This week, our screen ran across 8 ZIPs in East Bay. The funnel:

We rejected 52 of the 75 screened. The kill list — what didn’t clear, and why — lives on this issue’s page.

Assumptions: 3.5% down (FHA floor), 2-year owner-occupy, then full rental. 10-year hold vs S&P 500 total return.

Second week on our board at $999,000, a 1908 quadruplex holding 12 bedrooms across four units, 0.81 mi from the BART-to-Amtrak transfer. Read the rent line before anything else, because it moved this week. The fourth unit is a co-living layout, and we now price it room by room at $950 a room, which lifts the three units you would rent to $10,600/mo while you live in the fourth. The building is 50% occupied, the seller says in-place rents run below market, and no rent roll has been published anywhere in the file, so treat that figure as a market-band estimate and ask for the roll first. We charge the parcel's own verified 2.13% effective tax rate, well above the county floor, and the index still has to return 20.5% a year for ten years to keep pace.

This week's #1 carries our loudest caveat. The building is half empty, the seller says in-place rents run below market, and no rent roll appears anywhere in the file. The cautious $10,600/mo is therefore a band estimate rather than a measurement, and part of it prices a co-living unit room by room at $950 a room. Ask for the roll before you ask for anything else. Note what that means for the crash floor: the deal survives a brutal annual decline in value, but only because the rent line is carrying it, and that rent line is the one number here we have not verified. The index would still need 20.5% a year for a decade to keep pace. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs.

Back on our board for a fifth appearance, and at 372 days on market it has now been listed for over a year. That is the negotiating position you are buying. $795,000 gets a 1923 fourplex, one 2-bed/2-bath unit and three 2-bed/1-baths, sitting 0.10 mi from the La Clínica de La Raza flagship campus. Live in one and the other three pay $6,600/mo at the cautious 2-bedroom band; all four rented runs $8,800/mo once you move out. Tenancy is unstated in the file, so we priced every unit as tenant-occupied, which is the harsher read. The index needs 16.3% a year for a decade to keep up, and the crash floor sits at -7.5%, so Oakland prices could fall 7.5% a year for ten straight years and this still wins.

A debut at $1,300,000, the priciest building on the board, and the one with the most room to move: two of its four units are vacant. Under Richmond's Fair Rent and Just Cause ordinance that's worth real money, because you choose which unit you occupy and you set the rents on the two empty ones yourself. Take the small 2-bedroom and the other three bring $9,100/mo at cautious bands, 0.71 mi from the BART-to-Amtrak transfer. Listed 37 days, HOA verified at zero, and the parcel carries a 1.30% tax rate. The crash floor is -1.2%, so this one wants Richmond prices roughly flat or better to hold its edge.

469 days on market and the ask has been ground down to match. This is the one building on the board where we did not have to guess at the rent: the capture carries a verified in-place gross across all four occupied units, published by the seller rather than estimated by us. Your share while living in one is $3,632/mo, and that is what those tenants pay today. These are pre-1983 Oakland flats, which means the rents transfer with the building and the allowable increase for the program year that started August 1 is 2.3%. Re-let at market after you move out and all four run $7,800/mo, and that gap is the actual thesis. At $599,000 for a fourplex 0.28 mi from the Native American Health Center, the index has to return 14.7% a year to match it.

Second week carrying this 1915 triplex at $675,000, a 1-bed over a 2-bed over a 3-bed, 0.52 mi from Fruitvale BART on the International Blvd corridor that SB 79 upzones. The rent line needs a caveat. The broker states the building is 100% occupied with in-place rents below market, then publishes no rent roll to prove it, so our $5,025/mo for the two units you would rent is a cautious comp estimate and the seller has already told you day-one income sits under it. All three let after you move out runs $6,725/mo. Pre-1983 Oakland stock means you inherit the tenancies and this program year's 2.3% allowable increase along with them. Listed 118 days, and the index needs 14.2% a year to beat it.

Oakland's 94601 and Richmond's 94801 produced 18 of the 23 properties that beat the index this week, and both are priced off a rail platform.

This week's 8 ZIPs

Every figure uses conservative rent estimates. Where we can see the rent a sitting tenant is actually paying, we use that rather than a market rate. 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 · August 26, 2026

Manage regions · Unsubscribe