Free edition The Rent Hacker SF Peninsula, CA · August 6, 2026 908 active listings · 329 screened · 8 beat the S&P 500 We screened 329 of the region’s 908 active listings this week so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 12 ZIPs in Peninsula. The funnel: | Active listings, Peninsula metro | 908 | | Screened (market research) | 329 | | Cleared S&P 500 on paper | 8 | | 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 best-looking deal I saw this week was a $136,000 condo in South San Francisco, and I killed it. Six near-identical units in that same building were listed from $136,000 to $1.385M, which is an affordability ladder, priced by income tier. Those units carry owner-occupancy covenants and resale formulas that quietly void the whole strategy. It ranked first on the math, and I couldn’t publish it. The math was answering the wrong question. — Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com |
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What changed this week Debuts A Triplex in Sequoia Station TOD debuts at #1, the only 94061 property out of 38 screened to beat the S&P this week. 3085 Williams Ave debuts at #5 and is the week's narrowest win, a $26,241 margin over the index. |
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★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers 3085 Williams Ave Friendly Acres · 94063 $1,200,000 · 4 bd / 2 ba · 1,020 sqft · built 1950 · 136d on market |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$26,241 vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 10.4%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Live in one unit, rent the other | Financing Owner-occupied at 3.5% down | Live-in rent $3,300/mo | Full rental $6,600/mo | Renter pool Workforce households / Transit-commuting professionals | Catalyst Middlefield Junction (0.71 mi) |
The case, and the catch Zillow lists this one as 3085 William Ave, singular, which is where to search for it. Two 2bd/1ba sides in a 1950 duplex a mile from downtown Redwood City, with a RUBS setup billing utilities back to tenants. It is the one pick here priced above its ZIP median, at $1,176/sqft against $829, so it earns its place on the rent roll. Weigh two things: it has sat 136 days on market, and both sides are tenant-occupied month to month, so owner-occupying means moving a sitting tenant out first. California relocation rules plus a few months of turnover vacancy can plausibly cost the same order as the whole $26K cautious edge, the thinnest in this issue. 3085 Williams Ave (Zillow lists it as 3085 William Ave) is the thinnest deal in this issue, and we’re showing you the arithmetic rather than dressing it up. The cautious case clears the S&P by about $26,000 across the full hold, roughly two percent of the purchase price spread over a decade. Both sides are tenant-occupied month to month, so owner-occupying means serving notice first, and California relocation rules plus a few months of turnover vacancy can plausibly cost the same order as that entire $26,000 edge. It has also sat 136 days unsold at $1,176 a square foot, against a ZIP median nearer $829. If the relocation runs long, this stops being a win. One note on the order above: the board ranks by the S&P return each deal would have to beat, so a higher-placed pick can show a smaller dollar margin than the one beneath it. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs. Why pick #5 is the free unlock Pick five is the free unlock because it is the one where the honest answer is probably no, and we would rather you see how we get there. Its ZIP, price band and duplex shape are all visible here. What the paid issue carries this week: which locked pick is fully tenanted at ten thousand a month, and which one sits under an ordinance capping sitting-tenant increases at 2.2 percent a year. |
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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. |
Every deal on this week's board sits within 1.4 miles of a named catalyst, and most cluster around Redwood City and East Palo Alto redevelopment nodes. |
Get this week's full report 5 deals made this week's board, out of 8 that beat the index on paper. Here's the shape of that pool: | | Median price | $1,249,961 | | Median S&P breakeven | 13.9% | | Median margin vs S&P | $295,672 | | By units | 2 × 1 unit (25%) · 2 × 2 units (25%) · 1 × 3 units (13%) · 3 × 4+ units (38%) |
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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 4 ZIPs | 94063 | Redwood City · $155M Middlefield Junction under construction, 4 of 8 clears | | 94080 | South San Francisco · East-of-101 biotech, 0.15 mi to SSF BART | | 94303 | East Palo Alto · Amazon University Circle, 1,300-unit Woodland Park pipeline | | 94061 | Redwood City · Sequoia Station TOD, zero multi-family rent comps |
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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 · August 6, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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