Christopher Neely

Last week, an entity tied to San Francisco-based Stockbridge Capital Group purchased Alta Potrero, a 172-unit luxury multifamily property in San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood, where proximity to employers such as Open AI and Y Combinator has sent housing demand skyrocketing. The Terry Francher-led investment firm's $132 million purchase shakes out to a little over $767,000 per unit.

While it's unlikely that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk will ever again sit among the plebians in a public transit car, the locations of their newest manufacturing plants could lead to quite a few more passengers in the Bay Area. Within a matter of two days, two of the world's wealthiest men decided Oakland would be the backdrop for their companies' next chapters.

Since 2020, Oakland has struggled to regain the optimism of the late 2010s tech boom. Many office tenants pulled up their stakes, all three of the city's major professional sports left, crime rose and street conditions devolved. As the AI party has raged in San Francisco and spread to Silicon Valley, Oakland has looked on, waiting for an invitation.

Offering to pay a little more to secure a new house is nothing new in San Francisco, but the bidding wars playing out for single-family homes across the city's neighborhoods have reached new heights.

VC firm Fifty Years paid $8M for its Corona Heights headquarters after 7 years of leasing, as SF's condo market shows recovery signs.

Outside Bluestone Lane coffee shop, a favorite haunt of downtown San Francisco's brokerati, Ryan Wagner paused to take in the street's mid-morning hum, remembering the more idle days — for both the city and real estate agents like himself — following the pandemic.

Buyers pay 26% over asking as list prices fade — plus a condo mini-surge and Mayor Lurie's investor optimism.

As aspirational as 30-foot ceilings, 5,400 square feet of living space and a front door that opens onto Dolores Park might sound, the agents who listed 653 Dolores Street figured it was too niche to attract the kind of frenzy that has recently defined San Francisco's residential market.

When agent Natalie Kitchen listed her client's four-bedroom Pacific Heights home earlier this month at $3.99 million, she figured the “deliberately low” price would draw several offers and eventually sell for somewhere in the high $4 million range, maybe $5 million. After all, August is a traditionally slow time for homebuyers.

The 16,000-square-foot home at 3277 Pacific Avenue, one of San Francisco's few truly sprawling estates, sold for $55.8 million on Aug. 20, a little more than $3,500 per square foot. The seller was listed only as Jackson Presidio Trust, with trustee Paola Oviedo signing off on the deed. The buyer's identity was similarly hidden behind the Pacific SF Trust. The deed listed Joseph St. Aubin as the lone trustee.