We sold our condo in San Francisco this week. It’s a huge emotional burden that was lifted and I couldn’t be happier to be out from under it.
We bought it when we though we would likely be working in SF for 5+ more years, would have kids in the city, etc. Alas, our preferences and life situation changed. Unfortunately, the change happened just a few months before the pandemic hit – and our plans to sell our place were put on ice. We stayed in the unit until the summer and had to move elsewhere, thus kicking off a process to rent the unit.
After renting it out for a year, which surprisingly worked out well despite the terrible leasing environment in summer 2020, the market improved such that we decided to put it on the market. Mind you, the condo market is / was nothing like the market for single family homes (to the moon!). We were resigned to taking a loss on it if necessary for multiple reasons.
We clearly don’t feel good about the deteriorating social / safety situation in the city. We didn’t feel good about rates staying as low as they have been forever. And the price per square foot of our unit was so incredibly high, we knew we wouldn’t forgive ourselves if that piece of the market deflated on the back of remote work + dispersion of talent from SF to other parts of the US / world.
At the end of the day, we got a price much higher than we expected upon making the decision to sell and asking our great tenants to vacate, so sometimes it all works out. Thanks world – we owe you one.
