San Francisco’s most and least expensive homes this week

The Mission sees the light, while the Richmond attempts too great a bargain

By Adam Brinklow Feb 10, 2017, 3:00pm PST

Friday is time for the High & the Low, a Curbed column chronicling the most and least expensive homes sold in San Francisco in the last seven days. What surprises did the week hold?

The Light House, a collection of designer town homes built in the remains of a former church (with its distinctive domed edifice) next to Dolores Park, opened the doors to buyers in early 2016 and almost immediately secured leases for its front units.

But a sale for the rear unit at 93 Cumberland proved a bit more elusive. This final four-bed, three-and-a-half-bath home, still clad in antique brick and supported by Carnegie steel below ground, includes a gorgeous baroque screen overlooking the main room, once part of the loft space that held the church organ.

For a while this place rented for the incredible price of $28,000/month. It finally listed for sale in October for $6.14 million and wrangled a buy this week for just a smidgen less at $6.1 million.

The lowest priced sale of the week (at least among publicly listed offers) came by way of a small studio in the Outer Richmond on Balboa Street. The ad for 2850 Balboa asked, “Where else can you find a condo in SF for $350,000 and it’s not BMR?”

Turns out the answer is that you can’t find a condo for $350K anywhere at all, because the eventual selling price turned out to be $445,000. Indeed, someone tried to offer San Francisco buyers a home for a price so low it’s surreal by 2017 standards, but the market just couldn’t allow it.

Nevertheless, the little condo (just over 400 square feet) in the 1939 building with the Art Deco touches set a record on the low end of the scale this week—and in fact, only one market-rate unit (a tenant-in-common condo in SoMa) sold for less than this in the last 12 months.