amenities and V.I.P. neighbors, the 60-story Millennium Tower is San Francisco’s version of 15 Central Park West, or perhaps the yet-to-be-completed One57.

At Millennium, tech millionaires from Google, Twitter, Zynga and Salesforce mingle with celebrity residents like the 49ers legend Joe Montana and the chef Michael Mina, who runs RN74, the restaurant in the building. Thomas Perkins, the venture capitalist, lives in a 4,500-square-foot penthouse he bought in 2009 for $9.35 million.

Just up Mission Street from the Millennium, and nearer the financial district, is the St. Regis, a more low-key building, though also lauded for its refinement. Last December a 17,100-square-foot penthouse there sold to a Hong Kong family for $28 million, said Gregg Lynn, the broker at Sotheby’s International Realty who represented the sellers.

Other buildings south of Market have been selling swiftly, including Madrone, or have sold out, like Infinity. Developers have taken advantage of zoning regulations in the newer neighborhoods of South Beach, Mission Bay and Rincon Hill to erect taller towers than would be allowed in better-established residential pockets of the city. Millennium Tower, at 645 feet, is San Francisco’s tallest residential building.

“There is a whole new generation of wealth that has found its way into San Francisco,” said Richard G. Baumert, a partner with the New York-based Millennium Partners, which developed Millennium Tower. “Whether through stock options or whatever, there has been this influx of buying from the tech sector that has had a positive impact on the whole market.”

Some of the wealthiest tech buyers have ranged beyond South of Market and bought trophy properties throughout the city.

In February Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter and Square, bought a two-bedroom house perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific for $9.99 million. A few months later Mark Pincus, a founder of Zynga, paid $16 million for a seven-bedroom 11,500-square-foot house in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. Jonathan Ive, the Apple executive responsible for the design of the iPhone and iPad, bought an English-style manor on “Billionaire’s Row” in Pacific Heights for $17 million.

The recent fall in stock prices for companies like Facebook and Zynga hasn’t done a whole lot to slow the buying, brokers say. “If that hadn’t happened our inventory probably would be at zero now,” Mr. Lynn said.

The inventory in the San Francisco area, which includes the East Bay, dropped by 42.2 percent over the past year, the biggest drop after Sacramento among the country’s 30 largest metro areas, according to Zillow, the real estate Web site.

As for the young tech professionals, the catalyst for their condo purchases — often in developments South of Market — is San Francisco’s exceedingly tight rental market. What the buildings lack in proximity to supermarkets and night life they make up for with an easier commute to tech companies in Silicon Valley, which can take up to 90 minutes during rush hour. A train station for lines running south to the valley is in Mission Bay, as are on-ramps for the expressway.

“It’s like living in TriBeCa and working in New Jersey,” said Alan Mark, president of the Mark Company, a real estate marketing and sales firm.

Follow Alexei Barrionuevo on Twitter: @alexeinyt.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/realestate/in-san-francisco-glass-and-steel-condos-rising-by-the-bay.html?pagewanted=all

This overhyped story takes the cake.

I know California is the capital of medical marijuana, but the memory issues in the Bay Area are beyond explanation now.

Alex Smith has played horribly. Regardless of the excuses and besides a couple bright moments, Alex Smith has been awful for six years.

Let’s put this in perspective.

I am a Real Estate guy. If you asked me to sell your home, and I failed, not once, not twice, but six freaking times, would you ask me to return for a seventh?

No you would not. You wouldn’t even ask me back for a second time. 

Would it matter to you if I had a bunch of excuses? No. 

The bottom line is, you want your house sold. 

Well, the 49ers want to win games. And they want a quarterback that will help them do that. 

I will admit Alex is doing great as a fill-in coach. I would love for him to play five to seven more years on the 49ers as a backup.

I think he would be the top No. 2 in the league and very helpful for Colin Kaepernick, or whoever for that matter. But make no mistake, Alex Smith is not going to transform into Joe Montana or Steve Young or even Jeff Garcia. He is going to be Alex Smith.

So please, just stop it. 

This is Ryan The Broker, signing off for, “Wake Up San Francisco!”

Thanks for reading!

Please join me on Twitter @ryanthebroker.

Article source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/753473-san-francisco-49ers-dont-believe-the-hype-top-5-lockout-induced-fabrications