Free edition The Rent Hacker SF East Bay, CA · July 22, 2026 5,611 listings scanned · 247 passed screen · 67 beat the S&P 500 We scan ~5500 listings weekly so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 6 ZIPs in East Bay. The funnel: | Active listings, East Bay metro | 5,611 | | Passed market-research screen | 247 | | Cleared S&P 500 on paper | 67 | | 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. I killed our cheapest-looking pick this week. 682 8th St listed as a sub-$360K triplex penciling at $3,250 a month from two rented units. Then the rest of the file landed: one unit conveys with a protected tenant paying $1,500, and two of the three units aren't conforming. The rent roll contradicts the pro forma, so the pro forma goes, not the rent roll. It's out of the lineup. — Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com |
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What changed this week Exits Last week's #5, 5315 Cole St, went to pending sale this week; it last listed at $617,000. Debuts 32 new listings hit the East Bay this week; 1619 Chanslor Ave debuts on the board at #5. |
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★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers 1619 Chanslor Ave Santa Fe / Coronado · 94801 $850,000 · 7 bd / 4 ba · 2,991 sqft · built 1931 |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$541,367 vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 15.5%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Live in one unit, rent the other three | Financing Owner-occupied at 3% down | Live-in rent $5,400/mo | Full rental $7,200/mo | Renter pool BART/Amtrak commuters / Refinery & healthcare workforce | Catalyst 16G11 Neighborhood Complete Streets (0.10 mi) |
The case, and the catch At $850K in Richmond's Santa Fe / Coronado, this pencils as a bath-consistent four-unit: the bath count supports four, though the 1931 layout is worth verifying for legality on inspection. Modeled that way, three units bring $5,400/mo with you in the fourth, $7,200/mo fully leased. It's 0.1 miles from Richmond's 16G11 Complete Streets upgrade and a short ride to the BART/Amtrak terminus. Cautious rents still clear a 15.5% S&P. The free unlock this week is 1619 Chanslor Ave, a Richmond property a block from the 16G11 Complete Streets upgrade and a short ride to the BART/Amtrak terminus. At cautious rents it clears a 15.5% S&P breakeven, a $541K ten-year edge over renting and investing the difference. The Gate-2 risk is the unit count itself: we model four units because the bath count supports four, but the 1931 layout isn't permit-verified, and if an inspection legalizes only three you lose a full unit of income. Run it as a triplex on the same conservative rents and the edge compresses to about $191K, a 12.2% breakeven, so roughly $350K of the margin rides on that fourth unit being legal. Verify the permits before you underwrite four. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs. Why pick #5 is the free unlock You can already pin this one from the funnel stats: a Richmond fourplex around $850K near the BART/Amtrak terminus. What only the paid issue carries this week is the parcel's assessed-value and tax basis, and the full unit-by-unit configuration of the four Oakland fourplexes we ranked above it. |
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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. |
Four of this week's five picks sit within 0.8 miles of a BART station, and every published pick beats the S&P 500 at cautious rents. |
Get this week's full report 5 deals cleared this week. Here's the shape of the pool you're getting: | | Median price | $599,000 | | Median S&P breakeven | 11.4% | | Median margin vs S&P | $122,639 | | By units | 9 × 1 unit (13%) · 37 × 2 units (55%) · 6 × 3 units (9%) · 15 × 4+ units (22%) |
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5 ranked deals: every correction we made, and every number we couldn't verify. Get the full report on all 5 deals that cleared the cautious-case S&P benchmark this week: address, price, and stats verified against the live listing, the cautious rent math behind every number, downside-to-best-case sensitivity on the top three, and one-click calculator imports to re-run every assumption yourself. 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 |
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This week's 6 ZIPs | 94801 | Richmond · BART/Amtrak terminus, transit-arbitrage basis | | 94609 | Oakland (North Oakland) · MacArthur BART, $1.6B UCSF hospital rebuild | | 94601 | Oakland (Fruitvale) · Fruitvale BART + Tempo BRT, 64% renters | | 94607 | Oakland (West Oakland) · West Oakland BART, Mandela Station TOD | | 94520 | Concord · North Concord BART, metro's lowest basis | | 94577 | San Leandro · Tech campus, downtown BART |
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Every figure uses cautious rent estimates backed by documented comps and computed distances to named growth catalysts. Property taxes are modeled at each ZIP's median effective rate unless a parcel-verified figure is stated; confirm the actual tax basis with the county before you underwrite. No invented numbers. No hype. This is not investment advice. Know someone hunting for East Bay deals? Forward this — they can pick their region at therenthacker.com. The Rent Hacker · SF East Bay, CA · July 22, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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