Multimillion-dollar home sales rock Bay City market

SAN FRANCISCO -- A little more than a year ago, art patron Ji'ing Soong quietly let it be known among a select group of society real estate brokers that she would be willing to sell her Pacific Heights penthouse for $10 million.

The price for the co-op apartment was considered outlandishly high by San Francisco standards and the Soong family eventually took the property off the market.

But no one is laughing these days. In November, real estate agents Malin Giddings and Richard Weil collaborated on a deal that will likely alter what future buyers will pay for exclusive addresses in the city. The two agents sold oil scion Billy Getty's two-bedroom Russian Hill penthouse to radio station entrepreneur Charlton Buckley for $15 million. The price made it the most expensive home ever sold in San Francisco and was double the previous high of $7.5 million fetched in 1997 for a Pacific Heights showcase mansion. In a year that saw singer Linda Ronstadt sell her Pacific Heights mansion for $5 million and Hollywood actress Sharon Stone purchase a $6 million water's-edge manse in Sea Cliff, Getty's deal caused gasps from Beverly Hills to Europe -- and left locals pondering if San Francisco prices could rise even higher in 1999. In 1998, 11 residential properties in the city sold for $5 million or more. But only Getty's reached the lofty eight-figure level -- and that for a 4,000-square-foot apartment on the 24th floor of a contemporary 1960s building. Weil, an agent with Hill & Co., said $15 million price tags for platinum homes could become relatively commonplace. "There are some houses on Outer Broadway and on the Gold Coast where the owners probably have $15 to $20 million in improvements in them," Weil said. "So, I'm sure that if any one of those ever came on the market, it would be up there." Late last year, two separate buyers closed escrow for several residential lots on the largest undeveloped tract of land left in tony Pacific Heights. Real estate sources said the buyers each paid about $8 million for three-lot parcels where they plan to build estate homes. The penthouse deal helped Giddings rack up real estate transactions totaling $72 million last year -- more than any other sales agent in San Francisco. But she said she wasn't convinced that the deal set new "comps" -- a technique appraisers use to establish value -- because the renovated penthouse was unique. The penthouse, in which two apartments were remodeled into a single unit, has dramatic 360 degree views of San Francisco and the Bay. Private elevators go directly into the living quarters. "And the owner had renovated in such exquisite, unusual taste -- down to the last minute detail," said Giddings, a TRI-Coldwell Banker agent. One of Getty's distinct touches was a Biosphere-style terrarium containing more than a dozen rare Brazilian frogs. The half-inch-long frogs, poisonous in their natural habitat, lived harmlessly in a climate-controlled terrarium. "I think the penthouse sale will affect prices in the future," Giddings said. "But I think this high will be hard to surpass." The Getty sale was not the most expensive home sold in the San Francisco Bay area last year, however. That record was set in Silicon Valley. The completely-renovated, Tudor-style home in suburban Woodside included several acres of land, a helicopter pad, home theater, swimming pool and tennis court, and "top-of-the-line everything," said Carole Rodoni, president of Alain Pinel whose brokerage handled the transaction. The asking price was $14 million. "There were three offers on this home -- and it sold for almost $17 million," Rodoni said. That means two other buyers still are looking for homes to purchase in that price range. "For (buyers), it's never about money," she said, "it's about location, security, privacy and something unique. And if they can't have it, they want to be able to take a piece of property and build it."

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