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Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

sfstandard.com

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#21
post #10

According to Zillow, rent in SF is about flat over the past year and a half, so it's not like all SF real estate across the board is getting twice as cheap. I kinda like the NEMA building itself, but the location near Civic Center is right in the middle of the fentanylpocalypse. Of all the places to lose value, this one doesn't surprise me much.

It's not that rents are declining, it's that interest rates keep going up.

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#22
post #3

Lost valuation , which is a distinct concept from value.

Please. If we accept the validity of use-value separate from exchange-value there is an entire dialectical chain of consequences we have to contend with. It's much easier to conclude that its value is equivalent to its price.

Easy and appropriate are not synonyms.

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#24

Check out this building in SOMA, it was finished, sat empty waiting for permits for 2 years because the City sucks, and during that time the condo market crashed and so now the builder had to hand it back to the lender. Full brand new condo building one block from Oracle Park with like 24 luxury condos in it for 16 mil now: https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/16/brand-new-san-francisco-co...

By now I would think most builders can expect 1-2 years for obtaining permits. Not ideal, but it's similar in other large metros.

That is certainly not the case in Austin. There's no reason SF can't replicate that if they even try a little bit.

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#25
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By now I would think most builders can expect 1-2 years for obtaining permits. Not ideal, but it's similar in other large metros.

That is certainly not the case in Austin. There's no reason SF can't replicate that if they even try a little bit.

SF has been actively tarpitting permits for a very long time. The last thing they want is speedy or effective.

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#26

Check out this building in SOMA, it was finished, sat empty waiting for permits for 2 years because the City sucks, and during that time the condo market crashed and so now the builder had to hand it back to the lender. Full brand new condo building one block from Oracle Park with like 24 luxury condos in it for 16 mil now: https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/16/brand-new-san-francisco-co...

By now I would think most builders can expect 1-2 years for obtaining permits. Not ideal, but it's similar in other large metros.

"San Francisco's process for issuing building permits is notorious for being one of the most cumbersome in the country. The city takes an average of ten months to issue a permit, compared to six months in Los Angeles and New York City." https://starboardcre.com/editorials/governor-newsom-wants-to....

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#27
post #3

Lost valuation , which is a distinct concept from value.

Please. If we accept the validity of use-value separate from exchange-value there is an entire dialectical chain of consequences we have to contend with. It's much easier to conclude that its value is equivalent to its price.

Marx is neat but theory of value money credit and time pref is much better understood under an empirical framework so much so I’m sure even drunken Karl would agree.

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#28
post #14
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current vacancy rate is still less than 10%, so unsure what makes it ill-conceived. There is/was a lack of amenity-rich rentals targeted to young professional types in SF like you’d see in NYC and it fills a certain niche. Main issue is rental market in SF is still soft so they can’t charge what they did pre-pandemic, and the location doesn’t help.

"so unsure what makes it ill-conceived" The headline of the article is that it has lost 50% of it's value. During that same multi year period we have had well over 10% inflation. So Maybe that part. Yeah I'm gonna go with that part. Or maybe the investors just hate money and were going for -60% ROI. Who knows.

Real estate values aren't included in inflation calculations.

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#29
So, developer tried to jump into the insanely hot condo market of 2018/2019 where foreign investors would buy up units and rent them out to people in tech.

Pandemic happened, and interest rates shot up. Looks like timing is everything, and it wasn't really SF's fault.

Re: Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

#30
post #10

According to Zillow, rent in SF is about flat over the past year and a half, so it's not like all SF real estate across the board is getting twice as cheap. I kinda like the NEMA building itself, but the location near Civic Center is right in the middle of the fentanylpocalypse. Of all the places to lose value, this one doesn't surprise me much.

Why do you need new buildings? This article is literally about the value of a building declining.

The problem is that there are large numbers of dwellings that are empty, but the property owners don't want to rent them out in the vague hope that in the future they'll be able to charge much more.

So you get high rents and homelessness (that's your fentanylpocalypse that you've decided is the city's fault and not the predictable consequence of cost driven homelessness) while also having large numbers of unoccupied apartments. All because a bunch of investors are hoping that by restricting the supply they can push rent prices up.

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