“People at this income level,” Paster said before the auction that wasn’t, “always have money.”

That maxim proved true when it came to luxury properties in the Bay Area last year. Technology executives paying discounts on listed prices were active buyers in 2012, as the growth of social-media and Internet firms including Twitter and Yammer created a wave of millionaires.

Some older homes on the market had sat unsold for years before finding buyers, said Rick Turley, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage of Northern California. But by the final week of 2012, there were at least 13 publicly recorded transactions for more than $10 million in exclusive San Francisco neighborhoods such as Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights and Sea Cliff, according to DataQuick, a research firm.

That’s up from six sales last year and a dozen in 2007, the previous high mark. The numbers don’t include deals in expensive areas outside the city, such as Belvedere, Tiburon, Atherton or Palo Alto.

“Over a long listing period, it’s hard to say what will happen, because obviously the market is constantly changing,” Turley said. “The success of tech and social media means people are looking very generally at San Francisco and the Silicon Valley as places to live because these businesses are sourced here. It’s highest on their radar.”

Initial public offerings in 2012 by Bay Area companies raised a record $17.5 billion in public equities markets, including sales by Facebook, Yelp and Workday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The total is more than double the $8.3 billion reached in 1999, the height of the dot-com boom.

This year’s Bay Area IPOs generated $9.4 billion in cash for selling shareholders. Other investors have been able to generate money before initial stock sales through the rise of secondary-share markets such as SharesPost.

Yammer founder

Yammer founder David Sacks, who sold the social-media company to Microsoft in June for $1.2 billion, later bought an unfinished home in Pacific Heights that had been listed for $38.5 million. The transfer tax indicated a $20 million sale.

Sacks’ new residence, built in the style of a French chateau, was last purchased by Peter Sperling, incoming chairman of Apollo Group Inc., who paid $32 million in 2002, said David Barrett of listing brokerage Warwick Properties Group.

“It’s built to be the finest residence in San Francisco, from limestone quarried in France and with the same glaziers who worked on the Eiffel Tower renovation,” Barrett said.

In December, Jay Paul, the San Francisco developer of 6 million square feet of Silicon Valley offices, including Google’s four-building complex in Sunnyvale, completed a purchase in the same neighborhood, said a person with knowledge of the transaction. The house sold for $28.25 million, said Dona Crowder of TRI Coldwell Banker, a co-listing broker on the home. She declined to comment on the buyer.

Seller deals

The deal was at a 48 percent discount from the asking price in 2007, around the time U.S. housing prices peaked. The seller had most recently sought $34 million, Crowder said.

Paul didn’t return a telephone message seeking comment.

In some cases, luxury discounts this past year in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley are a reflection of aged homes built decades ago that needed extensive renovations, Crowder said. Sellers were also motivated by the prospect of higher capital gains taxes in 2013, she said. Her listing on Broadway in Pacific Heights received higher bids in the past, including one earlier in 2012, which were rejected by the seller, she said.

“The generations are turning over in this neighborhood,” Crowder said in a phone interview. “If it were understood back then that record prices were being offered, it would have been wise to sell” in 2007.

Dorsey, Benioff

Jack Dorsey, a Twitter co-founder, paid $9.9 million in February for a “humble” two-bedroom house in Sea Cliff that had been listed for $12.5 million, said Olivia Hsu Decker, owner of Tiburon’s Decker Bullock Sotheby’s International Realty and Dorsey’s agent on the deal. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff bought a nearby house in 2009, Decker said.

The Sea Cliff neighborhood is named for its location high above the Pacific Ocean, just west of the Golden Gate. In May, Dorsey, who is known to take public buses to work, tweeted a quote from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, “I need the sea because it teaches me,” Decker said.

Other multimillion-dollar home buyers of 2012 included Mark Pincus, founder of online game maker Zynga. He purchased a Pacific Heights house in July for $16 million after a $500,000 price cut, said Decker, who represented him in the past and also was the listing agent for the Belvedere home.

Rising prices

The region’s broader housing market is also showing strong demand, bolstered by the addition of 32,400 new jobs in the San Francisco metropolitan area in the year through November. House and condominium prices in the nine-county Bay Area in November rose almost 21 percent from a year earlier to a median $438,000, the highest since August 2008, according to DataQuick of San Diego. Sales jumped almost 16 percent.

Dan Levy is a Bloomberg writer. E-mail: dlevy13@bloomberg.net

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Luxury-Bay-Area-homes-selling-briskly-4160241.php

A brand-new Belvedere Island mansion in Marin County , trumpeted by real estate agents as “Villa Belvedere,” was scheduled to be auctioned off Sunday to bidders willing to fork over at least $25 million.

But before the auction, the developer accepted an offer from a buyer, said auction consultant Guy Masters.

Masters said that under a non-disclosure agreement, he could not reveal the selling price or buyer of the 15,500-square-foot, seven-bedroom home and its surrounding 1.14-acre waterfront lot. He would not say whether the property had sold for more or less than the $25 million asking price.

“I can only tell you it’s under contract,” he said.

Developer Jeff Paster spent about $34.5 million buying the property and building the massive edifice, which was completed early this year. It was first listed for $45 million, then $35.88 million before it was slated to go on the auction block.

The layout of the mansion, designed by architect Sandy Walker, is perhaps more stunning than the asking price, which was considered a bargain for such splashy digs.

Nearly every room offers picturesque views of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, San Francisco, Alcatraz Island and the bay, which real estate agents noted would come in handy for the millionaire buyer who fancies watching the 2013 America’s Cup races from the comfort of home.

The posh pad also includes eight full and two half-bathrooms, solar panels on the roof, wall-mounted iPads to control room conditions, a temperature-controlled wine cellar, a screening room, an indoor sauna, an elevator to all three floors, an outdoor pool and spa, and a terrace paved with fossil stones.

The Belvedere mansion is the latest of an increasing number of luxury homes that are on track to be sold while not in foreclosure, a welcome change from recent history, real estate agents said.

Properties that were recently sold at comparable prices include a $100 million Los Altos Hills mansion and a $28.8 million mansion on Broadway in San Francisco. Other homes in the Bay Area have sold for $23.5 million to $33 million in the last five years, according to the real estate researcher DataQuick.

But homeowners who have their hearts set on the Belvedere home – and who still have a few extra million bucks left over from Christmas – needn’t despair.

The developer “is accepting back-up offers if someone wants to make another offer,” Masters said. Interested buyers can contact real estate agent Olivia Hsu Decker at (415) 435-1600.

Stephanie M. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: slee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @stephaniemlee

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Swanky-Marin-mansion-sold-for-big-bucks-4155987.php