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San Francisco guide · Tier A · Rank #4 of 27

House hacking in San Francisco (Mission / Bernal Heights).

Mature, capital-backed upzoning, the deepest 2–4-unit stock in the metro, and two in-ZIP BART stations: a durable, transit-first house-hack ZIP that doesn't depend on any single future project.

Status check: Verified 2026-07-14: the Family Zoning Plan explicitly excludes the Eastern Neighborhoods (already upzoned historically), so it changes nothing about this ZIP's existing zoning capacity.

What's actually happening in 94110

  • Adopted 2009; controlling

    Eastern Neighborhoods / Mission Area Plan (adopted Jan 2009): flexible height by street width, with density-limit and parking-minimum removal near the Mission, Valencia, and 24th St transit corridors. The mature, controlling upzoning. SF General Plan Mission Area Plan

  • Approved; construction 2027–2030

    Potrero Yard Modernization: an SFMTA bus-yard rebuild with up to ~100 affordable units at Bryant and Mariposa (straddling 94110/94103); Board approved March 2026, construction 2027–2030, opens 2030. The unit count has already been scoped down once. SFMTA Potrero Yard Modernization Project

  • Operational

    16th St and 24th St Mission BART: two in or adjacent stations at 5–10 minutes to the Financial District, plus the 14/14R Mission, one of the city's highest-frequency bus corridors. SF General Plan Mission Area Plan

The numbers

Median price
$1,225,000 (Redfin, May 2026)
Market rent
~$3,700/mo median (Zumper)
Property tax (San Francisco County)
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
Per-bed rent band
$1,500–2,100/mo per room
ADU rent band
$2,800–3,500/mo (ADU or in-law)
Whole-home rent band
$5,500–7,000/mo whole-home
Underwriting vacancy
3.0% underwriting vacancy (structurally tight)
Appreciation scenarios
3 / 5 / 6 %/yr (conservative / base / upside)

Vacancy is structurally tight at ~3%. Appreciation basis: Durable transit-first base; upside on Potrero Yard plus corridor infill. Rent bands are city-level medians; confirm the specific parcel before trusting any of them. Run your own scenario in the calculator.

The house-hack angle

The metro's richest supply of pre-1940 2–4-unit flats with separable in-law units. Mission and Bernal tenant demand is structurally deep (young professionals, artists, tech), so room-by-room and small-multi both work.

What breaks it

  • Premium land basis for the unit count, against Prop 13-driven low-basis incumbent competition
  • Strong rent-control exposure on older multi-unit stock: verify vacancy-decontrol status per building before modeling market rents
  • Potrero Yard housing units are at risk (already scoped down once)