Stefan Parker, a twenty-four-year-old software developer, moved into his two-bedroom SoMa apartment last June. “I chose SoMa because it was clean, felt somewhat high-class and the weather is much nicer than on the west side of San Francisco,” says Parker. Located in a building boasting amenities like a pool, Jacuzzi, sauna, billiards table, tennis courts, and miniature theater, Parker’s apartment is sweet enough to turn his friends’ heads. “It happens every time friends see my apartment for the first time,” he says. “They ask how much rent I pay and how I found my place. I do see my home as a measure of success, but it’s not the only measure.”
Of course, there is one cure-all for any San Franciscan suffering the pangs of real-estate envy. Whether you live in Presidio Heights or the TenderNob, if you own in the city, you’re still ahead of most Americans. A November 2006 Business 2.0 survey of American cities listed SF as the most bubble-proof market in the country, having posted a 4.2 percent annual appreciation rate over the past fifty-seven years. (The remaining top five markets are, in order, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston and, in fifth place, New York City.)
Kenneth LeBlanc, a realtor for Hill & Company who’s been in the business nearly thirty years, says that even though the market offers plenty of properties for sale, San Francisco prices do seem to be staying strong: One-bedrooms in such popular neighborhoods as Pacific Heights, Russian Hill and SoMa currently average upward of $800,000. With price tags like that, LeBlanc says simply living in the city is quite an achievement.
“We have one of the highest real-estate prices in the country,” says LeBlanc. “Anyone in a position to own real estate in San Francisco has achieved a certain amount of success.”
By Stacy Dale
Related Story: Keeping Up with the Joneses
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