South Bay guide · Tier A · Rank #5 of 60
House hacking in San José (East SJ / Little Saigon / King & Story).
Cheap East SJ entry with an under-construction elevated light-rail station at its edge and funded complete-streets on the exact blocks with the most house-hackable stock.
Status check: Verified 2026-07-17: EBRC has surpassed 50% construction, with superstructure and rail plinth work underway; completion end-2027, revenue service early 2028. Consistent with the 2027–28 timeline; no change.
What's actually happening in 95122
- Under construction
EBRC: an elevated Story Road LRT station at the ZIP's northeast edge (Capitol Expwy at Story Rd), a one-seat Orange Line ride to Alum Rock and a BART transfer at Milpitas. VTA Eastridge to BART Regional Connector
- Funded, under construction
The EBRC program overall: ~$600M, ~67% complete as of 6/30/2026, delivery 2027–28, fully funded per VTA (2016 Measure B, Measure A, RM3, state and federal sources). VTA
- Funded
Story Rd and King Rd complete-streets (the Story-Keyes Bikeway, the 2024 Story Rd Corridor Safety project, and King Rd Complete Streets): separated bikeways and bus-only lanes through the ZIP's two commercial spines; funded, moving from design to construction. City of San José DOT
The numbers
- Median price
- ~$933,734 (2026; the second-most-affordable in-scope ZIP)
- Market rent
- 3bd ~$3,700–4,300/mo (metro by-bed read, confirm per parcel)
- Property tax (Santa Clara County)
- 1.70% median effective (per-ZIP read, 2026-07-10; the highest of the paged set, verify the TRA per parcel)
- Per-bed rent band
- $1,050–1,400/mo per bed
- ADU rent band
- studio $1,900–2,200, 1bd $2,100–2,500, 2bd detached $2,500–2,900/mo
- Whole-home rent band
- $3,700–4,300/mo whole-home (3bd; wide range per the market read)
- Underwriting vacancy
- 4% underwriting vacancy
- Appreciation scenarios
- 2.5 / 3.5 / 5.5 %/yr (conservative / base / upside)
Strong price-to-rent for the metro. Appreciation basis: Story Rd LRT and complete-streets carry the base; rail opening, Little Saigon revitalization, and the cheap basis are the upside; EBRC date risk caps the conservative case. Rent bands are city-level medians; confirm the specific parcel before trusting any of them. Run your own scenario in the calculator.
Buildings we underwrote in 95122
1 building in 95122 carry a record. 0 beat renting and index funds; the rest did not. Every row links to its own page, with the numbers it was scored on.
| Property | At our defaults | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1375 Tami Lee Dr 4 units · $1,580,000 | −$766,470 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
The full board shows every region's current week; this table is every record we hold for 95122, newest basis first.
The house-hack angle
Archetypal cheap-land East SJ, where SB-9 and ADU pencil best: an older SFH plus a detached or garage ADU, or a small multifamily, run room-by-room. Little Saigon and Vietnam Town commercial revitalization (the Story Road Night Market has run since 2024) supports desirability. Tenant demand comes from local service and trades workforce households plus Downtown commuters (~3–4 mi northwest).
What breaks it
- No large entitled residential megaproject in-ZIP: supply is incremental via ADU and SB-9
- Older stock carries higher capex (~1.25–1.5% of value a year)
- Downtown jobs are a transit or drive commute rather than a walk, and Regional Medical Center (~2 mi) is contracting