If you've spent any time talking about real estate over the past few years, you've probably heard someone ask the same question: "If we need more housing, why don't we just build more homes?" It sounds like a simple solution. Demand is high, inventory is low, so why not start building? While that seems logical on the surface, the reality is much more complicated. A development that's finally moving forward in San Francisco is a perfect example of why solving the housing shortage takes years, not months.
This September, Five Point is expected to break ground on Candlestick, a 270-acre master-planned community being built on the site of the former Candlestick Park. When completed, the project will include more than 7,200 homes, along with parks, shops, offices, and community spaces. It's exactly the kind of large-scale development many people point to when discussing how to increase housing supply.
What makes this project remarkable isn't just its size, it’s the timeline.
Candlestick Park was demolished in 2015, leaving behind hundreds of acres of vacant land. Nearly ten years have passed before construction is finally scheduled to begin. Even then, the first phase will take approximately two years, and the full community is expected to require another seven years before it's complete. By the time the last homes are finished, nearly two decades will have passed from demolition to completion.
That raises an important question. Why does it take so long?
The answer is that building a community isn't the same as building a house. Before a single family can move in, developers must secure approvals, complete environmental studies, redesign projects as markets change, install roads, utilities, drainage systems, sidewalks, parks, and countless other pieces of infrastructure. In the case of Candlestick, the original vision centered around retail and commercial development. As market conditions shifted and consumer habits changed, those plans had to be reimagined before construction could even begin.
There's also the financial side that most people never see.
Five Point expects to invest more than $130 million into infrastructure during the first phase alone before seeing meaningful returns. That's a tremendous amount of capital committed long before the first home is sold. Large master-planned communities require developers to believe not only in today's market, but in where the market will be many years into the future. Rising construction costs, changing interest rates, and shifts in buyer demand all add additional layers of complexity along the way.
This is why increasing housing supply isn't something that happens overnight. Even when everyone agrees more homes are needed, bringing thousands of new homes to market requires patience, planning, financing, and an enormous amount of coordination.
The encouraging part is that projects like Candlestick are finally moving forward. Every new neighborhood under construction today becomes part of tomorrow's housing inventory. While one development won't solve the housing shortage by itself, each one helps move the market in the right direction. Sometimes the biggest progress isn't measured by what's finished today, but by what's finally breaking ground after years of preparation.
The Pacific Direct Mortgage Bottom Line
Every major development begins long before construction equipment arrives on site. It starts with people willing to invest in an idea and the financing needed to turn that idea into reality.
Pacific Direct Mortgage has helped make some of these opportunities possible. Whether it's financing land purchases, providing capital for new construction by pulling cash out of existing real estate, assisting investors with fixer-upper type financing, or helping borrowers whose situations don't fit conventional lending guidelines, our creative private money financing can often be the piece that allows a project to move from planning to progress.
Communities aren't built overnight, and neither are successful real estate investments. Our goal is to help borrowers, builders, investors, real estate agents, and mortgage brokers find financing solutions that keep those opportunities moving forward, one project at a time.
Husband & Wife Team Phone: 707‑708‑0797 / Office: 1400 N. Dutton Ave #22 Santa Rosa, CA 95401 Ken: CA DRE Broker #01858042 / NMLS #1221130 Ari: CA DRE #01858152 / NMLS #2170867 Ken & Ari are a husband & wife team with combined 3+ decades in real estate and private money industries. They own Pacific Direct Mortgage & Real Estate, specializing in Private Money loans (also known as Hard Money home loans). Having helped thousands of Borrowers & working directly with Brokers, Agents and Lenders to help when needed with fast, flexible, alternative financing for real estate purchases and refinances throughout California. No issues with DTI ratios, credit issues, property condition, difficult to prove income ‑ we want to help
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