Free edition The Rent Hacker SF South Bay, CA · July 24, 2026 2,603 listings scanned · 379 passed screen · 2 beat the S&P 500 We scan ~2500 listings weekly so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 8 ZIPs in SF South Bay. The funnel: | Active listings, SF South Bay metro | 2,603 | | Passed market-research screen | 379 | | Cleared S&P 500 on paper | 2 | | This week's top 2 | 2 |
Assumptions: 3% down, 2-year owner-occupy, then full rental. 10-year hold vs S&P 500 total return. It’s another thin week for South Bay. We screened 379 listings across eight ZIPs and only two cleared our cautious S&P test, both in 95116. Everywhere else, the best deal still needs an optimistic rent read just to clear a 10% breakeven. I’d rather hand you two deals I’d buy myself than pad the issue to look busy. So here are two. — Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com |
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What changed this week Debuts 216 N 25th St debuts at #2 after a $50,000 cut to $749,000 pushed its cautious case past the S&P. |
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★ Pick #2 · Unlocked for free readers 216 N 25th St Little Portugal / Five Wounds · 95116 $749,000 · 4 bd / 2 ba · 1,249 sqft · built 1880 |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$3,508 vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 10.0%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Rent out spare bedrooms while you live there | Financing Owner-occupied at 3% down | Live-in rent $2,640/mo | Full rental $3,900/mo | Renter pool Working-immigrant workforce / healthcare and downtown-commute renters | Catalyst 28th St/Little Portugal BART Phase II (0.06 mi) |
The case, and the catch At 0.06 mi from the future Little Portugal BART Phase II platform, this is the closest any pick sits to a funded station, and it just took a $50K cut to $749,000. Rent three of its four bedrooms for $2,640/mo while you live in the fourth and it edges the S&P at a 10.0% breakeven; the whole house rents for $3,900/mo after you move out. The cautious margin is thin, so the case leans on the 1880 home holding up and the BART timeline, but a decade of station construction next door is exactly the discount that has not priced in yet. 216 N 25th St is the thinnest deal we’ve published in South Bay: at cautious rents its ten-year edge over the S&P is about $3,500, and it clears the 10% breakeven by a hair. Two things could erase that. It was built in 1880, so a major systems failure our conservative repair budget doesn’t fully cover, like a foundation or a sewer lateral, would flip it. And the appreciation case leans on a BART platform 0.06 miles away that doesn’t open until the mid-2030s. We’re publishing it because the location is rare and the price already took a $50K cut, but go in with a full inspection and cash reserves, not as a layup. 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 #2 is the free unlock You see #2 in full because it’s the weakest deal that cleared this week, a thin-margin 1880 house you’d hack room by room. The paid issue has the one that anchors the board: a tenant-occupied 1961 fourplex with about ten times the cautious margin, plus the rent-control and turnover math that decides whether it pencils. |
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Deal #1 this week · paid only The one ranked deal is behind the paywall You unlocked #2 above. The one below clears a wider S&P delta than your free pick. Addresses and breakeven math locked. |
Both winners sit within 0.9 miles of the future Little Portugal BART Phase II station and the Five Wounds upzone, on the county’s cheapest by-unit corridor. |
Get this week's full report 2 deals cleared this week. Here's the shape of the pool you're getting: | | Median price | $1,172,000 | | Median S&P breakeven | 10.2% | | Median margin vs S&P | $19,320 | | By units | 1 × 2 units (50%) · 1 × 4+ units (50%) |
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2 ranked deals: every correction we made, and every number we couldn't verify. Get the full report on all 2 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 both picks, 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 8 ZIPs | 95116 | East San José · cheapest county fourplexes, Five Wounds upzone + BART Phase II | | 95133 | Berryessa/McKee · operational BART terminus, 270-acre Urban Village | | 95035 | Milpitas · operational BART + LRT, 510-acre Metro plan | | 95131 | North San José · $170K median, in-ZIP tech corridor | | 95122 | East San José · EBRC Story Rd LRT 2027–28, Little Saigon core | | 95148 | Evergreen · EBRC Eastridge LRT 2027–28, ~$167K median | | 95123 | Blossom Valley · mature Blue Line, Republic at Blossom Hill TOD | | 95132 | Berryessa/Piedmont Hills · ~$1.58M median, no in-ZIP catalyst |
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South Bay neighborhood guides are live |
We’ve published house-hacking pages for South Bay: the transit corridors we track, the catalysts behind each ZIP, and how we score every deal against the S&P. Worth a read before you underwrite here. Read the South Bay guides |
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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 SF South Bay deals? Forward this — they can pick their region at therenthacker.com. The Rent Hacker · SF South Bay, CA · July 24, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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