San Francisco’s housing market has lost its mind
San Francisco’s housing market has lost its mind
旧金山的房地产市场已经彻底疯狂了
San Francisco real estate has never been very accessible. But the record sales happening right now in the city’s high-end market are testing the upper limits of what even this famously unaffordable city thought was possible. Consider a six-bedroom, 5,700-square-foot home in Cow Hollow, one of San Francisco’s most coveted neighborhoods. It was listed two weeks ago at $7.95 million, so, not cheap. It just sold for $15 million. The sellers, who bought the property for $7.8 million in the summer of 2020 as the pandemic was pushing residents out of cities, nearly doubled their money in under six years.
旧金山的房地产一直以来都让人难以企及。但目前该市高端市场创纪录的销售额，正在挑战这座以“买不起”著称的城市所能承受的上限。以 Cow Hollow（旧金山最令人向往的社区之一）的一栋六居室、5700 平方英尺的住宅为例。两周前，它的挂牌价为 795 万美元，这已经不算便宜了。但它最终以 1500 万美元的价格成交。卖家在 2020 年夏天（当时疫情正将居民赶出城市）以 780 万美元买下了这处房产，在不到六年的时间里，他们的资产几乎翻了一番。
San Francisco real estate agent Rohin Dhar flagged the sale on X, where it drew the kind of reactions you’d expect from people who thought they’d seen everything this market had to offer. Then there’s a 4,100-square-foot home in Presidio Heights, one of the city’s most exclusive enclaves, that was listed in late April for $4.4 million and sold a week later for $8.2 million, nearly double the asking price. Venture capitalist Nichole Wischoff, who toured the property before it sold, wasn’t impressed with what the money was buying. “Mediocre house, good location,” she wrote on X, noting that the view from the patio was of a neighboring home that appeared to have burned down. “Someone just bought this for $8.2M,” she wrote. “If you like to see cash lit on fire, come tour real estate in SF.”
旧金山房地产经纪人 Rohin Dhar 在 X 上发布了这笔交易，引发了人们的强烈反应——对于那些自认为见惯了市场风浪的人来说，这种反应在预料之中。此外，在旧金山最高档的社区之一 Presidio Heights，一栋 4100 平方英尺的住宅于 4 月下旬挂牌，标价 440 万美元，一周后便以 820 万美元成交，几乎是要价的两倍。风险投资人 Nichole Wischoff 在房产售出前曾参观过，她对这笔钱买到的东西并不买账。她在 X 上写道：“房子平庸，地段不错。”她还指出，从露台上看过去，邻居的房子似乎被烧毁了。“有人刚花了 820 万美元买下它，”她写道，“如果你喜欢看现金被付之一炬，那就来旧金山看看房产吧。”
It isn’t only the ultra-high end that’s seeing action. A 2,300-square-foot home in Bernal Heights sold this week for $4 million — a million dollars over asking — just two years after the same owners tried and failed to sell it for $2.95 million. That sale represents a different but equally telling story: The frenzy isn’t limited to the rarefied tier of eight-figure homes. Across a wide swath of the market, buyers are bidding aggressively, with homes routinely selling for $1 million over asking.
不仅仅是超高端市场如此。本周，Bernal Heights 一栋 2300 平方英尺的住宅以 400 万美元成交，比要价高出 100 万美元。而就在两年前，同一位业主曾试图以 295 万美元的价格出售该房产，但未能成功。这笔交易揭示了另一个同样发人深省的事实：这种疯狂并不仅限于千万美元级别的豪宅。在更广泛的市场领域，买家们正在积极竞价，房屋以高出要价 100 万美元成交的情况已成常态。
The numbers back up the anecdotes. New data from Redfin shows luxury home sales in San Francisco jumped 22% year-over-year in March, with homes going under contract in a median of just 12 days — down from 28 days a year earlier. Nearly two-thirds of luxury properties went under contract within two weeks. By contrast, non-luxury sales rose less than 4%, with prices essentially flat. The high end is essentially operating in a totally different universe.
数据印证了这些轶事。Redfin 的最新数据显示，3 月份旧金山豪宅销售额同比增长了 22%，房屋成交周期中位数仅为 12 天，而一年前为 28 天。近三分之二的豪宅在两周内就签订了合同。相比之下，非豪宅市场的销售额增长不到 4%，价格基本持平。高端市场本质上是在一个完全不同的维度运行。
The invisible force behind all of this is no mystery to anyone paying attention to the city’s tech economy. San Francisco is home to some of the most valuable private companies in the world, and their employees have been quietly accumulating — and, increasingly, cashing out — fortunes. OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the most valuable AI companies ever created, have allowed employees to sell portions of their shares in secondary market transactions in recent years, putting big bucks into the hands of people who, in many cases, already live here and want to upgrade. That liquidity is flowing directly into the housing market, and the market is responding accordingly.
对于关注这座城市科技经济的人来说，这一切背后的无形力量并不神秘。旧金山拥有世界上一些最有价值的私营公司，它们的员工一直在悄悄积累财富，并且越来越多地通过套现获得巨额资金。OpenAI 和 Anthropic 是有史以来最有价值的两家人工智能公司，近年来它们允许员工在二级市场交易中出售部分股份，这让许多已经居住在这里并希望改善住房条件的员工手中掌握了大量现金。这种流动性正直接流入房地产市场，而市场也随之做出了相应的反应。
The truly astonishing part may still be ahead. SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and a cluster of other tech giants have yet to go public. When they do — and the conventional wisdom holds that some of them will sooner than later — the wealth unlocked could make the current moment look quaint in comparison. Thousands of employees holding equity in companies valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars will become even more liquid almost overnight. What that means for a housing market already producing $15 million sales within just a week of being listed is, candidly, difficult to fathom at this moment. San Francisco has spent decades as the punchline of conversations about housing affordability. It’ll be strange, to say the least, if $15 million soon looks like an opening bid.
真正令人震惊的部分可能还在后面。SpaceX、OpenAI、Anthropic 以及其他一批科技巨头尚未上市。当它们上市时——普遍观点认为其中一些公司很快就会上市——所释放的财富可能会让现在的市场显得“小巫见大巫”。数以千计持有这些估值数千亿美元公司股权的员工，几乎在一夜之间将获得更强的流动性。对于一个已经出现挂牌一周内即以 1500 万美元成交的房地产市场来说，这意味着什么，坦率地说，目前很难想象。几十年来，旧金山一直是关于住房负担能力话题中的“笑柄”。如果 1500 万美元很快看起来只是一个起拍价，那至少可以说，这太不可思议了。