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Downtown San Francisco Luxury Apartment Tower Loses Half Its Value

sfstandard.com

31–40 of 52 posts

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

#31

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.

Nah, it's really important that we blame the SF governance (which has plenty of issues) for the poor planning and failure to accept basic capitalism of a for-profit condo company. Seriously this is basic capitalism: if your customers/tenants all work for one industry, and that industry craters and lays them all off, you aren't going to have customers/tenants any more - and the local government can't control that.

[Blaming SF's governance for literally everything as if it controls many of the companies based in SF collapsing because they were poorly run and/or poorly conceived failing and leaving is the only thing that passes muster in HN comments :D]

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

#32
post #28
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

This is wrong. Housing accounts for about a third of CPI. There's some funkiness about how the Owners Equivalent of Rent is calculated but real estate prices definitely show up in inflation.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-does-the-consumer-pri...

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

#33

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...

They built without permits? And the bank just gets to take it back rather than the govt requiring demolition?

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

#34

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...

San Francisco has long struck me as the worst run major city in the US. Not just incompetent but almost malicious.

Lots of right wingers like to make it a right/left thing but no, I just think SF seems to be it’s own special snowflake. There are plenty of cities and towns run by left wing types that are much better run in every way.

The impression I get is of a rent extraction cartel that somehow pretends to be super woke and progressive and plays the local politics like a fiddle. The hordes of homeless are a problem they both caused and benefit from since it offers them an opportunity for theatrical altruism and probably a lot of corruption and graft of funds via dodgy non profits.

On that condo building: so it got built then got rug pulled? Look into who buys this distressed property at auction and then see what happens to it. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if it’s someone with connections.

“Uh oh, someone got something built! We’ll fix that.”

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

#35

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...

They built without permits? And the bank just gets to take it back rather than the govt requiring demolition?

After construction one typically needs to get a certificate of occupancy, a last round of inspections to ensure things were actually built to code before people move in. The article mentions this certificate.

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

#36
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate values aren't included in inflation calculations.

This is wrong. Housing accounts for about a third of CPI. There's some funkiness about how the Owners Equivalent of Rent is calculated but real estate prices definitely show up in inflation. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-does-the-consumer-pri...

Nope. Owner's equivalent rent is not the same as real estate price.

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

#37
post #34

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...

San Francisco has long struck me as the worst run major city in the US. Not just incompetent but almost malicious. Lots of right wingers like to make it a right/left thing but no, I just think SF seems to be it’s own special snowflake. There are plenty of cities and towns run by left wing types that are much better run in every way. The impression I get is of a rent extraction cartel that somehow pretends to be super…

The rental market didn’t cause the homelessness.

Most homeless people weren’t renting in SF before they got homeless. These are the people who just gave up in leave. Has nothing to do with rent prices or housing prices.

Truth is, SF is attractive to homeless people because it has nice weather all year round and the politicians tolerate them.

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

#39
post #34

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...

San Francisco has long struck me as the worst run major city in the US. Not just incompetent but almost malicious. Lots of right wingers like to make it a right/left thing but no, I just think SF seems to be it’s own special snowflake. There are plenty of cities and towns run by left wing types that are much better run in every way. The impression I get is of a rent extraction cartel that somehow pretends to be super…

As far as how the city itself is run and operated, yes.

Separate from that is the experience of living in this city.

My wife and I have walked next to pods of dolphins with our dogs along the Embarcadero, we've listened to countless free concerts under the stars with perfect weather, we've learned what truly good food from around the world is like, we've met so many fascinating people from documentary filmmakers to product designers to dog walkers. It's a magical place not just still today, but especially today.

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

#40
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco has long struck me as the worst run major city in the US. Not just incompetent but almost malicious. Lots of right wingers like to make it a right/left thing but no, I just think SF seems to be it’s own special snowflake. There are plenty of cities and towns run by left wing types that are much better run in every way. The impression I get is of a rent extraction cartel that somehow pretends to be super…

As far as how the city itself is run and operated, yes. Separate from that is the experience of living in this city. My wife and I have walked next to pods of dolphins with our dogs along the Embarcadero, we've listened to countless free concerts under the stars with perfect weather, we've learned what truly good food from around the world is like, we've met so many fascinating people from documentary filmmakers to p…

All this is part of how the city can get away with being so badly run. It can coast on its beautiful location and the network effect of the tech industry.

Detroit in the 80s and 90s is what you get when a city without so much free ballast is badly run. (Though in some respects it doesn’t seem to have been as badly run as SF. At no point did it have anything like the housing affordability nightmare SF has, just bad urban planning and crime.)

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