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SF Median Home Price Tops $1 Million

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:36:45 +0000

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Article source: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/SF-Median-Home-Price-Tops-1-Million-211448041.html

Apartment mania: Sleek live-work lofts in East Bay vs. SF

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:36:51 +0000

Apartment hunting in San Francisco is not for the faint of heart. The latest news on spiraling rents and brutal competition for rentals in San Francisco — as well as Oakland and San Jose — is covered here.

Many folks find that they can get more for their money by trekking across the Bay.

Here’s a look at two state-of-the-art lofts in converted industrial buildings — one East Bay (Emeryville), one West Bay (San Francisco) that underscore the price differentials. Both are from the same dynamic duo team — architect David Baker and developer Rick Holliday. Admittedly they aren’t direct comparisons, as the San Francisco penthouse is bigger and in a more chi-chi location, but they give an idea of the price differences.

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First up, here is a “gorgeous light-filled” one-bedroom, one-bathroom in an historic Emeryville warehouse. At $2,450 a month for 1,300 square feet, it was snapped up within a week, said leasing agent Jeanne Zimmerman of McGuire Real Estate/Urban Bay Properties in San Francisco. “It would be about $3,800 if it were in San Francisco,” she said, pointing to the Hueblein Building as an equivalent SF comp.

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Next, take a look at this penthouse unit in San Francisco’s landmark ClockTower building with one bedroom plus an office space and two bathrooms. It also found a tenant quickly. At 1,925 feet it went for $6,500.

Believe it or not, in the early 1990s when Holliday converted the 1907 ClockTower building, originally the home of a lithography company that printed California fruit-crate labels, to 127 open-floor-plan live/work units, people “thought I was out of my mind,” he said. The South of Market/South Beach area seemed like a wasteland at the time. “Then the building sold out,” he said. “It blew everyone away; it was written up in Esquire magazine.”

The condos that sold for $250,000 “back in the day” now hover around $1 million with some of the better ones going for $2 million, Holliday said.

A side note on live-work lofts. Zimmerman said they have an unusual competitive situation where potential residents have to vie with corporate renters.

“I see a lot of small businesses and startups competing with residential customers for them,” she said. “The companies are looking to lease them for office space, and use the bed upstairs in the loft area for executives who travel or employees who work late.”

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. For insights and news on Bay Area real estate, follow her on Twitter: @csaid

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/05/01/apartment-mania-sleek-live-work-lofts-in-east-bay-vs-sf/

Fewer vacant office spaces

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:27:17 +0000

By Mark Puente, Times Staff Writer

In Print: Friday, October 28, 2011

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The Tampa Bay commercial real estate market is no longer in the basement but remains far from the penthouse.

A bright spot in a national report released this week shows the commercial sector has improved in the bay area and other parts of Florida amid the languishing economy and lackluster job growth.

The report ranked the bay area as the 33rd best of 51 metro areas for investment in commercial real estate. Overall, the bay area improved to fair this year from poor last year, according to the “Emerging Trends in Real Estate” report by the nonprofit Urban Land Institute and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“It shows we’re moving in the right direction,” said Ray Sandelli, head of the Tampa office of the CB Richard Ellis commercial real estate firm. “It will also challenge us to improve.”

Experts attribute the improvement locally to the commercial market not being overbuilt during the boom, and real estate prices correcting downward to match today’s market.

Statewide, Miami ranked 17th and recorded the biggest gains among major markets for investment opportunities. Foreign cash is flowing into the city because of political instability in Latin America, the report said. Orlando ranked 29th; Jacksonville ranked 40th. Detroit, Cleveland and Las Vegas were at the bottom.

Apartments are the safest place to park cash here and across the country, the report said. Nationally, brokers and investors of industrial properties, shopping centers, hotels and office buildings face a “slowing, grind-it-out recovery” in 2012.

Investment cash is gushing toward the 24-hour global gateways: Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New York City, Boston and Seattle. Money is also following young professionals to pedestrian-friendly cities such as Portland, Ore., Seattle and Austin, Texas.

Not all experts buy into the report.

Larry Richey, senior managing director of Cushman Wakefield in Tampa, said the bay area is doing better and will never be near the top when compared to big metro areas on the East Coast and West Coast. But it would rank high among similarly sized metro areas.

Vacancy rates have dropped in office and industrial buildings as companies move to bigger offices or relocate from outside the region, he said. He pointed to Time Warner’s recent pledge to create 500 jobs in Hillsborough County and to spend $5 million on new facilities over the next five years.

The report, Richey said, doesn’t reflect all the gains made in 2011.

“It’s the most improvement we’ve seen in the last five years,” he said.

[Last modified: Oct 27, 2011 09:54 PM]

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Article source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/tampa-bays-commercial-real-estate-sector-rebounds-report-says/1198914