Jon has reached the stage in life where many of his friends are retiring to Florida or Arizona. But the attorney, who is still working in his mid-60s, isn’t attracted to the three-digit temperatures or “cultural wasteland” those destinations represent.
Instead, Jon was drawn back to San Francisco, where he owned a second home in North Beach for about a decade, until homeowners-association hassles and the pandemic-era malaise pushed him to sell.
“I was concerned about whether it was ever going to be the same again,” he said of the city.
Jon’s primary residence is in suburban Michigan, and when he lived there full time he missed having live music and top-notch restaurants right outside his door. By late 2024, he found his way back to the West Coast, beating out other shoppers to buy a condo, this time in a two-unit building in the Marina.
“It’s a whole lot more fun being there than I think it would have been in Scottsdale or Naples,” he said.
Jon is part of a wave of empty nesters and near-retirees who turned away from the city during the pandemic but are now rushing back in. They’re bored with suburban life, ready to ditch the cost and time involved in maintaining their large family homes, and eager to buy their slice of the city before the AI-related boom puts those dreams out of reach.
The trend is a boon for the city’s hospitality-branded condos, like the Four Seasons Residences and Ritz Carlton Club and Residences, whose downtown locations have made them a hard sell in recent years but whose name-brand cachet resonates with the retiree set.
Compass agent Butch Haze, who has a
$6 million listing at the Four Seasons,expects a “tremendous surge” of 50- and 60-somethings buying into the city over the next 10 years.
“It could become one of the largest parts of the market,” he said.
Haze, 56, is a ways from being an empty nester, with kids ages 11 and 13. But he and his wife are already planning on the same migration to the city that their friends and neighbors in Orinda made once their kids flew the coop.
“There has been a mental shift to want to be in an urban environment,” Haze said. “There was a change for COVID, but it’s changing back.”
Like Haze, some of these buyers spent their youth in San Francisco, moved to the suburbs to raise kids, and want back in. Others are
following their grown childrento the city. Many are motivated to make a move now because they expect prices to rise as
more AI companies go public.
“IPO Lollapalooza is coming,” Haze said. It’s a very Gen X reference befitting a group more likely to rock out than kick back. “Our parents’ generation looked so much older at our ages. The 50-year-old today still runs marathons and is working hard.”
These active not-quite-seniors are driving the wave, and buyers are so worried prices will go up that they’re “fast-forwarding their search,” Compass agent Ruth Krishnan said.
That means checking out properties while their kids are still in high school, in preparation for a move a few years later. Many eventually sell their family homes and go all in on the city but often keep a home base in the ’burbs while finding the right place, biding their time until the perfect option comes along.
Moving slowly isn’t really a strategy that works in San Francisco’s rapid-fire real estate environment, said Krishnan, especially in coveted luxury neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and the Marina.
“This kind of market is not for everyone,” she said. “You can’t take your time, because all the stuff will be gone.”
She recently had a “let’s get real” conversation with a couple from Sonoma who wanted to downsize from their wine country home but needed enough room in the city to keep from getting on each other’s nerves. They have a $4 million budget, which would go far anywhere else but may not stretch to a spacious condo in Pacific Heights.
“‘They were like, ‘I’ve never felt so poor until after my meeting with you,’” Krishnan said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, well, trust me, you’re not alone.’”
Krishnan’s buyers are only interested in living in San Francisco’s tony northern neighborhoods, but other agents report that downtown branded residences are also reaping the benefits of the gray wave.
Those properties had a difficult time during the pandemic as street conditions downtown deteriorated, but their name brands carry weight with a more mature clientele, and the lack of competition means buyers can take their time and even get a deal.
Compass agent Milan Jezdimirovic and his partner Dunja Green are selling a penthouse unit at the Ritz Carlton Club and Residences on the corner of Market and Kearny streets. The seller paid $2.7 million for an unfinished shell from the developer in 2007. The turnkey, two-bedroom, 2.5-bath — nearly 1,900 square feet — is listed for half a million less.
“The area is still in recovery mode, but every year it’s getting better,” Jezdimirovic said. “If we were on the market two years ago, I’m sure the price would be more discounted than now.”
The unit’s two-level floor plan, with bedrooms above and entertaining space below, echoes the suburban homes empty nesters are leaving behind. The $4,000 monthly HOA is double what you’d pay at a comparable luxury building, but for this clientele, the Ritz’s white-glove service is worth it. Staff start residents’ cars every few weeks when they’re out of town, know everyone’s coffee order, and remember their birthdays.
“These are not people that just got money overnight,” Jezdimirovic said. “They want to live in a white-glove service building.”
The Four Seasons Residences on Mission and the St. Regis on Minna are the only other hospitality-branded options in the city. Compass agent Andy Ardila, who along with partner David Costello has represented buyers and sellers at the Four Seasons, says the building launched sales during the pandemic’s darkest chapter for downtown SF and still has roughly half its inventory left — though developer incentives on price and HOA dues have been quietly drying up as sales have accelerated to around one a week.
Ardila and Costello said the complex has been a hit with empty nesters because it offers grand living spaces across the street from cultural attractions like SFMOMA and the Yerba Buena Center. Their three-bedroom listing on the 16th floor, asking $4.2 million, has attracted several such buyers, who like that there’s a spacious primary suite, plus two more bedrooms for when their children want to visit.
Retirees also love the ability to “lock and leave,” Ardila said. “You can go off to Europe or Asia and know that this place is going to be totally taken care of.”
There is some star power in the building as well: Chef Michael Mina is an owner and puts on periodic events for residents, part of a full slate of activities and amenities that help justify the high HOAs.
These events create a sense of community that many soon-to-be seniors crave as they hit a new stage of life. Residents of similar age who are looking to buy into the Ritz or Four Seasons often find they have a lot in common, trading recommendations on everything from vacation destinations to wealth managers.
Haze said he and his wife joke that, as they’ve gotten older, they just want to return to their tried-and-true favorites. At a certain age, you know what you like, and if living in San Francisco as a younger person was part of that, it’s priceless to return and relive those memories.
“We only have so much time together,” he said. “We do not want to mess it up.”
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