Free edition The Rent Hacker SF Proper, CA · August 11, 2026 865 active listings · 373 screened · 48 beat the S&P 500 We screened 373 of the region’s 865 active listings this week so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 19 ZIPs in San Francisco. The funnel: | Active listings, San Francisco metro | 865 | | Screened (market research) | 373 | | Cleared S&P 500 on paper | 48 | | 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. I almost ran a fourplex in the Inner Sunset this week. Four units, a walk to UCSF, $9,856 a month already coming in. Then I read the listing again: all four are tenanted, the building is pre-1979, and the unit you would live in is somebody's home. San Francisco allows one owner move-in per building, but not if that tenant is over 60, disabled, or has a kid in school. I could not confirm which. — Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com |
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What changed this week Exits Last week's #3, 1706-1710 Hyde St, went pending seven days after we published it. We flagged it at $1,013,509 modeled margin on a $1,395,000 ask. Debuts 79 new listings entered the pool this week and one of them debuts at #1: a 8-bedroom multi-unit in Powell BART corridor in SoMa proper, listed 8/5 at $1,399,000 after a 9.7% cut. A Small multi-unit in Zuckerberg SF General corridor debuts at #3, six days after listing, 0.49 mi from Zuckerberg SF General. |
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★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers 217 Holloway Ave Ingleside / Balboa Park catalyst zone · 94112 $1,199,900 · 8 bd / 7 ba · 2,200 sqft · built 1908 · 16d on market |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$658,925 vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 17.5%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Live in one unit, rent the other two | Financing Owner-occupied at 3.5% down | Live-in rent $4,995/mo | Full rental $11,100/mo | Renter pool Service and healthcare workforce / City College students and staff | Catalyst City College of SF (Ocean campus) (0.31 mi) |
The case, and the catch Three legal units on one 1908 lot, and the seller writes that the front 4-bedroom is mostly vacated already, which is what makes the owner-occupancy leg deliverable here instead of theoretical. Today's tenants pay $4,995/mo and that frozen figure alone clears the index, which needs 17.5% a year for a decade to tie. The $11,100/mo number is a turnover projection rather than a rent you inherit: pre-1979 stock under the Rent Ordinance only resets when a tenant leaves. Ask is $1,199,900, 0.31 mi from City College of SF (Ocean campus), and 0.13 mi from the 1,100-unit Balboa Reservoir site, whose delivery timeline is still unconfirmed. We held appreciation at the 3.0% floor and gave the Reservoir no credit. 217 Holloway Ave is the unlock because I can hide the least about it. The whole thesis rests on the seller's line that the front 4-bedroom is mostly vacated — if that is one holdover tenant rather than an empty unit, the owner-occupancy leg is gone and this becomes an investment property you cannot live in. The $4,995/mo you inherit is frozen under the Rent Ordinance; $11,100/mo arrives only as tenants leave on their schedule, not yours. We held appreciation at the 3.0% floor and gave the Balboa Reservoir zero credit. Take turnover away and $658,925 compresses toward the low six figures. 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 unlock because you could mostly reconstruct it anyway — ZIP disclosed, 1908 three-unit, public price band. What the paid issue carries is the four that did not survive, including a fourplex whose margin evaporates if its rents are controlled, and an address that turned out to be one-tenth of a residence. |
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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. |
★ #1 · Top deal 8-bedroom multi-unit · Powell BART corridor 🔒 +$1,790,769 vs the S&P over 10 yrs, cautious case · address + underwriting inside +$1700K – $1800K | #2 · Week 3 on the board Quadruplex · Civic Center BART corridor 🔒 +$1,026,633 vs the S&P over 10 yrs, cautious case · address + underwriting inside +$1000K – $1100K | #3 Small multi-unit · Zuckerberg SF General corridor 🔒 +$780,894 vs the S&P over 10 yrs, cautious case · address + underwriting inside +$700K – $800K | #4 · Week 6 on the board Front duplex plus rear cottage · 16th St Mission BART 🔒 +$772,612 vs the S&P over 10 yrs, cautious case · address + underwriting inside +$700K – $800K |
Five of this week's ten sit in pre-1979 buildings with tenants already in place, which is the gap between a modeled rent roll and the one you would actually collect. |
Get this week's full report 5 deals made this week's board, out of 48 that beat the index on paper. Here's the shape of that pool: | | Median price | $999,000 | | Median S&P breakeven | 13.2% | | Median margin vs S&P | $219,339 | | By units | 17 × 1 unit (35%) · 16 × 2 units (33%) · 7 × 3 units (15%) · 8 × 4+ units (17%) |
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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 5 ZIPs | 94112 | Excelsior / Ingleside · Balboa Park BART, CCSF 19,267 students | | 94103 | SoMa · Powell + Civic Center BART, Central SoMa upzone | | 94110 | Mission / Bernal · 2 BART stations, ZSFG in-ZIP, rents +7% YoY | | 94116 | Parkside / Outer Sunset · 2700 Sloat 682 units, L Taraval rebuilt | | 94124 | Bayview · T-Third spine, India Basin park 2028, $917K basis |
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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 San Francisco deals? Forward this — they can pick their region at therenthacker.com. The Rent Hacker · SF Proper, CA · August 11, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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