The Rent Hacker — SF North Bay, Jul 6, 2026

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The Rent Hacker

SF North Bay, CA · July 6, 2026

4,325 listings scanned · 556 passed screen · 209 beat the S&P 500

We scan ~4500 listings weekly so you don’t have to.

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

Active listings, North Bay metro

4,325

Passed market-research screen

556

Beat S&P 500 (cautious assumptions)

209

This week's top 5

Assumptions: 3% down, 2-year owner-occupy, then full rental. 10-year hold vs S&P 500 total return.

North Bay is really two markets, and only one of them house-hacks. Of 556 listings I screened across eight ZIPs, 209 cleared the S&P-500 test on paper — but paper doesn't survive Zillow. This week I killed an "auction" whose $225K price was an opening bid, not a sale; a Sonoma Blvd "income" property that turned out to be a vacant, sold-as-is fixer with a commercial storefront; and two of three identical Fairfield fourplexes a single seller listed as one portfolio. What's left is five deals I'd actually underwrite — every one of them in Solano County, because Marin, Sonoma, and Napa are simply too expensive to live in one unit and rent the rest. If you want to house-hack the North Bay, the ferry and the Fairfield transit center are where the math works.

— Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com

★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers

12 Daniels Ave

Downtown Vallejo · 94590

$950,000 · 8 bd / 4 ba · 3,300 sqft · built 1924

Wealth advantage · 10 years

+$281,990

vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 13.0%/yr for 10 years to match

Strategy

Live in one unit, rent the other three

Financing

Owner-occupied at 3% down

Live-in rent

$4,800/mo

Full rental

$6,400/mo

Renter pool

SF-priced-out workforce / Ferry commuters

Catalyst

Vallejo Ferry Terminal (1.06 mi)

Why this is a steal

The board's thinnest margin, shown because it's honest: this 1924 Downtown Vallejo fourplex has sat 137 days at $950,000 — pricing resistance at the ask, not a defect we can see. Live in one unit and the other three throw off $4,800/mo; fully leased runs $6,400/mo once you move out. At 1.06 mi from the Vallejo Ferry Terminal, even the cautious rents still make the S&P chase 13.0% a year for ten years to keep pace — the slimmest cushion on the board, so underwrite the rents yourself.

This board runs from a 14.4% S&P hurdle at the top down to 13.0% at the bottom, and I put the 13.0% on the list on purpose. 12 Daniels Ave has sat 137 days and carries the slimmest cushion of the five — but the fourplex config is Zillow-verified, and even at cautious rents it still forces an index fund to beat 13% a year for a decade. That's what fifth place honestly looks like in a county where the median still prices most owner-occupants out. The other four have more room; this one earns its slot by being real, not by being safe. Every rent here is the cautious floor, not the asking pro forma — verify the unit rents yourself before you write the offer. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs.

Open this in the calculator →

Sliders pre-filled with the conservative case · twist any input to stress-test

Why pick #5 is the free unlock

The free list gives you five addresses and the cautious math. The paid tier unlocks the full workup: the conservative / base / optimistic rent band on every unit, the Zillow-verified unit counts and days-on-market behind each number, one-click calculator imports so you can re-run every assumption yourself, and a downside-to-upside sensitivity table on the week's top three picks showing exactly which rent has to break before each one flips. If you're actually writing an offer in Solano this month, that's the difference between a headline and a decision.

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

1963 fourplex · Downtown Fairfield

🔒 price · address · rent math · S&P delta · breakeven

+$400K – $500K

1900 fourplex · Downtown Vallejo

🔒 price · address · rent math · S&P delta · breakeven

+$300K – $400K

Duplex · Vallejo Ferry corridor

🔒 price · address · rent math · S&P delta · breakeven

+$200K – $300K

1918 duplex · Vallejo Ferry corridor

🔒 price · address · rent math · S&P delta · breakeven

+$200K – $300K

All five picks are small multifamily within about a mile of a Solano County transit hub — the Fairfield Transportation Center or the Vallejo Ferry Terminal — most of them pre-war.

Get this week's full report

209 deals cleared this week. Here’s the shape of the pool you’re getting:

Median price

$520,000

Median S&P breakeven

10.9%

Median margin vs S&P

$79,502

By units

88 × 1 unit (42%) · 112 × 2 units (54%) · 1 × 3 units (1%) · 8 × 4+ units (4%)

5 ranked deals, every number verified.

Get the full report on the 5 strongest of the 209 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.

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This week's 8 ZIPs

94590

Vallejo · SF ferry terminal, walkable fourplex stock, DVSP rezone

94503

American Canyon · Napa Junction workforce pocket, $56M Measure U Hwy 29 relief

94533

Fairfield · $10M Complete Streets, Travis AFB renter floor, FTC transit hub

94585

Suisun City · Amtrak Capitol Corridor, Waterfront District redevelopment

94928