Free edition The Rent Hacker SF Peninsula, CA · July 23, 2026 937 listings scanned · 937 passed screen · 11 beat the S&P 500 We scan a few hundred listings weekly so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 12 ZIPs in Peninsula. The funnel: | Active listings, Peninsula metro | 937 | | Passed market-research screen | 937 | | Cleared S&P 500 on paper | 11 | | This week's top 5 | 5 |
Assumptions: 3% down, 2-year owner-occupy, then full rental. 10-year hold vs S&P 500 total return. |
What changed this week Exits Last week's #1, 1164 Clinton St in Redwood City, went pending at its $1.98M ask. 3236 San Jose Ave sold for $1,030,000. 1047 Hanover St went pending at $849,888. Debuts A fresh Friendly Acres fourplex, a Fourplex in Redwood City Box HQ corridor, debuts at #3, collecting $10,100/mo in live-in rent while the owner holds one unit. |
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★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers · Week 4 on the board 2338 Dumbarton Ave Woodland Park · 94303 $750,000 · 3 bd / 2 ba · 1,340 sqft · built 1964 |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$104,715 vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 11.4%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Rent out spare bedrooms while you live there, then rent the whole house after you move out | Financing Owner-occupied at 3% down | Live-in rent $2,300/mo | Full rental $4,000/mo | Renter pool Tech-adjacent workforce priced out of Palo Alto | Catalyst Amazon University Circle (0.07 mi) |
The case, and the catch At $750K this East Palo Alto three-bed sits in Woodland Park near the 4 Corners TOD upzoning, 0.07 mi from Amazon University Circle. Rent the spare bedrooms while you live there for $2,300/mo, or lease the whole house for $4,000/mo once you move out. If it comes with a sitting tenant, East Palo Alto's just-cause rules apply, so confirm occupancy before you bank on the room-by-room plan. Four weeks on our board and the numbers still beat the S&P unless it returns 11.4% a year for ten straight. Our number on this week's top deal leans on the conservative rent band: three of the four units at roughly $2,900 each while you live in the fourth. Get that in writing before you trust the 15.8% breakeven, because the property tax resets to the purchase price on close, and at this parcel's verified 1.38% rate that is a real carrying cost the seller's old bill hides. The named risk is vacancy in a four-unit building you are still learning to run. Push the rent band down about 12%, or the tax toward 1.7%, and the S&P quietly wins instead. It is a strong deal, not a sure one. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs. Sensitivity (rent assumptions) 5.5%/yr home appreciation modeled. Why pick #5 is the free unlock You can probably guess the corridor from the Box HQ clue, and a patient hour on Redfin might even surface the fourplex itself. What you cannot rebuild from the free issue is the other four deals, each parcel's verified tax rate, and the one-tap calculator that shows where every breakeven flips. |
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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. |
Three of this week's five picks sit within 1.3 miles of the San Mateo County government center and Box HQ in Redwood City; the other two anchor to East Palo Alto's Woodland Park redevelopment near Meta and Amazon. |
Get this week's full report 5 deals cleared this week. Here's the shape of the pool you're getting: | | Median price | $998,888 | | Median S&P breakeven | 11.3% | | Median margin vs S&P | $94,584 | | By units | 2 × 1 unit (18%) · 6 × 2 units (55%) · 3 × 4+ units (27%) |
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5 ranked deals: every correction we made, and every number we couldn't verify. 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 2 ZIPs | 94303 | East Palo Alto · Amazon University Circle + Meta, tech-adjacent workforce | | 94063 | Redwood City · Box HQ + County center, deep multi-unit demand |
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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 Peninsula deals? Forward this — they can pick their region at therenthacker.com. The Rent Hacker · SF Peninsula, CA · July 23, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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