SAN FRANCISCO—When Alexandra Goldman got notice of her rent increase—from $6,000 a month on a five-bedroom house she shared with roommates to $11,000—she says she was in disbelief.

“We knew immediately we were not going to be able to pay that much money to live there,” said Ms. Goldman, a 28-year-old planning consultant whose share of the rent was about $1,000 a month. After receiving the notice in October, she said the house’s occupants ended up dispersing to other rentals. She is living with other roommates now and paying about $300 more than she had before. Her former landlord didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Welcome to what is arguably one of the worst cities in America to be a renter, but among the best to be a landlord and apartment investor. San Francisco led the top-50 U.S. metropolitan areas in average rent growth during the second quarter, jumping 7.8% to $2,498, while Oakland was No. 2 at a 6.9% increase, and San Jose was in fifth place at 5%. The 6.8% increase for the combined San Francisco Bay area was more than double the nation’s 3.1% increase, according to preliminary estimates by MPF Research, a market-research firm in Carrollton, Texas.

The Bay Area’s Building Boom

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Jason Henry for The Wall Street Journal

An advertisement for the new 22-story apartment complex at 1190 Mission Street, seen from Market Street in San Francisco

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The rent increases have investors rushing to purchase existing properties. San Francisco-based Ridge Capital Investors, for example, has acquired nearly 500 units throughout the area since 2011, including a 45-unit apartment complex in San Mateo, a city south of San Francisco, for $10.95 million in November. Trevor Wilson, managing director of Ridge Capital, said his company has competed against as many as 30 bidders on multifamily properties in recent months.

“We’ve been trying to find more [properties], but there’s not a lot available,” said Mr. Wilson, who added his firm is spending about $1.5 million to refurbish units at the 34-year-old Mariner’s West Apartments in San Mateo so rents now well below market levels can be raised. Tenants there are now paying as much as $1,000 below the market rate of $2,300 to $2,400 a month for that area, Mr. Wilson said.

Fueling the rental increases in San Francisco and many other cities across the country are a resurgence in two key industries—technology and energy—and a generally improving economy nationwide, said Ryan Severino, senior economist at Reis Inc., a market-research firm in New York. Rents in energy-rich Denver jumped 6.1% from a year ago, according to MPF Research, while Seattle, another tech hub, saw rents increase 6%.

Mr. Severino said rents are rising the fastest in cities with the tightest supply of housing, like the Bay Area and Seattle. San Francisco’s vacancy rate for multifamily housing in the second quarter stood at 3%, the same as a year earlier, compared with a national average of 4.7%, according to MPF.

Some cities with less-robust job markets enjoyed a strengthened market but remained at higher vacancy rates amid deeper housing inventories. Philadelphia’s vacancy rate dropped to 5.4% in the second quarter, from 6.1% a year earlier and compared with a national average of 4.7%. The rate in Las Vegas fell to 7.5% from 8.4%, and in Memphis, Tenn., to 8.9% from 10.1%, according to MPF Research.

For the nation’s tightest apartment markets, some observers worry the local labor pool may eventually go down, because of people being driven away. In Ms. Goldman’s case, she said she and her roommates mostly had the means to remain in San Francisco but said that may not be the case for everyone. “It’s getting a little out of control,” she said.

Regarded by industry analysts as chronically underhoused, San Francisco added 31,000 jobs in 2012 in a city of about 800,000. That is resulting in sticker shock for new arrivals. Leena Rao, with her husband, Suneel Gupta, recently leased a two-bedroom, two-bath home for between $4,000 and $5,000 a month, compared with $2,150 for the two-bedroom they left behind in Chicago.

“It was a brutal surprise,” said Ms. Rao, 31, an editor for a technology news website.

The tight supplies have unleashed a torrent of new construction in the Bay Area, with 14,377 units permitted for construction over the next 18 months, or almost as much as for Houston, typically a much more active building market, according to MPF Research. In San Francisco, the 22-story 1190 Mission at Trinity Place building preleased half its 419 units before opening July 1, with all the tenants signing agreements without the customary practice of having toured a model or attended an apartment tour, said Rob Willis, director of operations for Trinity Management Services, the builder. “We have never seen this,” Mr. Willis said.

Some homeowners are seeking to cash in on the demand. Jane Shepard said she and her husband, Avrum, plan to rent their four-bedroom, two-bath home in San Francisco to help raise money for needed repairs. “Financially, it’s a great time to be a landlord,” said Ms. Shepard, 67, a commercial-property manager. She said the couple would move to their second home in Visalia, Calif.

But renters with less means are finding fewer options. Dawn Griffin, 55, said she was served with an eviction notice in January on her $725-a-month apartment near the city’s Golden Gate Park. Landlord Elba Borgen, who didn’t return calls for comment, also served eviction notices on the other seven tenants in the building, said Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, which has offered advice and other help to Ms. Griffin and other tenants in her building.

“I can’t afford to move,” said Ms. Griffin, a 30-year resident of the apartment and a medical-office administrator.

Still, some tenants have turned the situation into opportunity. Sam Parr said he ended up starting a business matching roommates with apartments after moving to San Francisco from Nashville, Tenn., last year and seeing prices so high he needed to share rent with someone, too. “I thought, oh my God, this is awful—something has to be done,” said Mr. Parr, 24, who sold the business to a larger startup and now shares a $3,500-a-month house with three roommates.

Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared July 16, 2013, on page C1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Bay Area Rally Sends Rents Soaring.

Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324694904578602013087282582.html

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The FINANCIAL — Matterport, a Y Combinator graduate that just raised $5.6 million in
Series A funding to produce a scanner that makes 3D models of interior
spaces more cheaply and much more quickly than before, has a novel
technology opening new possibilities in real estate, remodeling and
construction.

But it also has a classic problem–convincing potential buyers that a new type of product is worth both the money and changing the way they usually do business.

“This is an answer in search of a problem,” said Willy Shih, professor at Harvard Business School specializing in manufacturing and product development. Shih looked at Matterport briefly, at the request of a reporter, and said that he is in general very positive on the technology’s potential, but that the company will need to quickly find customers that will be testing the product and help the company refine it, something that Matterport has already started doing with prototypes.

Matt Bell, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, said that Matterport’s initial customers would be real-estate photographers. “This is the next tool that they will need to have,” he said of the product, which will cost about as much as a good DSLR camera.

But San Francisco Bay Area real-estate photographer Bryce Greenfield, who was told about the technology by a reporter, said, “I don’t think I am interested.” For him, an investment of this kind would only be warranted if real estate agents really started demanding the service, and he’s skeptical of that.

As The Wall Street Journal said, video, for example, never took off even in high-end real estate listings, even though some people thought that the visual capabilities of video reels would be effective marketing tools. “Most agents are very tight with their purse strings,” said Greenfield. He said real-estate marketing has been pretty static for a while, with photographs accompanying listings.

Matterport’s technology is different from video, because it offers precise measurements, and soon enough, the company plans to also offer interactivity, so that besides a virtual walk through a space, one will be able to add and remove objects. The company hopes to first make money by selling the scanners, and then to also lock in monthly subscriptions from users for its service of creating the 3D models and hosting them online.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based Matterport’s scanner incorporates the same sensors used in Microsoft ’s Kinect platform, which runs on the XBox to visualize users’ movements. The device, which is controlled via an Apple iPad, takes several 3D scans of an interior space that are sent to Matterport. The company uses its software algorithms to process all the information and stitch together a full 3D model of the space in minutes.

Matterport will rely on resellers, as well as companies like recently launched Floored that will buy the scanners and create sales channels on their own.

Bell said that the company doesn’t have to sell a huge number of scanners to turn a profit. In a few years, he hopes that the hardware part of the business will go away completely, he said. At that time, he hopes that 3D sensor technology will become small and cheap enough to be incorporated into smartphones and tablets, so the question of an upfront investment will go away, and the company will become a purely software and services provider.

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• Matterport’s 3-D Scanner Faces Marketing Challenge

Article source: http://finchannel.com/Main_News/B_Schools/124704_Matterport%E2%80%99s_3-D_Scanner_Faces_Marketing_Challenge/

Many economists have their predictions for how the real estate market will perform in 2013, but one thing that is certain and that will likely play a large role is that there are a lot less available homes for sale.

We’ve already seen how this has affected the Bay Area, from hundreds of hopeful buyers lining up for a lotto to buy a new construction model home to prospective buyers creating designer love letters to sellers, telling their life story and how much they want to buy their home.

Real estate site Redfin pulled some stats, showing San Francisco and San Jose starting off the first two weeks of the year with nearly 50% less homes on the market compared to same time last year. Inventory is down all over the country, but it’s particularly worse in the Bay Area.

What’s the reason behind the low inventory?

The Wall Street Journal writes a good article on this, pointing to six reasons:

1. Many homeowners are underwater, and thus can’t sell.
2. Homeowners with equity in their home don’t have enough of it to “trade up” to buy a bigger and more expensive home.
3. Everyone wants to buy at the bottom, but few want to sell when they feel their home will be worth more next year.
4. Investors – from mom and pop and corporate investors have come out and become landlords, taking property that normally would be on the market into the rental realm.
5. With the foreclosure fiasco, banks have been slower at foreclosing homes.
6. There’s been a lot less construction of new homes by home builders.

Unless inventory starts picking up, this will make for a very interesting year for Bay Area real estate.

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/01/23/2013-real-estate-kicks-off-with-inventory-crisis/

The Bay Area saw home prices climb across the region in 2012, driven by tech growth and a recovering national economy.

Median prices for single-family detached homes were up in all but eight of 107 communities in the Bay Area for the fourth quarter, according to new numbers from the real estate data firm DataQuick.

Prices in Oakland were up 35 percent, while prices in San Francisco rose 21.2 percent.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/morning_call/2013/01/bay-area-home-prices-up-in-q4-2012.html

Mill Valley, CA (PRWEB) May 26, 2012

James Wavro of the San Francisco property management and leasing firm J.Wavro Associates was recently featured in a Wall Street Journal article that covered the lucrative San Francisco rental market, where he explains how competition is driving rental prices sky high.

In the article, Wavro suggests part of the reason the rental market is so competitive in San Francisco is that home prices are so high that rental rates are still much cheaper than mortgage payments. He also says traditional supply and demand economics are in play, as the current boom in the technology sector keeps adding hundreds to thousands of new workers to the Bay Area every year.

This comes as no surprise to people living in San Francisco, as many residents willingly pay the price to rent a property in such a technology-fueled, innovative city. “It’s a competitive market for a reason and the people who live here know they’re paying for a location and lifestyle that are unlike any other city,” explained Wavro.

Trulia’s Winter 2012 Rent vs. Buy Index that was released in March shows just how true this rings. Trulia looked at rental prices and prices of equivalent homes across 100 metro areas, and found that it’s still smarter to rent than buy in only two of those cities, Honolulu and San Francisco.

“We have a long way to go up in rents before we achieve parity with the cost of housing,” Wavro told the Wall Street Journal.

J.Wavro has over a decade of experience finding the best rental properties in San Francisco. The latest available apartments, town-homes and houses for rent in the area can be found at www.jwavro.com.

“It’s a battle for apartments around here, but we have the biggest selection of rental properties in the area and we’ve helped a ton of people get leases.”

For more information about San Francisco property rentals, available apartments for rent, or any of J.Wavro Associates services, call (415) 675-8804 or visit jwavro.com.

About J.Wavro Associates

J.Wavro Associates is a group of licensed real estate professionals specializing in rental property leasing and executive relocation in the San Francisco Bay Area. They specialize in helping to lease rental properties, and have an extensive corporate and private network that allows them to consistently attract suitable tenants. Their Bay Area executive relocation specialists offer rental assistance to people looking to move to the Bay Area or locals looking for a new home. The real estate professionals of J.Wavro Associates can provide a wealth of knowledge on a particular neighborhood or neighborhoods of interest to clients. They will also identify specific properties that fit the client’s exact needs and budget. As part of their executive relocation service, J.Wavro Associates will arrange appointments, provide property tours and assist in lease negotiations.

J.Wavro Associates employs more than 20 licensed real estate professionals who specialize in rental property leasing and executive relocation service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their leasing services help property owners enjoy the profit from their rental investments without any of the hassle. Their relocation specialists save renters time and money by quickly finding the right apartment to fit their needs.

J.Wavro Associates serves the City of San Francisco and other Bay Area locations including the South Bay and Marin.

For more information about J.Wavro Associates, call them at (415) 675-8804 or visit them on the web at jwavro-sf.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebrental-properties/san-francisco/prweb9538626.htm

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/05/26/prweb9538626.DTL

Jason Henry for The Wall Street Journal

Gagan and Jasmin Arneja in their 1,800-square-foot home, which attracted 22 bids and sold for $1.5 million, 40% over asking price.

San Francisco

A bidding war broke out in November when a small house in San Francisco’s tightly packed Noe Valley came on the market.

Twenty-two people, including employees of Facebook, Zynga, Google and Pixar, battled for the home. The winning offer was $1.5 million—40% higher than the asking price. The house had a great view, but it was only 1,800 square feet and came with an old kitchen which, like most of the interior, was covered in 1970s plywood paneling. Seen from the curb, there’s hardly any house at all—just a one-car garage and gate leading to small front courtyard.

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Winni Wintermeyer for The Wall Street Journal

Dolores Park, with a view of the Mission District and skyline of downtown San Francisco in the background, is a popular hangout for the new generation of tech entrepreneurs.

The inconspicuousness was part of the attraction, said Jasmin Arneja, 42, who bought the two-bedroom house with her husband Gagan, 40, a software engineer at a networking start-up. “It’s the antithesis to these outrageous bizarre Gordon Gekko-esque houses. It just incorporates so much of our values,” said Ms. Arneja, who runs a philanthropic advisory firm.

Housing prices in the San Francisco Bay area are once again soaring, thanks to an infusion of cash from the rising shares of Apple and Google and the initial public offerings by Zynga, LinkedIn, Yelp and soon Facebook, expected to be the largest in Internet history. But while a previous generation of dot-com executives opted for mansions in wealthy San Francisco neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and tony Silicon Valley suburbs like Atherton, this generation is gravitating to modest homes and condos in grittier parts of the city.

Ground zero of the current tech-fueled real-estate boom is the Mission, formerly a majority Hispanic neighborhood on the southern edge of San Francisco that’s close to the main arteries that link San Francisco to Silicon Valley. Median home prices in the Mission grew 44% in December compared with a year earlier. Adjacent Noe Valley had a rise of 31% over that same period, according to the San Francisco Association of Realtors. The average number of days homes sat on the market in both neighborhoods has almost halved over the past year.

That’s in sharp contrast to what’s happening nationally, where the housing market continues to flounder, with the Case-Shiller 20-City index down for the fourth straight month in a row. It’s even an aberration from the San Francisco area (including Oakland), which saw a 5.4% drop in home prices in December from a year earlier.

Newly minted tech millionaires in San Francisco are shunning mansions in wealthy neighborhoods and leafy suburbs in favor of modest homes and condos in grittier parts of the city. Geoffrey Fowler has details on Lunch Break. Photo: Jason Henry for WSJ

Real-estate agents say it’s a cultural shift. The new generation of Internet executives—younger than the last generation of dot-commers—eschews the trappings and responsibilities of expensive properties. They want to bicycle, walk or take public transportation. They like living near food trucks and dive bars.

“You can spend a lot of money on a great restaurant here or just $5 on a burrito,” said Christian Niles, 31, who bought a two-bedroom apartment for $585,000 in the Mission with his wife in August because he saw real estate as a good place to store the cash he’d made from selling his app called TrackerBot to Pivotal Labs last summer. He plans to never own a car.

StumbleUpon CEO Garrett Camp bought a 2,900-square-foot loft penthouse with four bathrooms and a patio for $3 million this past summer in the South of Market area. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams bought a $2.4 million house in Noe Valley in 2009.

The hottest properties are near corporate shuttle bus stops—where employees for companies like Google, Facebook, Genentech, LinkedIn and Apple line up daily for the ride to Silicon Valley. Real-estate agent Amanda Jones calls it the “Shuttle Effect” and said proximity can command as much as a 20% premium. Some real-estate agents said they’re dying for a map of where the buses pick up. “When a listing gets deluged with people—that tells me it’s close to a stop,” said Ms. Jones.

Some companies share a few of the same stops, occasionally leading to employees getting on the wrong bus. Discussions can get animated about adding or moving a stop, said Jessica Herrera, Facebook’s transportation coordinator who controls the stop locations for Facebook’s eight shuttle busses, including a new glass-topped double-decker the company rented to make space for the growing crowds. “Everybody wants a stop that’s next to their house that comes every five minutes,” she said, adding that discussions have remained civil.

Enlarge Image

Winni Wintermeyer for The Wall Street Journal

The Mission apartment building where investor Michael Barton bought a condo: ‘You can tell there is an upsurge going on here.’

Stephanie Pocino, 28, makes the 45-minute trip to Facebook every day from her rented apartment building in the Mission. She has no garbage disposal and no dishwasher, but the Victorian building has lots of charm and bay windows. She carries a wireless Internet card, which she uses to answer emails and work on presentations while on the commute, and her laundry, which she gets done free at the company’s headquarters.

Soaring rental prices—up more than 10% in the Mission and Noe Valley in the past six months alone—are also making buying more competitive, said Vanguard Properties broker Craig Waddle. He’s seen bidding competitions for rentals and rental offers coming in higher than the asking prices. At an open house for a one-bedroom offered for $1,400 a month, 40 people were filling out applications on the spot. One person walked up to the owner, offered $1,700 and got the place.

“It’s been kind of shocking,” said Raj Gajwani, 36, who has been looking for a house in Noe Valley for around $1.5 million for the past few months. A founder of two online companies, he and his wife are expecting twins and want a house close to a shuttle-bus stop for his wife’s commute but with “culture, interesting people and activities.” They also want something they will be able to sell for more money in five years, when they might have to move to the suburbs for better schools.

Mike Shaw, a real-estate agent who has worked for 15 years in the San Francisco market, said buyers often want something already renovated or vintage because they don’t have the time or the interest to hire designers and architects. “That person in jeans and a sweatshirt could be low on the totem pole or a multibillionaire. They haven’t realized the value of good design either in architecture or fashion,” said Suzanne Tucker, a San Francisco designer who has remodeled many of the most lavish homes in the Bay Area.

Buyers argue they have a different sensibility. Ms. Arneja, who snagged the sought-after house in Noe Valley, said she was drawn to the interior, which is covered almost entirely by dark redwood and brick, lending it a feel that lands somewhere between a den and a tree house. “This is clearly a ’70s house,” said Ms. Arneja. “I would like to think of it as a shining example of good architecture during a bad period of design.”

Pop-up restaurants with long lines, coffee shops that brew one cup at a time and shops selling curiosities like local honey have followed the influx of cash. Apple employee Amandeep Jawa, who takes the company bus to work, covered the driveway of his Victorian with a “parklet,” a public space registered with the city featuring seating and greenery. His crowning achievement: a topiary triceratops, dubbed Trixie, made of succulent plants.

But the gentrification is far from complete. A surge in violence between feuding gangs called the Norteños and Sureños claimed two lives in less than 24 hours in the Mission in August, and there was a shooting in front of a coffee shop. Noe Valley saw a rash of sexual assaults; residents there have also reported attempted carjackings and armed robberies.

“The key word is coexistence,” said David Campos, a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors representing the Mission and Bernal Heights.

Blogs popular with tech workers keep track of the violence, and one UC Berkeley student produced a map called “Gangs and Cupcakes,” which overlaid Norteño and Sureño territory with the Mission’s most popular cupcake cafes. In recent years, somebody spray-painted “cafe gentrification” on the sidewalk in front of popular coffee shops.

The high prices and the changes in the neighborhood are only going to intensify, predicted Lawrence Coburn, 42, who first moved to the Mission in 1999 to found a start-up and has lived in an 1,100-foot rental loft there since 2003. “A lot of my friends are trying to hustle to buy a place before all the Facebook people get liquid,” he said.

Investor Michael Barton, 48, recently decided to buy because he wanted to lock in his investment before Facebook’s IPO money hits town. The area around his 950-square-foot, two-story loft is “kind of funky, and gritty and dodgy,” said Mr. Barton. But an industrial building next door has been taken over by Internet start-ups. “You can tell there is an upsurge going on here,” he said.

A version of this article appeared Mar. 16, 2012, on page D1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Hot Spot for the Rising Tech Generation.

Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204781804577271491070580960.html

Articles all over the web report that real estate professionals are gearing up, potential buyers are trying to buy now before the IPO and sellers are trying to determine their best course of strategy.  From the local Mercury News :

Realtors say the buzz around Facebook is already sparking the long moribund housing market. Potential sellers want to know whether they should sell now or wait, and buyers are fervently pushing their agents to get into the Peninsula housing market before the IPO, anticipating rising prices as the newly wealthy compete for the hottest neighborhoods from San Francisco to Palo Alto.

The New York Times writes that if you thought housing was expensive in the Valley now, just wait for the Facebook update:

..10 homes in Palo Alto sold for more than their asking prices last month, some by large amounts. Now, with the long-expected Facebook public offering a step closer to reality, Mr. DeLeon said he expected to see several things happen: some sellers may keep their homes off the market until they judge the time is right, some speculators may snap up old houses to tear down and rebuild, and some buyers may feel pressure to make offers before the deluge hits.

While the Valley is bubbling with nervous excitement, the Wall Street Journal notes that the benefits of the Facebook IPO may only reach so far.  New potential Facebook millionaires still want a short commute to work.

In communities in the shadow of tech giants like Facebook Inc. in Menlo Park, housing prices are on a tear. Menlo Park led the Bay Area with a 52.7% increase in its median home sales price in the fourth quarter, with prices rising to $1.29 million from $840,000 a year earlier, according to DataQuick. Palo Alto’s median home-sales price jumped 12.5% to $1.1 million from $977,750, according to DataQuick.

Cities outside of Silicon Valley didn’t fare as well. Sonoma, for example, experienced a 24.1% drop in the fourth quarter in its median home-sales price to $356,000 from $469,000 a year ago, while Walnut Creek prices fell 18.3% to $580,000 from $709,500, according to DataQuick.

 Since we live in the Bay Area, we should know what’s happening out there.  Readers – what have you seen?  Are you looking to buy or sell in the Valley?  Does the Facebook IPO affect how you’re planning to buy or sell?

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2012/02/13/facebook-ipo-is-sizzling-up-silicon-valey-real-estate/

Sam Bamieh, founder and former chairman of San Mateo, Calif.-based American Intertrade Group Inc., owns the Tobin Clark Estate. He is a prominent donor to Republican politicians. Bamieh’s company specializes in real estate development and financial consulting.

The property is in Hillsborough, Calif., a San Francisco Bay Area suburb that’s one of the wealthiest communities in the country.

In 2002, the estate made Forbes magazine’s list of the most expensive homes in the United States. The Wall Street Journal featured the estate as its “House of the Day” on Oct. 1, 2009. According to Zillow.com, the house was supposed to be torn down to make way for six homes. Bamieh bought the estate at a foreclosure sale for $3.2 million, the Journal reported.

Four residential real estate firms – Keller Williams Realty International, Sotheby’s International Realty, Engel Volkers and Alain Pinel Realtors – are marketing the property. An announcement of the Cotsword Tudor mansion being put on the market called it “the jewel in the crown of San Francisco estates.”

In August 2009, Bamieh put the house up for sale – without hiring a real estate agent – at a list price of nearly $28.9 million. Owner financing was available to “qualified buyers.”

The Bamieh family spent more than $19 million to restore the Tobin Clark Estate, which sites on 6 acres and is secured by classic wrought-iron gates. Sam Bamieh bought the mansion, also known as House on Hill, in 1992. Bamieh initially put the estate on the market in 1999 for $45 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Continued on the next page

Article source: http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/mansion-near-san-francisco-on-the/

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Dec 16, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) –
Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc., today announced the sale of
Museum Tower Penthouse, a 20,000 square-foot condominium sited on the
top two floors of the five-star St. Regis Hotel and Residences in San
Francisco. Sold for $28 million, the property achieved the highest
sale price for a condominium in San Francisco history, according to
the San Francisco Multiple Listing Service. The property is also
believed to be the highest priced bank-owned listing in the United
States, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“Sotheby’s International Realty’s sale this week of the Museum Tower
Penthouse reaffirms that San Francisco is among the most sought-after
real estate markets,” said Kathy Korte, president and chief executive
officer of Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. “The sale aligns with
what we are experiencing in San Francisco, which is that the high end
market is now very active. Within the last several months four
properties have sold between $20 and $33 million, according to county
tax records. Buyers are acting on rare opportunities such as the St.
Regis penthouse, perhaps the largest new construction penthouse
available for sale anywhere in the world.”

Sotheby’s International Realty agents Gregg Lynn, Louis Silcox and
Bernadette Lamothe handled the sale of the listing. The property was
placed on the market this fall by Second Step Asset Management and
sold very quickly after receiving multiple offers.

“One of the largest personal residences in the city, the Museum Tower
Penthouse stands among San Francisco’s most prestigious properties,”
said Jeffrey Gibson, Vice President and Brokerage Manager of
Sotheby’s International Realty’s San Francisco brokerage. “With four
offers from qualified buyers in the week leading up to the closing,
the sale reflects the reality that amidst all of the challenges in
today’s real estate market, the San Francisco Bay Area remains an
internationally recognized market for real estate investing.”

Sotheby’s International Realty said that the condominium, which
boasts floor-to-ceiling, 21+ foot glass walls with 360-degree views
of many San Francisco landmarks, includes six bedrooms, seven full
and four half baths, and 2,900 square feet of terraces. Created by
international award-winning interior design firm Orlando Diaz-Azcuy
Design Associates, the penthouse also features a grand two-story
entrance foyer with a waterfall, double-height living room, dining
room, library, 21st-century kitchen, and 2,500 square-foot master
suite.

The residence enjoys access to the amenities of the St. Regis Hotel
and Residences, a 40-story tower with a world-class spa, indoor lap
pool, fitness center, award-winning restaurant, 24-hour room service,
and five-star concierge and butler. The St. Regis is located in the
city’s Arts District, minutes from Union Square and the Financial
District and adjacent to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the
Daniel Libeskind-designed Contemporary Jewish Museum, and the newly
opened Museum of the African Diaspora.

Photos of the Museum Tower Penthouse can be viewed at

www.stregispenthouse.com .

About Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc.

Sotheby’s International Realty was founded in 1976 as a real estate
service for discerning clients of Sotheby’s auction house and
represents fine properties at a range of price points. Today,
Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. operates brokerage offices in
key metropolitan and resort markets, including Manhattan; the
Hamptons; Greenwich, Conn.; Cape Cod; Palm Beach, Fla.; Los Angeles;
Beverly Hills; Brentwood; Pasadena; Santa Barbara; San Francisco;
Sonoma; Monterey Peninsula; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. (
www.sothebyshomes.com ) is part
of NRT LLC, the nation’s largest residential real estate brokerage
company, and a member of the Sotheby’s International Realty(R)
network, which currently has nearly 12,000 sales associates located
in approximately 580 offices in 42 countries and territories
worldwide. NRT, a subsidiary of Realogy Corporation, operates
Realogy’s company-owned real estate brokerage offices.

        Sotheby's International Realty Contact:
        Gregg Lynn
        (415) 980-1780
        Email Contact

SOURCE: Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc.

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/emailprcntct?id=1394B8BCF2FC1ACA

Copyright 2011 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sothebys-international-realty-achieves-highest-condominium-property-sale-in-san-francisco-history-2011-12-16

San Francisco, Calif. (PRWEB) September 08, 2011

Pacific Union International (PUI) announced today four of their team members were included among the Top 250 Real Estate Professionals by Transaction Volume, Pacific Union International has made its mark among the leading realtors in the Bay Area. Tracy McLaughlin of Ross, Dana Green of Orinda, Steven Mavromihalisand John Lee, both of San Francisco, were named among America’s top real estate professionals by The Wall Street Journal and REAL Trends. They are all now members of the “The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals,” a prestigious national awards ranking sponsored annually by the two respected publications. They are now ranked in the top one half of 1 percent of the more than 1 million REALTORS® nationwide.

The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals recently announced with four separate categories honoring the top 250 residential agents and agent teams for excellence in:

•     Individual Sales Professionals – Sales volume
•     Individual Sales Professionals – Transaction sides (in each real estate transaction, there are two sides that can be represented by a real estate agent: a buyer’s and a seller’s.)
•     Team Professionals – Sales Volume
•     Team Professionals – Transaction sides                

According to The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals, McLaughlin, Green, Mavrohimalis and Lee had sales volume of between $35 million and $53million, ranking in the top 250 in the nation.

“The best individual agents and teams – including McLaughlin, Green, Mavromihalis and Lee’s award-winning efforts – were nothing short of phenomenal considering the challenging real estate market,” said Steve Murray, founder of Denver-based publishing and communications company REAL Trends, which compiled the list.

“Ironically, if you look at the top 250 in each category you will find that collectively, their sales volume and transaction sides held up quite nicely compared with the market as a whole.”

“Becoming a member of such an elite group as the The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals is an incredible accomplishment in any market, but what McLaughlin, Green, Mavromihalis and Lee’s did during these challenging times is impressive on so many levels,” said Marti Gallardo, vice president of classified advertising for The Wall Street Journal. “Their efforts topped 99.99 percent of the more than 1 million REALTORS nationwide.”

“Pacific Union International is absolutely thrilled to see four team members named to The Thousand,” said Mark A. McLaughlin, president and CEO of Pacific Union International. “Even with the market’s challenges, it’s incredibly gratifying for our professionals to help clients find their dream homes, as well as help them sell their properties quickly and for the highest price possible. We salute Tracy McLaughlin, Dana Green, Steve Mavromihalis and John Lee for their achievements.”

The four lists of the The Thousand can be found at:

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/individual-sides

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/individual-volume

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/team-sides

http://realtrends.com/products/top-1000-sales-professionals/team-volume

About Pacific Union International(PUI): PUI is the San Francisco Bay Area’s premier international luxury real estate brand operating in six counties including Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco and Sonoma for 35 years. Locally owned, PUI leadership operates with an entrepreneurial mindset and unwavering commitment to invest in the right people, processes and tools to ensure deep, long-standing client and agent relationships. In 2009, its team of over 425+ brokers achieved #1 ranking in average sales price and #1 ranking for professional productivity in all six counties. Through its exclusive relationship with Christie’s International Real Estate in the San Francisco Bay Area, Pacific Union delivers international reach in its property marketing programs and provides clients with access to international investors. For more information visit: www.pacunion.com.

About The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals: The Thousand Top Real Estate Professionals awards program was developed jointly by The Wall Street Journal’s Business Development Group and REAL Trends, a leading source of analysis and information for the residential real estate brokerage industry. The Real Estate Top 1,000 honors America’s elite real estate agents and their companies and is compiled and analyzed by REAL Trends.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2011pacunion/09/prweb8780950.htm

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/09/08/prweb8780950.DTL