California | January 5, 2017

What’s a Better Investment, Facebook or Real Estate?

If a San Francisco median house purchase was made with a 20% down payment rather than all cash, and adjusted for closing costs, total cash return translates to 339% over the period from 2011 to 2016. Paragon Real Estate Group’s latest market report for the City reveals that a down payment of $152,000 in 2011 would have turned into roughly $667,000 in 2016 net sale proceeds.

By comparison, an investment in Facebook would have returned 174%, and Apple 163%. An investment in soybeans would have lost 23% and gold would have lost 18%.

A few other key findings from Paragon include:

An all cash, 2011 purchase would have generated large, additional financial returns in the form of extremely low monthly housing costs.
San Francisco median house prices continued to appreciate in 2016 at 6%, a considerably slower rate than the previous four years.
Condo prices basically plateaued, and dipped in some neighborhoods.
Condo sales accounted for 53% of San Francisco homes sold in 2016.
Supply, and sales, of house listings continued to dwindle, while a surge of new-construction condo projects hitting the market appreciably increased the inventory of condos available to purchase.
2016 saw a reasonable adjustment to a desperately overheated market, but nothing that suggests, so far, an imminent, dramatic downturn.

For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Dennis Kaiser

Connect

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About Dennis Kaiser

Dennis Kaiser is Vice President of Content and Public Relations for Connect Commercial Real Estate. Dennis is a communications leader with more than 30 years of experience including as a journalist and in corporate and agency marketing communications roles. He is responsible for Connect’s client content operations and is involved in a range of initiatives ranging from content strategy, message development, copywriting, media relations, social media and content marketing services. In his most recent corporate communications roles, he led a regional public relations effort across Southern California for CBRE, played a key marketing role on JLL’s national retail team, and was responsible for directing the global public relations effort at ValleyCrest, the nation’s largest commercial landscape services company. In addition to his vast commercial real estate experience, Dennis has worked on communications and launch strategies for a number of residential projects such as Disney’s Celebration in Florida, Ritter Ranch in Palmdale California (7,200 homes, 22,000 acres), WaterColor in Florida and PremierGarage in Phoenix. Dennis’s agency background included firms such as Idea Hall and Macy + Associates. He has earned an outstanding reputation with organization leaders as a trusted advisor, strategic program implementer, consensus builder and exceptional collaborator. Dennis has developed and managed national communications programs for Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, both public and private. He’s successfully worked with journalists across the globe representing clients involved in major-breaking news stories, product launches, media tours, and company news announcements. Dennis has been involved in a host of charitable and community organizations including the American Cancer Society, Easter Seals, BoyScouts, Chrysalis Foundation, Freedom For Life, HOLA, L.A.’s BEST, Reach Out and Read, Super Bowl Host Committee, and Thunderbirds Charities.

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