North Bay guide · Tier S · Rank #2 of 30
House hacking in Santa Rosa (Downtown / Railroad Square).
Sonoma County's premier rail-transit ZIP: an adopted downtown upzone wrapped around an in-ZIP SMART station, at a price well under anything comparable in Marin.
What's actually happening in 95404
- Adopted upzoning
Downtown Station Area Specific Plan (adopted Oct 2020, EIR certified): raised the 10-story height cap, cut parking minimums, added FAR bonuses. Railroad Square is a named core subarea. City of Santa Rosa DSASP
- Operational
SMART Downtown/Railroad Square station in-ZIP (7 Fourth St), with Transit Mall connections a quarter-mile east across a Hwy-101 pedestrian gap. SMART
- Mixed: delivered through proposed
Delivering pipeline: Stewart Cannery (128 affordable units, opened May 2025), 425 Humboldt (8-story, 95 units, proposed), Cornerstone Downtown, and ~300 apartments with a developer selected. City of Santa Rosa development pages
- Existing anchors
Jobs base in or near the ZIP: Kaiser Santa Rosa (~2,555), Sutter Santa Rosa (~1,797), Providence Memorial, SRJC. Citywide target of 4,685 units by 2031. City of Santa Rosa
The numbers
- Median price
- ~$750K (Redfin, Mar 2026)
- Market rent
- 2bd ~$2,285/mo, all-bed ~$2,625/mo (Zumper, Jun 2026)
- Property tax (Sonoma County)
- 1.17% median effective (new-buyer ~1.15–1.30%)
- Per-bed rent band
- $1,000–1,300/mo per bed
- ADU rent band
- $1,900–2,300/mo
- Whole-home rent band
- $3,000–3,600/mo whole-home
- Underwriting vacancy
- 4% underwriting vacancy
- Appreciation scenarios
- 2.0 / 3.5 / 5.0 %/yr (conservative / base / upside)
Valley floor with a lower fire load than Fountaingrove or Rincon Valley. Appreciation basis: Adopted DSASP, a pipeline actually delivering, and hospital anchors in or near the ZIP. 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 95404
10 buildings in 95404 carry a record. 1 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 625 Humboldt St 4 units · $995,000 | +$57,058 House-Hack | Underwritten — beats renting and index funds, below the publish cut |
| 909-917 Hendley St 2 units · $795,000 | −$230,161 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 966 Easy St 2 units · $630,990 | −$230,627 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 900 Cherry St 3 units · $995,000 | −$423,045 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 528-530 Nason St 2 units · $775,000 | −$438,984 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 1001 Temple Ave 2 units · $789,000 | −$459,240 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 611 Hendley St 2 units · $799,000 | −$473,709 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 870 3rd St 2 units · $850,000 | −$551,940 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 824 Humboldt St 2 units · $1,175,000 | −$1,017,717 S&P 500 | Underwritten — the index wins at our defaults |
| 1524 Fair Oaks Ct 2 units · $1,325,000 | −$1,234,741 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 95404, newest basis first.
The house-hack angle
Walkable room-by-room or small multifamily near the station, working the older downtown and Railroad Square stock. The Historic District adds design review on some parcels.
What breaks it
- Hwy-101 pedestrian severance between the station and the Transit Mall
- Historic-district design review friction on Railroad Square parcels
- Confirm the parcel sits on city flats (insurable), not the Fountaingrove seam