Buying a Home for under $1 Million

There has been a lot of chatter in the media recently about the median home price in San Francisco hitting $1,000,000. Here’s a look at the neighborhoods where one is most likely to find something under that price. 

If one wishes to buy a house for less than a million dollars, choices are definitely shrinking with the recent, huge surge of appreciation – approximately 50% over the past 2.5 years. Neighborhoods like Bernal Heights, Miraloma Park and the Richmond district are quickly dropping off the list of options. The largest selection of affordable houses is now in the neighborhoods running along the western and southern borders of the city.

Looking for a condo or TIC under $1 million opens up a completely different and much wider array of neighborhood options in San Francisco. Needless to say, what one can buy at a particular price point may vary tremendously between neighborhoods.

Shifts in the San Francisco Luxury Home Market

20 years ago, “San Francisco luxury home” referred to real estate in the northern band of old-prestige neighborhoods running from Sea Cliff/ Lake Street/ Jordan Park through the Pacific Heights/ Marina district, to Russian, Nob & Telegraph Hills (plus a few smaller enclaves like St. Francis Wood and Ashbury Heights). Those neighborhoods are still known for large, beautiful, expensive homes and, indeed, still dominate the ultra high-end. But other districts have developed footprints in the luxury market due to changing tastes and demographics, to the high-tech boom creating new centers of gravity for wealth (and changing commuting patterns), and to the formation of entirely new SF neighborhoods. 

The general Noe, Eureka and Cole Valleys district (much of which was originally blue-collar neighborhoods) is now one of the most sought after areas of the city, and its prices have blown through the roof – more houses over $2 million now sell here than in all the prestige northern neighborhoods combined. In the South Beach, Yerba Buena and Mission Bay area, some of the most expensive condo buildings in the country have risen from formerly B-class commercial-industrial wastelands. And most recently, new $1000+ per square foot condo buildings are beginning to pop up in places like the Mission, Hayes Valley and the Market Street corridor, catering to new, young, high-tech buyers. 

These two charts show the shifts that have occurred just in the past 7 years.

As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions or if you are interested in learning more.

All data from sources deemed reliable, but may contain errors and is subject to revision. Statistics are generalities and how they apply to any specific property is unknown without a tailored comparative market analysis. All numbers should be considered approximate. 

© 2014 Paragon Real Estate Group