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

We rejected 25 of the 47 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.

Four self-contained 2-bedroom apartments at $725,000 works out to $181,000 a door, and the three you don't live in bring $6,900/mo at cautious rents. The S&P 500 would have to return 18.7% a year for ten straight years to match that, 1.7 points clear of anything else on the board. Week 4 listed with no price movement, so the open question is condition: the verification capture notes coin-op common laundry and wall furnaces with no cooling on 1972 stock.

This week's #1 is a capture-verified four-unit building: you take one two-bedroom and rent the other three. Here's the caveat we'd want told to us. No in-place rents are disclosed for this building, so the cautious $6,900/mo is Vallejo's whole-home band, not what any tenant is actually paying. That's a band standing in for a measurement, and it's the one number the whole case rests on. Vallejo's rent-regulation status is also undetermined, so we held rent growth at 2% and left that question open. Even on those inputs the S&P 500 needs 18.7% a year to keep pace, and prices would have to fall 23.6% before the deal flips. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs.

An 1,892 sq ft Victorian carved into four units at $725,000: a 2-bed, a 4-bed, a 1-bed and a studio. The three you don't live in carry $6,450/mo at cautious rents against a 17.0% breakeven, and not one of those rents is a measured lease, because the seller discloses no rent roll. All four units are occupied year round, so your move-in clock depends on negotiating one delivered vacant at closing. Week 2 on the board at 49 days listed.

The cleanest owner-occupied start on the board: two of the four units deliver vacant, so you take one and rent the other three without negotiating anybody out. Those three bring $5,850/mo at cautious rents against an $895,000 ask, and the S&P 500 needs 16.0% a year to keep up. It sits 0.17 miles from the downtown upzone area, and the 1-bedroom unit is priced off a lower-level band because Vallejo has no comp for a full 1-bedroom apartment inside a small multiplex.

A 1900 Victorian fourplex where the rent roll is already disclosed: $6,844/mo in place across four units, so these numbers aren't guessing at what the building earns. Take one of the three 1-bedrooms and the rest bring $5,245/mo, which puts the breakeven at 14.7% against an $850,000 ask. It has been listed 69 days in a downtown where the plan area sits 0.47 miles off.

$475,000 is the cheapest entry on the board, and the rear detached 3-bedroom rents for $2,550/mo at cautious rents while you take the front upper unit. The ground-floor storefront earns nothing in any of these numbers, so a commercial lease is upside we never counted. Week 5 on the board at 78 days listed, and the reason it is still here is condition: both sides deliver 100% vacant and as-is, which makes our $15,000 repair allowance look light.

Vallejo's 94590 produced 15 of the 22 listings that beat the index this week, and every Vallejo pick on the board sits within 0.6 miles of the same downtown plan area.

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 North Bay deals? Forward this — they can pick their region at therenthacker.com.

The Rent Hacker · SF North Bay, CA · August 24, 2026

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