New Construction Is Transforming San Francisco

June 2014 report by Paragon Real Estate Group
The construction boom that ended in 2008 changed the city and its housing market. Condos now outsell houses in San Francisco. The South Beach-Yerba Buena zip code, previously a commercial area filled with parking lots, now has SF’s highest median household income. Mission Bay was born. And our skyline has been altered with dramatic, new high-rises like the Infinity Towers and Millennium.
That boom died with the 2008 market crash. But now with the city’s economy, employment, population, rents and home prices all surging to new heights, new home construction is booming again.
Will increasing numbers of newly built condos and apartments cool our overheated real estate market? One would think it would have to – eventually. But the large projects announced weekly can take years to turn into actual housing units. What if local high-tech industry, jobs and housing demand continue to grow alongside increasing supply? And our financial and real estate markets are influenced by so many complex, fluctuating economic, political and even natural-event factors, that it is very difficult to make meaningful predictions (despite how much “experts” love to make them).
One thing we can predict: San Francisco will continue to change in unexpected ways, and it will remain an extraordinary place to call home.

San Francisco’s Most Expensive Condo Buildings

Perhaps the biggest common denominators of these properties are dramatic architecture, full service amenities (doormen and such), and the prevalence of spectacular views from many of the units. Eight of these properties didn’t even exist before 2000 and now they dominate the list of most expensive condo buildings in the city. Of course, excluding smaller buildings with only a sale or two per year rules out the vast majority of condo buildings in older neighborhoods, but it’s still astounding to see the impact of the previous construction boom on this market segment.
Luxury Condo, Co-op & TIC Sales by Neighborhood

Condo Values by Era of Construction

Condo Sales Volume by Neighborhood

A residential district that didn’t even exist 20 years ago now dominates condo sales in San Francisco (and there are big, new projects still under development there). To a large degree due to the availability of large, developable (previously commercial) lots and higher-density zoning, new housing construction is now concentrated in areas such as the Market Street and Van Ness corridors, SoMa, the Mission, Hayes Valley, Dogpatch and Hunter’s Point – and often in previously neglected or distressed corners of such areas.
San Francisco Demographics
Income, Age, Homeownership & Foreign-Born Population by Zip Code

San Francisco Median Home Price Trends
