Not every single-family home in San Francisco flew off the shelves last year—especially when it came to homes listed for $3M and above.
Sellers withdrew 55 houses in December 2017 with an average list price of $4,227,000. More than half of the withdrawn listings were $2M or more, and they spent an average of 78 days on the market.
For whatever reason, buyers didn’t materialize for these homes. Perhaps it was lack of parking, tenant complications, busy locations or simply not enough love when it came down to writing a multi-million dollar contract commitment.
The most common price range for withdrawn listings was $3M-$4M, and there were many newly renovated homes in this and higher price ranges that failed to snag buyers.
Glen Park wasn’t quite ready to become home to tech’s titans. The Pritikin mansion at 47 Chenery hit the market for $12.5M, was reduced to $11M and then ultimately withdrawn. And 143 Laidley, touted as “the new preferred address of technology executives and game changers” was quietly withdrawn with a list price of $10M.
Then there were the homes listed for well above their neighborhood averages that didn’t convince buyers to pay top dollar. For example, the Excelsior’s three-story remodeled six-bedroom home at 342 Lisbon was listed for $1.5M against the backdrop of an average home sale price of $978,000. Yes, two other homes sold in Excelsior for $1.5M and $1.6M in the last quarter, but those were slick renovations with other unique, appealing features.
And the mother of them all at 320 Sea Cliff (see photo) finally cried “uncle” after 422 days on the market. First listed for $14M, the asking price actually increased to $16M, which didn’t seem to help matters. The sellers pulled the property off the market in December, as well.
I’m already seeing homes pop back on the market that sellers withdrew in late 2017. Maybe 2018 will move these properties into the hands of happy buyers.