The Pac Heights property had apparently been lingering on the market — a relative term when we're talking about ultra-luxury real estate — before the sellers decided to hold firm on their price rather than negotiate down. The bet paid off. Someone with either very deep pockets or a very creative mortgage broker finally blinked.

Let's put $27.5 million in perspective. That's roughly the cost of 55 median-priced San Francisco homes. It's more than the annual budget of several city departments that somehow still can't keep the sidewalks clean. It's the kind of money that could fund a small fleet of Waymos to circle the block in perpetuity.

But here's the thing — and this is where the free-market part of our brains kicks in — there's nothing wrong with this sale. A willing seller found a willing buyer at a price they both agreed on. No subsidies, no tax breaks, no Board of Supervisors approval needed. Just pure, unadulterated market economics doing what market economics does.

What is worth noting is the contrast. While the ultra-luxury tier of SF real estate continues to mint millionaires on paper, the city's regulatory apparatus makes it nearly impossible to build the kind of middle-market housing that normal people actually need. We've got $27.5 million mansions trading hands while teachers and nurses commute from Tracy.

The problem was never that rich people buy expensive homes. The problem is that San Francisco has spent decades making it functionally illegal to build enough homes for everyone else. Until City Hall gets serious about cutting permitting red tape and actually allowing density, the housing market will remain a tale of two cities — one where patience nets you $27.5 million, and another where patience just means waiting three years for a studio apartment in the Sunset.