Free edition The Rent Hacker SF North Bay, CA · August 17, 2026 4,375 active listings · 812 screened · 86 beat the S&P 500 We screened 812 of the region’s 4,375 active listings this week so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 11 ZIPs in North Bay. The funnel: | Active listings, North Bay metro | 4,375 | | Screened (market research) | 812 | | Cleared S&P 500 on paper | 86 | | 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. Our own filter threw pick #5 out of the universe before anyone looked at it. The data feed said nineteen bedrooms; the building has seven, across four units. I only found out because a verification capture caught the error, and it publishes this week on numbers it earned. I have written the defect up in the open and left the code alone until we decide the fix properly. A rule that quietly decides lineups is worse than a rule that misses one. — Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com |
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What changed this week Debuts 84 listings entered our feed across the ten ZIPs we already cover. The strongest of them is a 1915 duplex in South Vallejo waterfront, a South Vallejo waterfront parcel at $439,000 that listed three days ago and debuts at #4. |
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★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers 725 Louisiana St Downtown Vallejo (Historic Core) · 94590 $725,000 · 7 bd / 5 ba · 1,892 sqft · built 1900 · 42d on market |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$358,796 vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 13.7%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Live in one unit, rent the other three | Financing Owner-occupied at 3.5% down, subject to a delivered-vacant unit | Live-in rent $4,000/mo | Full rental $5,600/mo | Renter pool Ferry commuters / SF-priced-out workforce | Catalyst DVSP / Downtown Vallejo Historic Core (0.29 mi) |
The case, and the catch Our filter threw this one out of the universe before anyone looked at it — the data feed called it 19 bedrooms; the listing and our verification capture both say Victorian quadruplex, seven bedrooms across four units. A capture caught the error and it came back through the full evaluation, where it lands at 13.7%. The mix is a 2-bed, a 4-bed, a 1-bed and a studio across 1,892 sq ft, so three of the four price off small-unit comps rather than whole-home bands, and three rented units carry $4,000/mo against a $725,000 ask. All four units are occupied year-round, so the FHA move-in clock depends on negotiating a delivered-vacant unit at closing. 725 Louisiana St is the pick we show in full this week, and the first thing to check is who is living there. The verified listing says all four units are occupied year-round, while an FHA purchase requires you to move in within sixty days. The 3.5% down that carries our numbers therefore depends on negotiating one delivered-vacant unit at closing. If that falls through and you finance it as an investment at 25% down, the cautious margin compresses from $358,796 to $330,135 and the breakeven drops from 13.7% to 13.4%. It still beats the index. It is a different deal, and a much larger cheque. 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 one we show in full because from here you can already see its corridor, its property type and its margin band, which is most of what a screener gives you. The paid issue names the other four by address, carries the underwriting behind each one, and puts the three-scenario range on our 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 94590 produced 35 of the 86 listings that beat the index this week, and three of our five picks sit within half a mile of the same downtown plan area. |
Get this week's full report 5 deals made this week's board, out of 86 that beat the index on paper. Here's the shape of that pool: | | Median price | $499,000 | | Median S&P breakeven | 10.7% | | Median margin vs S&P | $56,195 | | By rentable units | 28 × 1 unit (33%) · 52 × 2 units (61%) · 6 × 4+ units (7%) | | Counted by rentable units, not dwellings on the deed: a single-family house underwritten room-by-room counts as its rentable rooms. |
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5 ranked deals, and the full screening record behind them. 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 11 ZIPs | 94590 | Vallejo · Ferry one-seat SF commute, DVSP upzone, 35 of 86 winners | | 94533 | Fairfield · Travis AFB workforce, $10M Complete Streets under construction | | 94589 | Vallejo (north) · SR-37 diverging diamond open July, Kaiser in-ZIP | | 95407 | Santa Rosa (Roseland) · jobs importer at 1.6, Tierra de Rosas under construction | | 95404 | Santa Rosa · SMART downtown stop, DSASP + Missing Middle overlay | | 95403 | Santa Rosa (north) · fire-rebuilt stock exempt from AB 1482, WUI insurance gate | | 95688 | Vacaville · $38.4M interchange, Genentech/Kaiser anchors | | 94928 | Rohnert Park · SMART station, funded Station Avenue TOD, SSU demand | | 94559 | Napa · 51.9% renters, First Street Phase II, flood-gate diligence | | 95492 | Windsor · SMART station, Shiloh Business Park build-out | | 94585 | Suisun City · Capitol Corridor rail, Marina Village delivered |
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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 17, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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