Off-market sales close throughout the year in San Francisco. These are properties that agents promote outside of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), and sellers opt to go that route for their own specific reasons. They may not have the budget to paint, stage and do everything it will take to be camera ready—efforts that can easily cost $20,000 or more. They may have small children, pets, or tenants that make showings challenging, or simply want only qualified buyers coming through the house and no Lookie Lous or nosy neighbors.
The actual percentage of homes sold off market is fairly low. Only three percent of all houses and seven percent of all condos sold in 2016 were done off market.
List and sale prices, in general, have a much narrower gap when sold off market. Because the sellers are not casting a wide net in the buyer pool, overbidding isn’t the norm. You also may need to be flexible on your closing and move-in date if sellers are still living in the property.
Here’s a look at how off-market sales have shaped up so far in 2017:
Single-Family Homes
Sold Off Market: 19
Sold Above $2,000,000: 9
Most Expensive: 89 Belgrave in Cole Valley (see photo)—a construction site that sold for $7,500,000 in cash in early February. The original two-story, five-bedroom house last sold in 2008 for $2,850,000.
Least Expensive: Tenant-occupied 506 Banks in Bernal Heights, for $820,000 in cash.
Fun Fact: Most homes sold at or below asking, with the exception of two homes that sold for 28% over asking. One was a three-bedroom house on Irving Street in the Inner Sunset listed for $1,195,000 and sold for $1,538,000. The other was a three-bedroom in Eureka Valley listed for $1,750,000 and sold for $2,250,000.
Condos
Sold Off Market: 27
Sold Above: $1,500,000: 13
Most Expensive: The three-bedroom view unit at the St. Regis that sold for $6,900,000. (This property was on the market in 2015 and withdrawn with a list price of $6,995,000.)
Least Expensive: A two-bedroom unit in the increasingly popular Oceanview Terrace for $650,000.
Fun Fact: The highest overbid was 10% for a two-bedroom condo in a 1960s building in Potrero. Six buyers for these 27 sales paid cash for their purchase.