{"id":84563,"date":"2025-07-19T15:17:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T13:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/the-mira-sf-was-just-built-why-is-it-already-on-a-blacklist-the-san-francisco-standard\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T15:17:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T13:17:40","slug":"the-mira-sf-was-just-built-why-is-it-already-on-a-blacklist-the-san-francisco-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/the-mira-sf-was-just-built-why-is-it-already-on-a-blacklist-the-san-francisco-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mira SF was just built. Why is it already on a blacklist? – The San Francisco Standard"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a string of disasters, lenders are tapping the brakes on new mortgages and looking under the hood for everything.
The Mira was the last gasp of San Francisco\u2019s downtown development boom. Completed in 2019, a year after Salesforce Tower, the 39-story residential skyscraper remade the city\u2019s skyline with its twisting, rippled facade. 
Its location right in front of the Embarcadero, near the base of the Bay Bridge, made it an instant hit among buyers. Even after downtown real estate took a nosedive<\/a> in 2022, the Mira managed to sell nearly all 392 units last year. 
On the surface, the development was executed perfectly by New York-based developer Tishman Speyer, which has also partnered with the San Francisco Giants on Mission Rock, the new business and residential community in the shadow of Oracle Park. To round out its offering at the Mira, the developer attracted Sweetgreen, Saint Frank Coffee<\/a>, and Mili Wine Bar<\/a> to lease the ground-floor retail spaces. 
But a condo in the Mira comes with a major asterisk, as anyone who tries to buy or sell there quickly finds out. The property has been blacklisted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, making a conventional mortgage \u2014 expensive to begin with because of high interest rates \u2014 even more difficult, or impossible, to obtain. 
The government-backed mortgage companies maintain the confidential list as a registry of\u00a0properties deemed too risky to guarantee;\u00a0for example, those in the Florida neighborhood where beachfront towers collapsed<\/a> in 2021. The list has grown exponentially in the last four years as a result of disasters, the insurance crisis, and new state laws.
The Standard confirmed through three independent sources that the Mira was flagged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this year for reasons pertaining to unresolved litigation.\u00a0And while it sounds like the building is being sued, confusingly, that\u2019s not actually the case.
Everything you need to know to start your day.
According to Boston law firm Allcock Marcus \u2014 which has access to the list but did not disclose individual addresses \u2014 there are 19 San Francisco condo properties on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac\u2019s list. Four of those, including the Mira, were flagged for pending litigation, while 10 were marked for critical repairs or deferred maintenance. The remainder were marked for various reasons including ownership or resale restrictions and commercial space violations. 
So what gives? Is the Mira sinking into the ground<\/a>, like the nearby Millennium Tower once was? Or are the balconies at risk of falling apart<\/a>? Turns out the issue is neither, according to sales disclosure documents reviewed by The Standard.
Outside of a personal injury suit settled in 2022 by an individual who claimed to have been injured while walking by the Mira construction site, the property has no major structural defects that would make it a hazard to live in. 
What does need fixing is the roof-top window-washing unit, a permanent crane that lowers workers down the facade. An examination by a third-party inspection firm last year found the equipment \u201cnot functional\u201d and leaking fluid. The inspection also noted needed repairs to planters and exposed electrical systems. 
Residents have flagged the building\u2019s water filtration system for releasing \u201cblack particles\u201d and complained about an odor that suggests the presence of mold or Legionella bacteria.  
None of these complaints amounted to a lawsuit, yet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac flagged the building for unresolved litigation.
Experts say what\u2019s transpiring at the Mira is par for the course for a new development that still has active warranty \u2014 comparable to bumper-to-bumper coverage for cars that cover the cost of repair or replacement during a set period of time or mileage. The term for most building warranties is 10 years. Construction at the Mira topped off in 2019. 
By filing repair requests to the builders as one complaint, the Mira\u2019s homeowners association has technically opened a legal action that will, at the very least, require mediation to see if such findings are accurate. The Mira will remain on the mortgage blacklist until each issue the HOA brought up is remedied or dismissed. 
\u201cWe are in active discussions with Mira\u2019s homeowners association and are confident we can achieve a resolution to the issues,\u201d a spokesperson for Tishman Speyer said. \u201cIn the meantime, we have found members of the lending community to be constructive and flexible in providing lending products to potential buyers of the few remaining units at Mira.\u201d 
Indeed, there are workarounds, albeit more expensive ones if a buyer isn\u2019t paying all cash, said Hal Light, a mortgage broker. \u201cRather than a blacklist, think of it as a \u2018guilty until proven innocent\u2019 list,\u201d he said. \u201cThe onus is on [the HOA] to show them that they\u2019ve fixed whatever issue was flagged.\u201d 
On top of making sure a borrower\u2019s finances are adequate to cover a loan, lenders now have to go through an extra layer of property checks for condominium properties after a string of disasters \u2014 including a 2015 balcony collapse in Berkeley that killed six Irish students<\/a> \u2014 raised concerns about how buildings age.
While Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don\u2019t want to guarantee a loan on the Mira, other lenders could look into the cited issues themselves and find that they are willing to tolerate the risks and offer buyers mortgages with higher interest rates and down-payment requirements, Light said.
Since the blacklist is not publicized, a buyer wouldn\u2019t know that a property has been flagged until submitting a request for a mortgage, Light added.
\u201cIt\u2019ll have an effect on the home\u2019s value, for sure,\u201d Light said of the list. \u201cThe pool of buyers is going to shrink because some won\u2019t be able to get loans, or people are going to ask why a listing has been sitting on the market for more than 90 days.\u201d 
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If a party wants to move forward, mortgage brokers will shop the buyer\u2019s profile \u2014 which would include credit history and down-payment amount \u2014 to wholesale lenders to see if any would make a loan on the property. 
Retail banks like Chase or Bank of America may have alternative mortgage products of their own, but they\u2019re unlikely to show borrowers what rates competitors are offering, Light noted. 
As for the Mira, the litigation tag will remain at least until the end of the year, as inspections and investigations are ongoing, and the HOA and Tishman Speyer have two mediation sessions scheduled, in October and December. 
\u201cTry to work with someone you know will do their due diligence on the property,\u201d Light advises prospective homebuyers. \u201cBut most importantly, don\u2019t fall in love too fast.\u201d
Kevin V. Nguyen can be reached at knguyen@sfstandard.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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After a string of disasters, lenders are tapping the brakes on new mortgages and looking under the hood for everything. The Mira was the last gasp of San Francisco\u2019s downtown development boom. Completed in 2019, a year after Salesforce Tower, the 39-story residential skyscraper remade the city\u2019s skyline with its twisting, rippled facade. Its location right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":84564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lajme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/al\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}