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Luxury home sales in San Francisco have always been clustered in the traditional, northern, prestige neighborhoods running from Sea Cliff to Pacific Heights to Telegraph Hill, as well as in the St. Francis Wood enclave. In the past 12 years, these have been joined in a big way by the Noe Valley-Castro-Haight Ashbury district; by luxury condos in South Beach-SOMA; and to a lesser degree, by Potrero Hill’s north slope. Beside life-style issues, buyers in these “newer” luxury-home neighborhoods often value easy highway access south to Silicon Valley.

Besides location, size and quality of construction, spectacular views often play a big role in this market segment.