In the 1700s, Spanish missionaries named the hill overlooking the new village of Yerba Buena “Potrero Nuevo,” in English “new pasture.” At the time, that’s what Potrero Hill was: a pasture, untouched except for the cattle using it as grazing ground. Plenty has changed about Potrero Hill since then. Continue reading
Who is San Francisco?
San Francisco Demographics & Rankings Who is San Francisco? Who We Are, Where We Come From, How We Live, What We Do, How We Rank How many San Franciscans: Trace their ancestry from China, Ireland, Mexico or the Philippines? Are … Continue reading
New Case-Shiller shows another jump in Bay Area home prices
The new Case-Shiller Index report for the 5-county San Francisco metro area , for March, is showing the same acceleration in home prices that buyers and sellers are experiencing in the market. The 2.4% increase from February to March 2014 is the largest since spring 2013, and further significant increases are expected in the Index reports for April and May when they come out in the next two months. Nationally, home prices saw only a .17% increase month over month, and Case-Shiller's 20-City Index showed a .87% increase, so San Francisco and the Bay Area is strongly outperforming the rest of the country in home price appreciation. Continue reading
Bay Area Home Purchase vs. S&P 500
We recently put together an analysis comparing the comparative investment returns of buying a San Francisco Bay Area house, gold, Apple stock, an S&P 500 Index fund or putting money into a bank CD in January 2012 (Of Real Estate, Gold & Apple Stock). Not unreasonably, the issue arose regarding returns over a longer term. Now, whatever time period is used will always be fundamentally arbitrary, and different periods will often generate dramatically different results. Twenty years is a round number, which allows a nice mix of recessions, bubbles, crashes and recoveries to be encompassed within our inquiry. Continue reading
Inner Mission Real Estate
For a district that covers so much ground, the Inner Mission has a dearth of available for-sale real estate. While it’s true that this may in part be due to a region-wide housing inventory shortage, this neighborhood’s situation is nothing new. The situation in the Inner Mission is this: it’s a long-time neighborhood of renters, full of multi-unit housing. The Inner Mission has within its borders a smattering of single-family homes, but it’s not unusual to find only one or two for sale at any time. Continue reading
Inner Mission: More than a cool address
For most of the past 20 years, the Inner Mission has been a flashpoint. Since the first early 1990s dot-com start-up set up shop in the neighborhood, the debate has raged over who “owns” the large swath of central-eastern San Francisco bounded by Market Street (north), Cesar Chavez Street (south), Potrero Avenue (east) and Valencia Street (west). Today, skyrocketing real estate prices and high-visibility corporate shuttle buses have emotions running higher than ever, with local activists calling for a “return” to the Inner Mission of the past. Continue reading
Of San Francisco Real Estate Gold & Apple Stock
May 2014 Report On January 1, 2012, you woke up to find $200,000 on your bedside table, which you decided to invest. Then, on May 2, 2014, you sold your investment. Below are approximate returns depending on where you placed your cash. Continue reading
South Beach: Part 2
South Beach is a district with many distinct personalities — ranging from its Financial District-adjacent hyper-urban vertical self to the quiet dignity of South Park and the shiny waterfront surrounding AT & T Park. It makes perfect sense that a neighborhood of such dimension would have an equally broad housing market, and South Beach does. While it lacks a single-family home option (common for a downtown neighborhood), South Beach checks almost every other housing box. Continue reading