San fran penthouse to smash price records
A penthouse in San Francisco is expected to break sales records by millions of dollars when it arrives on the market. The LUMINA penthouse is currently under construction in the South of Market neighbourhood. Spanning a staggering 15,000 square feet, the property is spread across two stories and boasts all the amenities a wealthy buyer could expect: five bedrooms, five bathroosm, an opulent kitchen, 20-foot ceilings and, naturally, 360-degree views of the San Francisco Bay area.
"There’s a family room, a library, a movie studio. All the things you would want to have in a mansion. It’s just that this one is 400 feet in the sky," Gregg Lynn of Sotheby’s International Realty told KPIX 5.
Despite not being finished until 2016 at the earliest, the asking price is already breaking records: the penthouse carries a price tage of $49 million, making it the most expensive property ever to be on sale in the city. The figure is $10 million higher than San Francisco's previous record holder, a prime property in Pacific Heights.
The penthouse sits on top of one of two towers, which were designed by Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica and developed by Tishman Speyer, who have previously worked on the Chrysler Centre amd the Rockefeller Centre.
Lynn says they've already had calls from all over the world from interested buyers. Indeed, the property may be unique, but the pricing is par for the course in America's most expensive city.
The second, less expensive penthouse has an asking price of $29 million. The rest of development, meanwhile, will consist of more than 650 luxury apartments, with prices ranging around $2 million.
The area has seen property prices boom thanks to the demand from tech giants, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, who have already driven up prices in California's Palo Alto.
As of the start of 2015, inventory in San Francisco remains tight with new listings down 20.8 per cent for single family homes and down 35.8 per cent for Condo/TIC/Coop properties, according to the San Francisco Association of Realtors. As a result, January 2015 saw the median sales price climb 5.4 per cent to $975,000 for single family homes, while Condo/TIC/Coop units saw a decrease of 2.4 per cent to $927,000.
Indeed, according to Zumper, the median price of a two-bed apartment in San Francisco climbed 0.9 per cent in February 2015 year-on-year, making it $1,000 more expensive than the equivalent property in New York. Long-term residents, meanwhile, have struggled to afford homes in the increasingly out of reach market. According to the city's Human Services Agency last year, the income inequality in San Francisco is now on a par with developing nations such as Rwanda.
"Low levels of inventory has meant that more than half of all properties are selling for more than the listing price, which is good news for your sellers and those who are thinking about selling," says a spokesperson for the association. "More than 60 per cent of buyers of a single family homes and condos, TICs, and coops paid more than the listing price."
With Silicon Valley's boom continuing, how long will it be until another penthouse in San Francisco breaks the record?