Free edition The Rent Hacker SF North Bay, CA · August 3, 2026 4,329 active listings · 734 screened · 97 beat the S&P 500 We screened 734 of the region’s 4,329 active listings this week so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 10 ZIPs in North Bay. The funnel: | Active listings, North Bay metro | 4,329 | | Screened (market research) | 734 | | Cleared S&P 500 on paper | 97 | | This week's top 5 | 5 |
Assumptions: 3.5% down (FHA floor), 2-year owner-occupy, then full rental. 10-year hold vs S&P 500 total return. The first building we ever put at #1 in this region went pending this week. 1712 Fillmore Street, Downtown Fairfield, published July 6 at $921,973, went under contract on July 31 after 25 days on our board. Two of its neighbours are in this issue, and that is new: all three fourplexes on that block belong to one seller, marketed as a single twelve-unit package, and until now we have published one of them at a time. This week the math put two of them in the top five, so both are here. Read them as two doors into one negotiation, not two sellers you can play against each other. One listing died on the way in. A $300,000 Santa Rosa four-bedroom turned out to be a 660 square foot cottage holding one room that might be a bedroom, with the rest described as spaces that may be suitable for bedrooms in a separate structure out back. The county assesses the whole parcel at $51,253. We also found a mapping error that had every Vallejo pick sitting about a third of a mile closer to the ferry terminal than it really is. Those distances are corrected below. — Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com |
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What changed this week Price cuts Our standing Vallejo two-building duplex cut $24,000 to $475,000 this week. The cut moved its S&P breakeven from 12.7% to 14.3% and lifted it from last week's #5 to #2. Debuts 134 new listings hit the ten ZIPs this week, and one landed straight at #1: a 1972 fourplex in Vallejo ferry walkshed at $725,000, four days on market, 0.44 miles from the Vallejo Ferry Terminal. |
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★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers · Week 2 on the board 630 York St Downtown Vallejo (Historic Core) · 94590 $720,000 · 4 bd / 4 ba · 2,276 sqft · built 1900 · 61d on market |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$319,001 vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 13.3%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Live in one unit, rent the other three | Financing Owner-occupied at 3.5% down | Live-in rent $4,100/mo | Full rental $5,250/mo | Renter pool Ferry commuters / SF-priced-out workforce | Catalyst Vallejo Transit Center (0.59 mi) |
The case, and the catch Four verified units in an 1900 Victorian 0.59 miles from the Vallejo Transit Center, asking $720,000. Only the studio is vacant. The other three units come with tenants, so the $4,100/mo our cautious rents show is what this building reaches at turnover and not what it pays you on day one: pull the rent roll first, and note that AB 1482 caps increases at 5% plus CPI with just-cause protections after a year. All four leased runs about $5,250/mo. The studio and 1-bedroom bands behind those figures rest on three comps, and a building this old carries systems risk, so price the roof and the electrical panel before you underwrite the 13.3% breakeven. 630 York Street is this week's free unlock and the most conditional pick on the board. It is an 1900 Victorian quadruplex in Downtown Vallejo at $720,000, four units we verified as one 2-bedroom, two 1-bedrooms and a studio, and the plan is that you take the studio and rent the other three. Here is the part that decides whether it works for you: only the studio is vacant. The other three units have tenants in them, so $4,100/mo is what this building reaches at turnover, not what it pays you on day one. Pull the rent roll before you do anything else. AB 1482 caps increases at 5% plus CPI with just-cause protections after twelve months, and Vallejo's own local rent-control status beyond that is unresolved, with a citywide ordinance moving against a September deadline. The S&P needs 13.3% a year for a decade to match it at our cautious rents, and those rents lean on a three-comp band for the studio and 1-bedrooms. It is also a 126-year-old building, so price the roof and the electrical panel into your offer. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs. Why pick #5 is the free unlock Pick #5 is the free unlock because it carries the most conditions: sitting tenants, a rent figure that only arrives at turnover, and 1900 construction. The four above it are cleaner and still locked. A $725,000 Vallejo fourplex of four identical two-bedroom units, verified unit by unit, clearing the S&P by more than half a million dollars at cautious rents. A two-unit that just cut $24,000, with a ground-floor storefront we deliberately left out of the math. And both Fairfield fourplexes from the twelve-unit block, priced off an apartment band because the city has no fourplex comps to check them against. The paid issue carries all four addresses with the per-unit rent build behind each, and downside-to-best-case sensitivity on the top three. |
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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. |
Vallejo's two ZIPs produced 48 of the 97 that beat the index on paper this week, and the strongest of them sits under half a mile from the ferry terminal. |
Get this week's full report 97 deals cleared on paper this week. Here's the shape of the pool the 5 picks came out of: | | Median price | $490,000 | | Median S&P breakeven | 10.6% | | Median margin vs S&P | $50,544 | | By units | 30 × 1 unit (31%) · 53 × 2 units (55%) · 5 × 3 units (5%) · 9 × 4+ units (9%) |
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5 ranked deals: every correction we made, and every number we couldn't verify. Get the full report on the 5 picks we published out of the 97 that cleared our cautious-case S&P benchmark on paper 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 10 ZIPs | 94590 | Vallejo · Ferry one-seat SF commute, DVSP upzone, cheap 4-unit stock | | 94533 | Fairfield · Travis AFB workforce, $10M Complete Streets under construction | | 95407 | Santa Rosa (Roseland) · jobs importer, Tierra de Rosas redevelopment | | 94589 | Vallejo (north) · SR-37 diverging diamond open July, Kaiser in-ZIP | | 94928 | Rohnert Park · SMART station, funded Station Avenue TOD, SSU demand | | 95404 | Santa Rosa · SMART downtown stop, DSASP + Missing Middle overlay | | 94559 | Napa · 51.9% renters, First Street Phase II, flood-gate diligence | | 94585 | Suisun City · Capitol Corridor rail, Marina Village delivered | | 95492 | Windsor · SMART station, Shiloh Business Park build-out | | 95688 | Vacaville · $38.4M interchange, Genentech/Kaiser anchors |
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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 North Bay deals? Forward this — they can pick their region at therenthacker.com. The Rent Hacker · SF North Bay, CA · August 3, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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