Patrick Barber
REAL ESTATE | PATRICK BARBER
WE’RE PLEASED to welcome Patrick Barber, a native of the neighborhood and president of the Pacific Union brokerage, as our new real estate columnist.
So you’ve lived in the neighborhood a long time. Yep, 48 years. I grew up on Clay Street not far from Fillmore. I went to Stuart Hall and St. Ignatius. It was quite a bit different than today. As parents, we’re so hard-wired to be worried about our children. In those days, there was a roll of nickels near where we kept the mail. We’d grab a nickel and walk up to Presidio to catch the 3-Jackson and go to school. It was a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in.
And you knew you wanted to come back after college? I went to UC San Diego, then moved back. I’ve been in real estate for 26 years. I started at TRI and was on the sales side for 9-plus years. Then I started Sotheby’s, their 11th office in the world, because I felt the local real estate companies weren’t offering clients enough marketing and reach. I was there for 12 years before we took Pacific Union back private and teamed up with Christie’s. I’m happy to have a local company with international reach.
What have you observed during three decades in the real estate market in this neighborhood? The old adage “location, location, location” has always held true and still holds true today. Houses in this neighborhood — Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow, the Marina — they’ve all held their values very well. Even in the face of adversity like the earthquake in ’89, most people held on through the rebuilding and reconstruction, and the values came back strong.
According to the recent piece on the eToro opinioni blog, after the economic crash in ’08 there wasn’t a big decline. There certainly was a pullback and a slowdown. But it probably lasted only about 12 months in Pacific Heights. The way you make money in real estate is by holding it, not selling it. And many people in this neighborhood didn’t have to sell. We were fortunate. We also had interest rates trending down during that time.
The demand has been pretty constant. There’s been a lot of construction and reinvestment over the 26 years. People have sometimes invested well beyond what their home in the near term will ever be worth. They’re invested in building a place to live in one of the best neighborhoods in one of the best cities in the best country in the world. People often have built what they wanted, without concern for what price it would bring. It was intrinsic value they were building, not just an investment. We’ve seen that so many times, where people build beyond today’s property values. They’re doing it for themselves, particularly in this neighborhood.
Yet now the neighborhoods south of Market Street are hot property. It’s interesting to see the southern part of the city heat up — it’s 20 minutes closer to Silicon Valley, and 40 minutes closer on the Google bus. But most of the construction in those neighborhoods has been speculative. It hasn’t been reconstruction of major homes that were always there.
What are the recent trends in our neighborhood? You’ve seen a number of things. Of late, you’ve seen the east side of Fillmore become very popular. It used to be with the hospital and schools and apartment buildings on the east side, it wasn’t as popular. The highest prices were typically on the west side of Fillmore in Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights.
You’ve seen some very high prices paid around Fillmore Street because people want to walk out their door and be living in the middle of the city. It’s really changed. We’ve become far more urban. And empty nesters are moving back into the city into condos and high-rises.
And what’s on the horizon? When the dental school building is rebuilt as condos, you’re going to see one of the hottest condo projects to hit this city, because the demand to be in this location, in large condos, is going to be incredible. I think it’s the most exciting condo project in the city. There’s a real need for more housing, and the idea of communal living in these condo buildings is exciting to people.
Now the neighborhood south of California Street has become Lower Pacific Heights. It’s interesting. When the markets are hot, hot, hot, people seem to overlook the busy transit corridors. When the market’s slow, people don’t want to be on transit lines. We’ve seen some very high prices paid on Pine and Bush in particular.
Those values may not hold? I don’t think they will.
So California Street is still the magic line? Sacramento Street. People want to be above Sacramento Street, if they can afford to.
Prices have gone ever upward. Will that continue? Well, here’s the funny thing. I was just at a luncheon with all the top agents in town and this was a big topic of conversation. I’m always cautious — a cautious optimist. I certainly don’t think we can run forever at these amazing rates we’ve been running at. At some point, gosh, don’t the buyers just say, “I’m not gonna buy right now”?
What would cool this market down? An earthquake — a natural disaster — would certainly do that. A crisis for the country could do that. San Francisco values trend right with consumer confidence. They run hand in hand. The trend now for many of these tech and bio-tech companies is to move back to the city to attract the best employees. The trends are definitely in our favor right now. Tech. Empty nesters. People from all over the world wanting to be in San Francisco. I just don’t see anything on the horizon to pull that back. We’ve gotten expensive. People are being priced out, and you hope it slows a little bit for them. But we’re still relatively reasonable compared to New York, London, Hong Kong.
Sometimes it seems as if there’s construction on every block. The investment in homes in San Francisco in general, and certainly in the older homes, has been phenomenal. It’s just wonderful to see. I call it my porta-potty index. When I’m on my runs through the city, I count how many blocks you can go without seeing a porta-potty. In this neighborhood, you can barely go a block or two to without seeing one. That tells you people have confidence in where they’re living and what they’re doing.
How is it to raise your kids in the neighborhood where you grew up? I live six blocks from where I grew up. My children were born at the same hospital on California Street where I was born and go to the same schools. It feels good. It feels like my work is actually paying off.
Filed under: Locals, Real Estate