|
Free edition
The Rent Hacker
SF East Bay, CA · July 4, 2026
5,441 listings scanned · 246 passed screen
· 120
beat the S&P 500
We scan ~5500 listings weekly so you don’t have to.
|
|
This week, our screen ran across 4 East Bay
-metro ZIPs. The funnel:
|
Active listings, East Bay metro
|
5,441
|
|
Passed market-research screen
|
246
|
|
Beat S&P 500 (cautious assumptions)
|
120
|
|
This week's top 5
|
5
|
Assumptions: 3% down, 2-year owner-occupy, then full rental. 10-year
hold vs S&P 500 total return.
|
This week the pipeline handed me a triplex with a beautiful
remodeled owner's cottage — and a seller disclosure of
deferred maintenance on the other two units that our draft
hook had actually spun as a positive: prose that the building
“dodges the pre-1940 capex drag.” We reversed it, and that
disclosure now leads pick #5. If a number or a caveat in here
reads inconvenient, that's deliberate — I'd rather lose the
sale than the trust.
— Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com
|
|
|
★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers
1714 Chestnut St
West Oakland — Prescott / Oak Center (Mandela Station
walkshed) · 94607
$899,000 · 6 bd / 4
ba · 3,533 sqft · built 1989
|
|
Wealth advantage · 10 years
+$401,811
vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 14.1%/yr
for 10 years to match
|
|
Strategy
Live in one unit, rent the other two
|
Financing
Owner-occupied at 3% down
|
|
Live-in rent
$5,250/mo
|
Full rental
$7,250/mo
|
|
Renter pool
West Oakland workforce & transit commuters
|
Catalyst
West Oakland BART (0.75 mi)
|
Why this is a steal
A 1989-built triplex at $899,000 in West Oakland's Prescott /
Oak Center, inside the funded Mandela Station TOD walkshed.
The seller discloses deferred maintenance on two of the three
units, so budget rehab on top of the basis. The third unit is a
remodeled cottage delivered vacant for you to live in. The two rented
units cover about $5,250/mo at cautious rents. The S&P needs
14.1% a year for a decade to compete.
1714 Chestnut is the free unlock — the lowest-margin deal we
published, which is exactly why it's the honest one to give away. The
Gate-2 concern is the seller's own disclosure: deferred maintenance
on two of the three units. The risk that breaks the cautious case is
a rehab budget blowout — if those two units need more than our
conservative reserve, you're spending into the margin before the
first rent check clears. Our expected case pencils to +$717K vs. the
S&P; the conservative case, which already assumes soft rents, holds
at +$402K — and a six-figure rehab surprise pushes it below that. The
remodeled owner's cottage is move-in ready, but the building is a
value-add, not turnkey. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology
if you want to challenge any of the inputs.
|
Why pick #5 is the free unlock
Why 1714 is the free unlock: its ZIP, that it's a triplex,
and the price band are all guessable from what's above — and
we led with its ugliest fact, the deferred-maintenance
disclosure, rather than bury it. What the paid edition
carries is the four higher-margin deals ahead of it,
including the $795K Fruitvale fourplex that sat 319 days
unsold — and our read on why that staleness is the
opportunity, not the warning.
|
|
|
Deals #1 – #4 this week · paid only
The top 4 ranked deals are behind the paywall
You unlocked #5 above. Each of the 4
below clears a wider S&P delta than your
free pick — addresses and breakeven math locked.
|
★ #1 · Top deal
Fourplex · Fruitvale BART corridor
🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta ·
breakeven
+$800K – $900K
|
#2
Fourplex · Fruitvale BART corridor
🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta ·
breakeven
+$600K – $800K
|
#3
Fourplex · Richmond BART corridor
🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta ·
breakeven
+$400K – $600K
|
#4
Fourplex · UCSF hospital walkshed
🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta ·
breakeven
+$400K – $600K
|
Six of the ten highest-ranked deals anchor directly on a BART or
BART/Amtrak station — five of them within a 0.8-mile walk.
|
|
Get this week's full report
|
120 deals cleared this week. Here’s the shape
of the pool you’re getting:
|
|
Median price
|
$599,000
|
|
Median S&P breakeven
|
11.7%
|
|
Median margin vs S&P
|
$149,524
|
|
By units
|
93 × 2 units (78%) · 6 × 3 units (5%) · 21 × 4+
units (18%)
|
|
Five ranked deals. The reasoning behind every kill.
Get every Gate 2 kill, every rent-by-unit model, every named
risk that almost broke the deal, and the ranked pool of all
120 listings that cleared the cautious-case
S&P benchmark this week. Refund the first two issues if
they don’t pay back the $29 — reply with the word ‘refund’
and a human reads it the same day.
Subscribe
— $29/mo, first two refundable →
$29/mo · cancel anytime · first issue free if you forward
this
|
|
|
This week's 4 ZIPs
|
94607
|
West Oakland · Mandela Station TOD, 7 min to SF
|
|
94601
|
Oakland · Fruitvale BART + Tempo BRT, sub-$700K fourplexes
|
|
94801
|
Richmond · BART/Amtrak terminus, $130M Metrowalk II
|
|
94609
|
North Oakland · MacArthur BART, $1.6B UCSF hospital rebuild
|
|
|
Every figure uses cautious rent estimates backed by documented comps
and computed distances to named growth catalysts. No invented
numbers. No hype.
Know someone hunting for a East Bay deal?
Forward
this — they get a free first issue.
The Rent Hacker · SF East Bay, CA · July 4,
2026
Manage regions ·
Unsubscribe
|
|
|