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Watermark at 501 Beale: six closings this year at $1,140 a foot, down 12 percent, with the high sale taking 235 days and the low 219
Every 2026 closing at Watermark, the 2006 tower at Beale and Bryant beside the bridge anchorage, against the record since 2020
Six closings at 501 Beale Street through October 15, against five in the 2025 window; $7.1 million of volume against $6.0 million. Median sale $1,325,000; median $1,140 a square foot against $1,297, last year's full-year figure being the building's high. Median 82 days to contract; none of the six went inside two weeks. Across Beale, a 568-unit tower is proposed on the Port's Seawall Lot 330.
Watermark gave back last year's gain and took its time doing it. Six condominiums closed at 501 Beale Street between January 1 and October 15, 2026, against five in the same window of 2025; $7,110,000 of volume against $6,031,500. The median sale is $1,325,000 and the median price per square foot is $1,140, against $1,297 last year, a 12 percent drop from what was the building's highest annual figure.
Nothing here moved quickly. The median listed sale took 82 days to go into contract, and none of the six went inside two weeks. The high sale, #20A, a 1,469-square-foot two-bedroom, closed at $1,715,000 on February 27 after 235 days. The low, #10E, a 759-square-foot one-bedroom, closed at $590,000 on January 27 after 219 days. Four two-bedrooms sold at a median of $1,437,500 and $1,197 a foot; two one-bedrooms at $635,000 and $836.
The two paired resales both trace to March 2022 and ran in opposite directions. #7H, bought on March 22, 2022 for $1,425,000, sold on July 8 for $1,475,000, up 3.5 percent, after 115 days. #8D, bought on March 31, 2022 for $1,550,000, sold on July 24 for $1,400,000, down 9.7 percent. Same month of purchase, same floor plate give or take, 13 percentage points apart.
The tower is 22 floors and 136 condominiums, 590 to 2,130 square feet, completed in 2006 with a heated outdoor pool, spa, gym and roof deck; 16 of the units are below-market-rate, and when it opened the three-bedrooms were priced from about $1.7 million on the 19th floor to $3.3 million for the penthouse (RubyHome; SocketSite). Dues on a 1,160-square-foot unit run $1,322 a month (listing, #10A). One transfer under $300,000 is left out of every median.
2026 so far, against the same window in 2025
Closings at Watermark between January 1 and October 15, 2026, set against January 1 to October 15, 2025. Days on market is median days from listing to contract on MLS-listed sales; "under 15 days" counts how many of those went into contract inside two weeks.
| Measure | 2025 (same window) | 2026 year to date |
|---|---|---|
| Closings | 5 | 6 |
| Dollar volume | $6,031,500 | $7,110,000 |
| Median sale price | $1,475,000 | $1,325,000 |
| Median $/sq ft | $1,297 | $1,140 |
| Median days on market | 95 | 82 |
| Under 15 days (of MLS sales) | 0 of 3 | 0 of 6 |
Year by year
Every recorded closing at Watermark since February 2020, by calendar year. 2026 runs through October 15, 2026. Days on market is available for MLS-listed sales from 2020 onward.
| Year | Closings | Median price | Median $/sq ft | Median days | High sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 6 | $1,095,000 | $1,199 | 40 | $1,445,000 |
| 2021 | 10 | $1,295,000 | $1,123 | 62 | $3,050,000 |
| 2022 | 6 | $1,462,500 | $1,220 | 42 | $1,800,000 |
| 2023 | 1 | $1,525,000 | $1,211 | 275 | $1,525,000 |
| 2024 | 5 | $1,195,000 | $1,173 | 20 | $1,475,000 |
| 2025 | 6 | $1,490,000 | $1,297 | 95 | $1,850,000 |
| 2026 | 6 | $1,325,000 | $1,140 | 82 | $1,715,000 |
The building's highest median price per square foot in any year with five or more closings was $1,297 in 2025 (6 closings). 2026 year to date stands at $1,140.
By bedroom count, 2025 against 2026
| Beds | 2025 closings | 2025 median | 2025 $/sq ft | 2026 closings | 2026 median | 2026 $/sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not stated | 3 | $776,500 | — | 0 | — | — |
| 1 bed | 0 | — | — | 2 | $635,000 | $836 |
| 2 bed | 3 | $1,505,000 | $1,297 | 4 | $1,437,500 | $1,197 |
Every closing in 2026
All 6 closings through October 15, 2026, highest price first. Square footage and days on market are as recorded on the MLS; county-recorded transfers that never listed show no days.
| Unit | Bd | Sq ft | Sold | $/sq ft | Days | Closed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 501 Beale Street, #20A | 2 | 1,469 | $1,715,000 | $1,167 | 235 | Feb 27 |
| 501 Beale Street, #7H | 2 | 1,178 | $1,475,000 | $1,252 | 115 | Jul 08 |
| 501 Beale St , #8D | 2 | 1,259 | $1,400,000 | $1,112 | 49 | Jul 24 |
| 501 Beale Street, #8B | 2 | 1,019 | $1,250,000 | $1,227 | 26 | Feb 17 |
| 501 Beale Street, #4D | 1 | 759 | $680,000 | $896 | 27 | Apr 06 |
| 501 Beale Street, #10E | 1 | 759 | $590,000 | $777 | 219 | Jan 27 |
Paired resales
Units that closed in 2026 and had a prior recorded sale in the same building. The change is gross, before any improvements, fees or carrying costs.
| Unit | Prior sale | Prior price | 2026 sale | 2026 price | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 501 Beale St , #8D | Mar 2022 | $1,550,000 | Jul 2026 | $1,400,000 | -9.7% |
| 501 Beale Street, #7H | Mar 2022 | $1,425,000 | Jul 2026 | $1,475,000 | +3.5% |
1 of these resold above the prior price, 1 below.
Beale and Bryant, under the bridge
Watermark stands at Beale and Bryant, with the Bay Bridge anchorage to the south and the Embarcadero one block east. The block across Beale is the Port's Seawall Lot 330, where Strada filed a formal application on May 19, 2026 for 555 Beale: 568 apartments, 86 of them affordable, in a 263-foot tower on a ten-story podium, after dropping the office component once planned for Piers 30-32 across the Embarcadero; construction could start as early as January 2028 (SF YIMBY; Port of San Francisco). Two blocks west, a 36-story, 260-unit condominium tower is proposed at 329 Bryant (Mission Local).
Three blocks north up Beale, at Howard, is 300 Howard, the 25-story tower Anthropic leased in full in February 2026 (Business Wire); one block beyond it, Perplexity's 80,561-square-foot sublease at 181 Fremont closed on March 12, 2026 (Traded). The Beale Street bikeway from Market to Folsom stops two blocks short of this building (SFMTA).
The timetable that every South of Market building now sits inside is the public-offering calendar. Anthropic filed a confidential draft registration with the SEC on June 1, 2026, a week after a funding round that set its valuation at $965 billion (TechCrunch). As of this week the Standard reports the Anthropic listing has been pushed to November, after the midterms, that OpenAI's has moved to 2027, and that Anthropic is weighing a lockup longer than the usual six months (SF Standard). The same piece carries a Redfin estimate that current and former OpenAI and Anthropic employees could in theory buy close to a third of the metro area's homes with their proceeds, and the counter-argument from UC Berkeley's Enrico Moretti and the Bay Area Council's Jeff Bellisario that the money is concentrated in fewer hands than past booms and that these firms create fewer jobs per dollar because so much goes to data centers rather than headcount. The record in this report ends on October 15. None of it reflects a single share that has been sold.
Two citywide facts frame every building figure here. First, the office recovery is lopsided: CBRE put Q3 2026 vacancy at 27.7 percent citywide, down 6.6 points in a year, but Avison Young splits that into roughly 12 percent for Class A and north of 31 percent for Class B, and a Presidio Bay executive told Bisnow the headline number is misleading for that reason (Bisnow). Second, the condo market is still digging out: the Chronicle's May analysis found that only eight Bay Area ZIP codes showed inflation-adjusted condo gains over the year, all of them in San Francisco, and that Noe Valley's typical condo remained close to $400,000 below its 2019 level in real terms (SF Chronicle).
How this was counted
Two records feed this review. The MLS layer is one row per listing and carries days on market and square footage. The county layer reaches back further and catches transfers that never listed, but records the same closing once per data source, so the two were merged on unit, date and price and each closing kept once. Below-market-rate units and transfers under $300,000 are listed but excluded from every median. "Same window" means January 1 to October 15 of each year. Nothing here is a valuation of any unit, and nothing here is advice.
Tim McMullen · CA DRE #02016832
[email protected] · (415) 691-9272
- https://therealdeal.com/san-francisco/2026/04/07/anthropic-signs-another-san-francisco-office-lease/
- https://therealdeal.com/san-francisco/2026/03/16/openai-inks-another-mission-bay-lease/
- https://sfstandard.com/2026/04/07/i-leaderboard-san-francisco-office/
- https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/the-city/sfs-high-office-vacancy-rate-drops-again-as-ai-fueled-recovery-shows-legs/article_14d60cc1-a6dc-4228-9a44-b5b8c4d36b8c.html
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/01/anthropic-files-to-go-public/
- https://sfstandard.com/pacific-standard-time/2026/10/14/pst-anthropic-openai-ipos-sf-wealth/
- https://www.bisnow.com/news/san-francisco/office/ai-surge-driving-sf-office-market-leasing-to-strong-totals-in-decades
- https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/bay-area-condo-values-still-120000717.html
- https://www.rubyhome.com/san-francisco-ca/the-watermark/
- https://socketsite.com/archives/2006/09/watermark_update_85_sold.html
- https://www.sereno.com/423917237/501-beale-street-10a-san-francisco-california-94105-sfarmls
- https://sfyimby.com/2026/05/formal-application-for-seawall-lot-330-san-francisco.html
- https://sfport.com/piers-30-32-and-seawall-lot-330
- https://missionlocal.org/2026/01/sf-housing-project-south-beach-bryant-street/
- https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260202207061/en/DivcoWest-and-Blackstone-Real-Estate-Secure-Full-Building-Lease-with-AI-Leader-Anthropic-at-300-Howard-Street
- https://traded.co/deals/california/office/lease/181-fremont-street-3/
- https://www.sfmta.com/projects/active-beale-street
- Watermark · 501 Beale St · South Beach
Tim McMullen, CA DRE #02016832. Real estate services provided by Tim McMullen, Broker, CA DRE #02016832. Figures are from recorded sales; nothing here is an opinion of the value of any home.