Sumeetha Jacob had been living in Fremont for 20 years when the pandemic hit and she decided she wanted a change. While droves of people were leaving San Francisco, she thought it was the perfect time to buy a place in the city. She searched for about a year, mostly looking at downtown condo buildings, but never found anything that felt right. Then she learned about The Bristol.
The new housing development on Yerba Buena Island wasn’t yet completed, but even before she embarked on her hard-hat tour, she was hooked. “I parked my car and stepped out and was immediately blown away by the breathtaking views around,” she said. “The water views, the Golden Gate, Alcatraz, the ships and sailboats. I thought, what? There’s a place where you can see all of it?”
The views are just one reason the property is currently outselling other luxury buildings in San Francisco. The Bristol outpaced similarly amenity-heavy buildings in unit sales, especially ones located downtown, by more than two times in the past 16 months. But it’s not just stunning vistas that are luring buyers across the Bay — the building is winning over buyers thanks to reduced interest rates, a separation from downtown and the island’s neighborly feel.
The Bristol is just the beginning of the massive, 8,000-unit Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island Development Project, with Yerba Buena Island’s housing units the first completed. The tiny island attached to the manmade Treasure Island and accessible by the Bay Bridge will have more than 250 homes spanning a condo building, single-story residences and townhomes, with access to a private clubhouse, a pool, 72 acres of parks and 5 miles of walking trails.
Condos at The Bristol range from $599,000 for a 612-square-foot studio to nearly $3 million for an approximately 2,200-square-foot three-bedroom. The development began selling units in March 2021 and has sold a total of 46 residences out of 124 — just 37% of what’s available.
But that’s considered a success amid a tough Bay Area housing market, especially for amenity-laden luxury buildings. Condo sales in September 2023 in San Francisco were down 19% year over year when compared with 2022, according to data from the California Association of Realtors. In February 2023, the SF condo market hit the lowest point it had seen since the 2009 recession, a Compass report shows
Read the full article in the SF Gate.