Everyone talks about how expensive housing is in SF, and it is true that buying a an actual house is absurdly expensive, but when looking on main listings websites like Zillow or Trulia I see condos right in the middle of downtown under $500k that are ~800sqft. This seems to be pretty reasonable, and the HOA fees that go along with them aren't so crazy ($6k/yr). Are these units just in bad areas, or am I missing something? To me, I'd rather put down $100K and get a mortgage than pay $36K a year for an apartment for my family.
I know I am missing something, but anybody have insight into this?
500k for 800 sq ft is absurd
Considering Manhattan is closer to $1m for similar that's not bad. If you are making $200K in your 20s $500k is actually doable for residence rather than a $1-$2M house.
Think a little farther down the line. If you’re making 200k now, there’s a solid chance you’ll make more later (with both a better job and good investments over time). I would hope that your WLB is also a little bit better such that you can live somewhere that isn’t the actual city of San Francisco. Yeah, housing is expensive all over the Bay Area but I’d rather pay that amount (or more) for an actual large house in a suburb to raise my kids in.
you mean absurdly cheap? in NY it's more like 800k for 500sqft
"Right in the middle of downtown" SF = Tenderloin and neighboring areas, which you absolutely do NOT want to be living in. I don't care how cheap the apartment is, you couldn't pay me to live around there. Drug markets out in the open, literal human shit on the sidewalk, tents everywhere - it doesn't get much worse than that.
Now, you move just a few miles up to the Marina / North Beach area, or just a few miles south to Rincon Hill and I guarantee you that the same-sized condos are going for upwards of $1-2mil. Lots of tech CEOs actually live around there, mainly near Pacific Heights / Cow Hollow for houses going for $15-20mil.
Is there any suburb that you can buy a house under $1M with less than an hour commute?
In 2015-2016 you could buy a house south of 280 freeway in SF for less than $1MM. Daly City was also affordable as well as South City (South San Francisco).
The answer is yes. In Oakland, Richmond and San Leandro.
Anecdotally I heard from a friend even Hunters Point is getting a lot of renter demand from renters leaving the core (Nob Hill/SOMA) for more space (a backyard or deck, zoom room).
SF has suburb like neighborhoods within the 7 X 7 (seven miles by seven miles). The Avenues (Sunset and Richmond), Twin Peaks, Noe Valley, I think will remain solid during WFH and future. I think the Marina is more correlated with Nob Hill/SOMA (younger) but will fare better.
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