Two weeks ago I attended the South Beach Mission Bay Neighborhood Association. Alan Mark of The Mark Company was the speaker for the evening, and if you do not know who he is, just think of sales and marketing for The Infinity, The Brannan, The St. Regis, 200 Brannan, The Arterra, The Montgomery, 733 Front, and the soon to be released One Hawthorne.
Alan Mark and his company represented the sales of all of the above buildings in the South Beach and SOMA areas of San Francisco and many more since his company was founded 11 years ago. So I was dying to hear his perspective on the sales activity in the South Beach area that night.
What did he say? He said that within 2 years he sees us with a shortage of inventory in South Beach. Why? New construction loans are extremely tough to get these days. But let’s say an entity was fortunate enough to get a loan. Getting the entitlements to the land is another time-consuming hurdle that could take years. Then there’s the time it takes to build.
What is available today in new construction? As of February 2010:
- Only 14 units are left at The Infinity
- One Hawthorne is going to open soon with just 119 units
- The Montgomery is sold out, and
- The Arterra is also close to being sold out
If an entity gets that new construction loan and the entitlements to build, it could be up to 10 years before the building would be complete and ready for sale.
Realtors get accused of being overly optimistic. So I’m not going to make any recommendations; I’m just reporting this is what Alan Mark sees on the horizon. He’s pretty credible in my book. Like I said, think The Infinity, St. Regis, The Brannan, 200 Brannan, One Hawthorne….
