It takes an annual income of roughly $300,000 to afford a San Francisco home at the median price of $1.3 million. So imagine the income necessary to purchase the five most expensive homes this year, all of which went for way over $20 million.
These buyers often create limited liability corporations to shield their identities, and the homes are typically circulated via a whisper network of top agents.
“They want to try to reduce the amount of gossip and interest in their purchases,” said Nina Hatvany, a Compass agent who has facilitated numerous off-market sales.
That discretion comes at a cost. Buyers must entice sellers who can afford to sit out a slow market and may end up skipping a public listing for an offer that to others would be too good to refuse. Some homes that sold this year had been quietly shopped for months — even years — underscoring the strength of the city’s AI-fueled buying surge.
“I think buyers who buy privately tend to have to overpay,” Hatvany said. “They value that the general public doesn’t get to know where they live — at least initially.”
In addition to being off-market transactions, the most expensive San Francisco sales in 2025 were all in premier northern neighborhoods — two were on the block aptly named “Billionaire’s Row” — and most took place early in the year, before the threat of tariffs put the usually sprightly spring market on hold.
But sales returned for a rip-roaring fall, aided by buyers flush with AI-associated riches. The biggest sale of the year took place in October, when an LLC tied to a daughter of investor Charles Schwab plunked down $42 million for a Pacific Heights estate.
Here are the top home sales of the year, according to public records. Barring a hush-hush late deal, they’re likely to stand.
No. 5: 2006 Washington St., $24 million
The penthouse atop this Beaux Arts beauty was the only non-single-family home to crack the top five — and the only one below $25 million. The three-bedroom, four-bath co-op was listed for $35 million in March 2024, cut by more than $10 million nine months later, and didn’t go into contract for another six months. The 5,700-square-foot unit had been renovated over the years by architect Andrew Skurman and interior designer Suzanne Tucker.
Even without including the remodeling, the seller, Chris Redlich Jr., a retired shipping executive, took a sizable loss on the penthouse he bought for $32 million in 2015. After the sale, Redlich told The Wall Street Journal (opens in new tab) he’d expected the markdown.
“On my balance sheet, I’d already reserved a big discount on that place, and our discount number was relatively close to what it ended up being,” he said.
The buyer was former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, sources told the Journal.
No. 4: 3701 Washington St., $26 million
One of the year’s earliest big-ticket deals, 3701 Washington St. in Presidio Heights, closed off-market Jan. 15. The four-level home has Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay views, plus a separate two-level guest house in the backyard. It was one of three former Decorator Showcase homes to sell this year, having served as the inspiration for interior designers taking part in the annual private school fundraiser in 1988 and again in 2006.
The sellers bought the 8,500-square-foot home for $12.1 million in 2011 and completed a major remodel and expansion in 2022, according to city records. The buyer was the Roxy Bear Trust, which has ties to a mobile gaming executive.
No. 3: 2990 Broadway St., $26.5 million 
The four-bedroom, 10-bathroom estate at 2990 Broadway sits on the edge of the Presidio, adjacent to the Lyon Street steps and its iconic views.
After more than a year on the market, 2990 Broadway found a buyer this spring. The seller was originally asking $38 million, the highest price in the city at that time.
The family of the late philanthropists Fritz and Lucy Jewett, heirs to the Weyerhaeuser lumber fortune, sold the estate atop the Lyon Street Steps. They built it in 1987 on the last available lot on Billionaire’s Row.
The buyer remains hidden behind an LLC tied to a P.O. box in West Hollywood.
No. 2: 260 Seacliff St., $30 million
The home connected to San Francisco’s storied Shorenstein family was the only Seacliff property to crack the top five.
The 8,300-square-foot house sold for 10 times what former Shorenstein Properties CEO Douglas Shorenstein paid for it in 1988. The buyer, according to loan documents, is an entrepreneur in the cryptocurrency and AI-assisted investing space.
No. 1: 2930 Broadway St., $42 million
San Francisco’s biggest home sale of the year — again, off market — closed Oct. 6. While it fell short of Laurene Powell Jobs’ record $71 million purchase last year, it ranks as the city’s third-largest single-family home sale ever.
The buyer initially appeared to be linked to oil and gas executive Joseph O’Neill, whose name appears in LLC paperwork. But research revealed that the purchasing entity, HOS Pacific LLC, also owns 2600 Pacific, the home of Katie Schwab Paige, daughter of Charles Schwab, and her husband, Matt Paige. The Wall Street Journal first reported (opens in new tab) the connection.
Though Schwab’s corporate headquarters moved from San Francisco to Texas in 2019, Paige is involved in the SF-based, female-led collective Short List Capital, which has investments in consumer brands like Goop, Rothy’s, and Smitten Ice Cream, as well as credit card firms Brex and Chime. Her husband has deep local ties: He runs his family’s glass company, which was started after the 1906 earthquake, according to a 2010 story (opens in new tab) on their engagement.
That same year, the couple bought 2600 Pacific, a Gilded Age five-bedroom just a block from Alta Plaza Park, for $15.5 million and almost immediately took out permits for a complete renovation and expansion, according to city records.
The Paiges’ plans for 2930 Broadway are unknown, but there is undoubtedly work to do at the 7,320-square-foot mansion, which hadn’t traded hands in more than five decades and was sold by the trust belonging to its longtime owner, who died in 2024.
Honorable mention: Sam Altman’s Russian Hill compound
Source: Courtesy photo
The Open AI CEO’s Jan. 29 purchase of 855 Chestnut and adjoining lots at 952 and 954 Lombard was recorded in city records as around $14 million. But MLS records show that the deal was in three equal parts totaling $38.5 million. Given the two measurements, we’ll give this one an honorable mention as a top 2025 sale.
The additional lots push the five-bedroom home away from Lombard Street, offering rare privacy near one of San Francisco’s biggest tourist draws. The property hadn’t been sold since 1994 and had been inherited and sold by the the heirs of an owner who died in 2024.
In April, an Altman-linked LLC took out a $9.8 million adjustable-rate loan with J.P. Morgan. The 30-year loan would seem superfluous for a billionaire, but it’s fairly common for the wealthy to finance their homes to easily free up funds if they can get a rate that’s worth their while. In this case, the initial seven-year term came with an interest rate of 5.375%, a hint at the preferential pricing available through lenders’ private banking services.
The millions that the wealthy pull out of their houses go into the stock market, their businesses, or opportunities that most people never get the chance to invest in, according to Compass agent Karen Mendelsohn Gould, who specializes in high-end sales on the north side of town.
“The money’s not doing any good just sitting in that asset,” she said.