It’s official! Two writers have officially called the end of The Boom. It’s over, you guys. It’s done.
So says Wolf Richter, anyway, the author of the Wolf Street blog featured on Business Insider.
“And what a boom it was. Was – past tense because it’s over. And now jobs and the labor force itself are in decline,” Richter writes.
Strike two: According to SFGate, foreign investors are losing enthusiasm for parking their money in San Francisco. With inventory up and prices down, it looks like things may be slowing a bit.
Yes, we have built a crapton of condos in the city. Yes, the supply seems to have dampened the rabid demand. Buuuuut! Curbed, citing studies by Polaris Pacific and Paragon, indicates that this may not necessarily mean the bust is here. Just because things are less hot doesn’t mean they’ve cooled – and demand for other kinds of homes is still rising.
And despite predictions of the end, I doubt this will make much difference in terms of the everyday lives of renters and people trying to find a place to live in San Francisco right now. This “bust” is not a burst, not yet anyway, even if the luxury market is slowing down, and even if that has that mythical “trickle down” effect, it won’t settle down to those of us in the non luxury housing circles until much later.
Oh, and we’re still building away. Here is just a selection of what’s planned locally in terms of construction:
A 35-unit at 24th and Valencia, which last week faced predictable but dogged opposition from neighborhood activists who worry it will exacerbate the gentrification of Valencia Street.
This building planned for South Van Ness and 26th streets where activists accused the developer of reaching out selectively to wealthy white homeowners and not people of color living in the area of the planned construction.
This proposal for the former site of Hap Jones’ motorcycle repair shop that looks like the designers tried to smush a new 50-unit building into the repair shop’s underpants.
An enormous ship’s prow ready to sail onto Harrison Street with 19 units.
Foraying out of the Mission and into neighboring Potrero HIll for a moment, a reader pointed out to me recently that a second large planned development there is now up for sale. Meaning a developer went to the trouble of planning, proposing, and getting all the permits squared away for an enormous housing project (172 units) and is now looking to get rid of the site and entitlements instead of running the risk of building really expensive apartments that won’t get rented.
Which might not really matter to your average layperson who doesn’t have piles of money lying around to invest into real estate, but could be relevant, as the reader points out, to the housing and even homelessness crisis: A 48Hills investigation indicated that some 32 percent of new market rate units have absentee owners, and though they could possibly be rented out to long term residents, it’s more likely that they sit empty or are used as vacation rentals.
Only two notes this week from the local business world:
Central Kitchen, dismayed by the fact that it is perceived as higher-end, will close for a renovation and reopen in two weeks. It’s not entirely clear from this SFist article how a revamp will make the place less expensive, but that’s the hope.
Also, thrifters, you now have an extra month to visit the Goodwill on Mission Street near 19th, as a new sign in the window indicates they will close in late September rather than August.