San Francisco guide · City & County, 27 ZIPs
House hacking San Francisco: 27 ZIPs, ranked.
We tier-ranked all 27 in-scope San Francisco ZIPs for one specific buyer: a house hacker with a 3–10% down payment who plans to live in the property. The ranking scores engineered growth (adopted upzones, funded transit, capital actually flowing), not vibes. Twelve ZIPs earned a full page; the other 15 didn't, and that's the point.
The three things that decide everything here
Housing stock decides more than capital here. Several ZIPs carry S- or A-strength capital flows and still land at C: the downtown conversion core, Mission Bay, Transbay, and Treasure Island all build high-rise condo, office-conversion, or new-construction BMR product with no fee-simple 2–4-unit or house-hackable single-family stock behind it. Every ZIP that ranks well pairs its catalysts with separable flats, houses over garages, or in-law potential you can actually buy.
The Family Zoning Plan is the biggest per-ZIP tier determinant. Effective Jan 12, 2026, it upzones roughly 96,000 parcels, mostly on the western and northern side. Parcel-level reach was confirmed in only two ZIPs at synthesis (94122's Judah corridor at 40→85 ft and the Outer Richmond); Glen Park's 140 ft BART lots and the Taraval corridor's 85 ft were confirmed at the July 14 re-verification. Everywhere else the corridor heights are still WARN: never underwrite an unconfirmed upzone.
The rent side does unusually heavy lifting, and rent control is real. AI-sector in-migration has rents compounding at ~22% a year, with 1-beds above $4,000 and 2-beds the highest in the nation, against fewer than 1,000 market-rate starts in the trailing 12 months. The same demand that inflates purchase competition services the mortgage. But on older multi-unit stock San Francisco rent control binds: verify vacancy-decontrol status per building (the Mission and the Western Addition carry the deepest exposure) before modeling market rents.
The twelve ZIPs worth your attention
| # | ZIP | Area | Tier | Median | The one-line case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 94124 | Bayview / Hunters Point / Candlestick | S | ~$933K | 10,672 planned units on the lowest price band in the city |
| 2 | 94107 | Potrero Hill / Dogpatch / Pier 70 | S | ~$969K–1.14M | Mission Rock delivering next to separable Victorian flats |
| 3 | 94112 | Excelsior / Outer Mission / Ingleside | A | $1,182,000 | The cleanest transit-oriented affordability play in the city |
| 4 | 94110 | Mission / Bernal Heights | A | $1,225,000 | Two BART stops and the deepest 2–4-unit stock in SF |
| 5 | 94134 | Visitacion Valley / Portola / Sunnydale | A | ~$898K | Lowest basis citywide with a delivering catalyst |
| 6 | 94122 | Inner/Outer Sunset / Golden Gate Heights | A | $1,399,000 | Confirmed 40→85 ft upzoning beside the $4.3B UCSF build |
| 7 | 94121 | Outer Richmond / Sea Cliff | A | $1,697,000 | 562 units filed at the Safeway site, plus a VA anchor |
| 8 | 94117 | Haight-Ashbury / Cole Valley / Ashbury Heights | A | ~$1,465,000 | Walk-to-UCSF Victorians beside an active $4.3B build |
| 9 | 94118 | Inner Richmond / Laurel Heights / Presidio Heights | A | $2,014,000 | 3333 California plus Geary BRT, at a $2M basis |
| 10 | 94115 | Western Addition / Fillmore / Japantown | A | ~$1,384,000 | A $2B redevelopment on the Geary corridor, long-horizon |
| 13 | 94131 | Glen Park / Diamond Heights / Twin Peaks | A | $1,627,000 | A confirmed 140 ft upzone at Glen Park BART |
| 17 | 94116 | Parkside / West Portal fringe | A | $1,610,500 | Delivered Taraval rail plus a confirmed 85 ft corridor upzone |
Tiers: S = multiple converging catalysts with capital already flowing; A = strong catalysts with less capital certainty. Ranks are the original priority order; 94131 and 94116 entered the A tier at the 2026-07-14 re-verification. The remaining 15 ZIPs graded B (7) or C (8): stock mismatches where real capital builds product a house hacker can't buy (FiDi, Transbay, Mission Bay, Treasure Island), preservation- and exclusion-capped cores (Chinatown, the Tenderloin's FZP carve-out, North Beach), premium corridor-only cases, and organic-only growth. 94143 is UC campus land with no fee-simple inventory at all. Rankings re-verified 2026-07-16.
Buy now or wait?
Act now on the outer and value ZIPs; stay price-disciplined in the core. Mid-2026 is the tightest SF for-sale market since 2021: 1.1 months of single-family supply, ~12 days on market, ~25% over asking, fewer than 700 active listings citywide. PMMS sits at 6.43% (Freddie Mac PMMS, a seven-week low; 6.67% a year ago) while rents compound at ~22% a year. And if rates ease another 25–50 bps into year-end as forecast, sidelined AI-cohort buyers push prices another leg higher against a structurally supply-constrained base.
The call is uneven. The buy-now case concentrates in Bayview, Visitacion Valley, the Excelsior, and the Outer Richmond and Sunset: $900K–$1.7M entries that pencil against $4,000+ 1-bed rents, with real negotiating room. In the core and premium ZIPs (the Haight, Inner Richmond, Castro, West Portal) you'd be overpaying at 25%-over-asking sale prices: buy only where the specific building's rent stack covers the payment, and don't chase. Treasure Island and Mission Bay get underwritten unit-by-unit if at all; ground-lease, HOA, and BMR structure dominates that math.
Property taxes
San Francisco is a consolidated city and county, so every in-scope ZIP shares one rate: 1.183% combined effective (SF Treasurer FY2025-26, consolidated city and county); new buyers pay about 1.183% of purchase price in year one, then assessed value rises at the 2%/yr Prop 13 cap until resale.
The first bill a buyer sees is the supplemental one, for the gap between the seller's assessed value and the purchase price. Size it before you close with the San Francisco supplemental tax bill calculator.
The combined rate has held in the 1.17–1.19% band for five years, and no pending measure pushes it above ~1.20%. First-year tax runs about 1.183% of the purchase price (real money at SF prices: model it precisely), then Prop 13 caps assessed-value growth at 2% a year until resale.