June Market in Marin: San Francisco Buyers Migrate Across the Bay for Cheaper Waters

City buyers have discovered Marin. Not that this is an average example, but a recent listing in Presidio Heights got bid up from $7.5 mil all the way to $11.3 mil, or nearly 50% of the asking price. The byline of the article is “Housing market shows no signs of sluggishness in one of the city’s priciest neighborhoods”, here at http://sf.curbed.com/2016/5/23/11746490/william-wurster-presidio-heights-over.

                                                  Bayfront Park in Mill Valley, one of many in Marin
Meanwhile, back down here on earth, we see those same buyers coming over the Golden Gate looking for a lot more house and land for a lot less money. My last six listing sales have all had multiple offers, with over half of them being folks from the city, looking for a single family house and an actual yard for themselves or their kids. And they don’t have to pay $11 mil or $2,000 per sq ft, either. For what you pay in SF for a 1 Br condo in a high rise, you get a nice 3 Br home in Mill Valley, or an even nicer 4 Br home a few miles north. Prices in local areas are primarily driven by proximity to San Francisco. If you’re in the bullseye itself, you’re paying top dollar. The farther out you go, the cheaper it gets, simple as that. And the buyers are figuring, why not drive 30 minutes to enjoy the 75% dedicated Open Space of Marin, vs the 1% of the city. But they also get much more.

Public schools in San Francisco (and many U.S. cities) are either closing, or of poor quality. If education is important, you have to go private at an avg cost of $20,000 annually per child. Two kids at twelve years of school is half a million bucks. Plus you get parks, hike / bike trails and actual parking when you go to nearly any store, none of which can be found in an urban setting, to say nothing of near zero crime rates found in outlying areas such as ours.

I’ve talked to these droves of buyers as they come through my open houses, many with kids in tow. To them, Marin prices are a bargain, even if they have to overbid on most listings. Unlike the city, they say, Marin isn’t adding any more housing and they expect it’s much safer here then buying in one of the many high rises popping up in SF. Or as one couple recently told me, “parks and parking” were two of the many contributing factors bringing them across the bridge.

Are Marin prices cheap? Hardly. But by comparison to San Francisco, Manhattan or even Hong Kong, they are. Unlike those areas, we aren’t able to add housing inventory. You can’t build outward as all the available land was built on years ago and we have strict height limitations (usually 35 ft) so you can’t go up. And with an increasing demand (see above) the existing supply just slowly ticks up. So it doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a home near downtown Mill Valley or a studio apartment near downtown Manhattan, if you have a lot of choices to pick from, you’re in the driver’s seat as a buyer, or an open subway seat in NY.

But in Marin, no matter what you’re looking for, your choices are going to be slim, with no change in sight. House, condo, houseboat or ranch, you may have only one or two places to see in your price range. Without some compromise or flexibility, you may be stuck looking, forever. Even rentals are scarce as more and more people swarm into California and discover the quality of life in Marin. Buying or renting, stay creative and you will succeed, I promise.

Thanks for reading this, as always. Enjoy June wherever you are!

TS

Text / call 415.377.5222 or email ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder