Kamala Harris Draws Attention for Sale of $800K Condo at ‘Huge’ Profit — That’s Actually Well Below Median

Tommy ChristopherFeb 23rd, 2021, 11:19 am
 

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Multiple media outlets are reporting that Vice President Kamala Harris has reached a deal to sell her San Francisco condominium for a “huge profit,” despite the fact that her return on investment is actually relatively low for the area.

The sale of the vice president’s San Francisco home has been reported on for the past few days with varying degrees of hype. The Wall Street Journal‘s headline was the relatively anodyne “Kamala Harris Is Selling Her San Francisco Apartment.”

Another, from MarketWatch, noted that the property was “just sold for a profit.”

Forbes kicked it up another notch by declaring “Kamala Harris Is Selling Her Condo In San Francisco For A Huge Profit,” complete with “Ka-CHING!” photo.

The New York Post followed suit by inviting readers “Inside Kamala Harris’ San Francisco home she just sold at a huge profit.”

Potential implications and inferences aside, only one of these headlines is actually correct. VP Harris is, indeed, selling her condo for an asking price of $799,000.00, and as WSJ notes, after about a week on the market, a real estate agent “confirmed that the property was in contract but didn’t comment further.”

So the condo technically hasn’t been sold yet, and no profit has actually been made. And as for the “huge” profit, here’s how Forbes described it in their article:

Vice President Kamala Harris has signed a deal to sell her loft-style San Francisco condo for $799,000, about 63% more than what she paid for it, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Harris bought the two-level condo for $489,000 in 2004, when she became California’s first female district attorney in San Francisco’s history and the first Black woman and South Asian American woman in the state to hold the office.

Of course, over 17 years, that works out to an annual return of just over 4 percent, or as Forbes has noted elsewhere, less than half of the average return from the stock market. Better than savings bonds, though.

But relative to the San Francisco real estate market, the veep will reap a fairly low profit, well below the median for the city, according to Compass.

Not that there’s anything wrong with making a huge profit.

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