homesmillbrae.com

Real estate site Property Shark published figures revealing how housing prices have changed across the Bay Area between 2014 and 2018.

While the consensus that prices rose should stun few, what is surprising is where the greatest increase happened during that period—not in San Francisco or in San Jose or on the Peninsula, but instead in Bethel Island.

Bethel Island—a town measuring 5.6 square miles, located just past Oakley near the San Joaquin Rover—is one of the Bay Area’s smallest and most obscure communities. In 2017, the U.S. Census estimated that this Contra Costa County town had a population of fewer than 2,400 people, up from barely more than 1,900 five years prior.

Bethel Island is also one of the cheapest places to find housing in all of the Bay Area—real estate site Trulia even cited it as having the absolute most affordable regional market rents in 2016.

According to Property Shark, the average Bethel Island house averaged a mere $499,000 in 2018. And yet, it’s also the place where prices are soaring the fastest: between 2014 and 2018, the cost of buying here increased 117 percent.

For comparison, in the same period prices rose 80 percent in East Palo Alto, 75 percent in Stinson Beach, and 68 percent in Emeryville.

In all, more than one-third of Bay Area cities saw average price inflation of more than 40 percent during this period, including San Francisco, which climbed 43 percent since 2014.

Why so much activity in one little town? It makes sense that an East Bay locale with cheaper housing would become more attractive over the past few years, due to skyrocketing home prices elsewhere, and thus agitate prices as more people sought real estate refuge in the formerly remote area.

It’s also important to remember that small sample sizes can lead to big statistical swings. Per the census, Bethel Island only had 1,479 homes in 2017, and only 1,046 of those units were occupied. The community is composed entirely of single-unit homes and mobile homes.

Those same census figures estimate that the town had just 83 homes worth between $500,000 and $999,999 in 2012.

By 2017 that figure had increased to 112. No figures are yet available for 2018. Note that there are no homes on Bethel Island valued at seven figures.

Curiously, the gross median rent in the town went down from $1,160 in 2014 to $1,153 in 2017.

Article source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/11/12/20961859/bethel-island-home-price-increase-cheapest-affordable-communities

The bad news is that even in Bayview and the Excelsior—the southern-lying neighborhoods that long spelled some relief from San Francisco’s out-of-control home prices—an average single-family house is now a seven-figure investment in 2019.

The good news? There’s not much of it, really. But nevertheless, even while netting seven-figures on average, these homes are still some half a million dollars cheaper than the rest of the city.

Last week, Compass Real Estate released its latest summary of home-buying business in the Bay Area, including a breakdown of the median price of a house in San Francisco neighborhoods through the first nine and a half months of 2019.

At the top of that list, the Pacific Heights/Marina real estate zone averaged more than $4.9 million for a single-family home so far this year.

At the bottom, the combined Bayview/Excelsior zone took its customary place at the end of the list. The median price for those neighborhoods: an estimated $1.08 million.

Per square foot, Bayview and Excelsior averaged about $792 so far this year, just a bit over half of the $1,447 per foot seen in Pac Heights.

This isn’t be the first time that these neighborhoods have broken the seven-figure mark; earlier this year, a different report by Compass economist Patrick Carlisle marked the median in these neighborhoods as just under $1.1 million in September of 2018.

However, that was a slightly different grouping of homes that also included parts of Crocker-Amazon.

Compiling MLS sales averages every six months starting in January of 2005, Carlisle noted that these neighborhoods—consistently the cheapest in the city—never averaged higher than $700K until May of 2015, and have been steadily rising alongside homes in the rest of the city ever since.

Even now, Bayview and Excelsior houses remain a discount compared to the rest of the city, which thus far this year averages $1.6 million for a house, per Carlisle’s calculations.

According to the California Association of Realtors, the citywide San Francisco median for September of 2019 was roughly $1.54 million, up from just over $1.5 million the same time last year.

Across all nine Bay Area counties, the median price was $880,000 in September, down more than five percent from last year’s $900,000.

Almost all of that year-over-year decline was on account of San Mateo County, where the median price fell 8.1 percent from last year; every other county saw prices either increase or decline 2.5 percent or less.

Note that these figures represent only single-family homes; almost all of the new housing built in these neighborhoods doesn’t factor into the numbers.

The Compass report does warn readers that the median price is but a single metric and that it can be affected by variables other than fair market price. It usually doesn’t pay to make too big of a deal about one figure or one report.

However, the trend toward seven-figure homes as the norm even in the most affordable SF neighborhoods has continued apace for years on end now.

Article source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/11/11/20959775/bayview-excelsior-average-houses-price-2019-million-dollars

One of San Francisco’s most celebrated chefs has made her way south to Los Angeles. Melissa Perello, star owner of Michelin-worthy Frances and of Octavia up in the Bay Area, has expanded to the Row development in Downtown with partner Robert Wright to open sprawling dream project M.Georgina this week. The large, open former warehouse will seat its first true dinner guests tomorrow night, more than a year after first being announced.

The sunny converted corner owns what may be the most prime restaurant real estate inside the massive Runyon Group development off Alameda. The place teems with weekend traffic thanks to Smorgasburg, and M.Georgina is — perhaps notwithstanding the gigantic Manufactory build-out from Tartine — the first restaurant to be seen by anyone exiting the parking garage. It helps that the Studio Unltd.-designed restaurant features walls of tall windows and raised ceilings, giving the restaurant a warm, inviting evening glow.

The two-sided open kitchen further pulls in the eye, while a private dining room to one end can act as a hideaway for larger groups and a more muted bar hunkers down the opposite end of the dining space. In all, M.Georgina sprawls across some 4,500 square feet of space, with a variety of banquettes, two- and four-tops, bar seating, and patio space.

And then there is M.Georgina’s concise menu, which hovers well below $35 for entrees and nods to wood-fired cooking and California’s bountiful seasons. Starting salads lean into rotating flavors like chicory with rapini pesto or brussels sprouts with roasted mushrooms, while seafood — a baked clam diavolo, whole fish, some squid ink pita — and roasted meats outline the mains. “Every time I open a new restaurant, I feel like my food evolves into something different,” says Perello. “I want to make the food here accessible to people, and to be heartwarming and delicious.”

Adam Flamenbaum is on to oversee the cocktail side of the bar, while master sommelier Alan Murray and wine director Alex Davis handle the wine and beer. Hannah Ziskin, formerly of SF’s celebrated Nopa, is on as the pastry chef.

M.Georgina opens tomorrow for dinner service at the Row in Downtown. An upcoming takeaway lunchtime window offering rotating daily grab and go meals, called the Slip, should arrive in the coming months.

M.Georgina. 777 Alameda St., Los Angeles.

• The 15 Most Anticipated Los Angeles Restaurant Openings, Fall 2019 [ELA]

Article source: https://la.eater.com/2019/11/11/20959616/melissa-perello-m-georgina-the-row-open-photos-new-san-francisco-los-angeles-inside

What are the Bay Area housing market trends in the past decade?

It’s no secret that Bay Area home prices have risen dramatically since the Great Recession, though the market started to cool about a year ago. Single-family home values have jumped an average of 6% each year for the past 10 years, reaching a peak median of $962,700 in Oct. 2018 across the San Francisco metropolitan area. San Francisco has the highest median home price among major U.S. cities, reaching $1.7 million in June. Some Silicon Valley suburbs are even more expensive, such as Atherton, where the median home price is $8 million. Demand is so strong that historically lower priced, minority areas like East Oakland, East Palo Alto and San Francisco’s Bayview have seen some of the biggest price spikes in recent years. But overall, Bay Area prices have remained flat or fallen between March and August, according to CoreLogic.

Article source: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/housing-crunch/home-value-trends/

• 

  On the legendary Gold Coast of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, 2799 Broadway offers a 11,558-square-foot manor on a corner lot with sweeping views.

  On the legendary Gold Coast of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, 2799 Broadway offers a 11,558-square-foot manor on a corner lot with sweeping views.

  
  Photo: Daniel Lunghi For Sotheby’s International Realty
  

Caption

Close

On the legendary Gold Coast of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, 2799 Broadway offers a 11,558-square-foot manor on a corner lot with sweeping views.

On the legendary Gold Coast of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, 2799 Broadway offers a 11,558-square-foot manor on a corner lot with sweeping views.

Photo: Daniel Lunghi For Sotheby’s International Realty

It’s the sort of house that gets people talking — even in San Francisco’s insane real estate market.

A massive mansion in a prestigious part of Pacific Heights known as the Gold Coast, is selling for a cool $39 million. If 2799 Broadway sells for its listing price, it will tie for the record of most expensive home sale in the city. A block away, 2920 Broadway sold off-market for $39 million in 2018.

In a city where homes often go for over asking, this new listing could also sell for more, setting a new record.

Perched above the bay, this 11,600-square-foot home with sweeping views was built in 2004, among the stately and fanciful manses owned by the ciy’s elite including Oracle’s Larry Ellison and philanthropists Ann and Gordon Getty.

“It’s a prominent corner at the crest of the Gold Coast, and there are only three blocks of houses like that in the city,” said listing agent Doborah Svoboda of Sotheby’s International Realty. “We’ve had several homes sell for over $30 million (in San Francisco), and every one of them has been on those three blocks. It’s a rare opportunity.”

Unlike so many of the new construction homes in the city with sleek, even sterile, architecture, this listing gives a nod to traditional design. The work of San Francisco designer Ken Fulk, the interiors are eccentric, stylish and magazine-worthy, with soaring ceilings, rooms painted in dark colors and floors clad in hardwood, limestone, and marble.

It’s a style you might expect to find in a London boutique hotel, and it’s also a style you might recognize if you’ve been to San Francisco’s Battery, the private social club in the Financial District also known for its fabulous Fulk interiors spread across 58,000-square-feet on five levels.

The home’s owners, Michael and Xochi Birch, founded the Battery, housed in a turn-of-the-century marble factory, in 2013. The Birches made their money creating Bebo, a social network that was bigger than Facebook in the United Kingdom at one time. They sold it to AOL for $850 million in 2008, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

ALSO: Most expensive home in San Francisco sells for $39 million

The exterior of 2799 Broadway was engineered with concrete and is both refined and whimsical. Stepping inside, you walk into a formal entry with a portrait hall featuring marble floors and aged cast-stone walls. A double stair case leads to a serpentine staircase with an ornate railing crafted by Italian artisans ornate railing linking the first floor to two levels above. An elevator provides convenient access to the lower bottom floor.

“It’s a formal house but it is a very livable house and fun house to hang out in,” says Svoboda.

There are six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and two half-baths. The master bedroom on the upper level has a fireplace, walk-in closet, en suite bathroom and a terrace with its own spa where you can take in sweeping views from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oakland Hills.

Flooded with natural light through 14 sets of French doors, the main living spaces are on the four floor, including a formal living and dining room with cerulean walls of burnished enamel. A great room with an open floor plan encompasses the gourmet kitchen, a casual dining space with a built-in banquette and a family room, opening to a protected terrace and artificial-turf garden. The home also includes a wine cellar, a library with paneled walls and coffered ceilings and a pub with an antique bar from a former British tavern.

“The fact that it was newly constructed in 2004 (compared to the old-world mansions in Pacific Heights) will give the new owner the opportunity to move into something without significant construction costs. Most of the people who buy the 100-year-old mansions have taken on massive renovation projects including structural engineering. It has good outdoor space. It has the views, the location and the condition where people don’t have to go through three years of brain damage, probably even more than that.”

Amy Graff is a digital editor for SFGATE. Email her at agraff@sfgate.com.

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/most-expensive-house-san-francisco-2799-Broadway-14515308.php