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Evaluated

26 Church St

Ahead of renting and index funds on our cautious numbers. Whether it has enough room to pass our bar wasn't measured here.

94114 · San Francisco

Underwritten as of 2026-08-18 · record v7

Published at our defaults: House-Hack wins by $197,832 · S&P breakeven 12.9% · crash floor 2% full underwriting, cautious case

C+ C+ — wins the conservative case; the S&P 500 would need close to 13% a year to tie.

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This record was published before we began recording the mortgage rate behind each verdict, so it cannot be re-run at your numbers.

The three cases

ConservativeBaseOptimistic
VerdictHouse-HackHouse-HackHouse-Hack
Margin vs the S&P path+$197,832+$408,185+$635,609
Rent while you live in one unit$7,700/mo$8,200/mo$8,700/mo
Rent after you move out$10,270/mo$10,700/mo$11,200/mo
Modeled appreciation3.0%/yr3.5%/yr4.0%/yr
Repairs allowance$15,000$8,000$0
S&P breakeven12.9%15.5%17.7%
Crash floor2%1.5%0.8%
Wealth at year 10$859,766$1,070,119$1,297,543
If you sold at year 10$752,252$957,271$1,179,124

Conservative leads; base and optimistic are the accompanying range, never the headline. Margin is vs. investing the same money in the S&P 500; the S&P breakeven is the yearly stock return that would tie it, and the crash floor is the yearly appreciation below which the deal loses. Wealth at year 10 counts home equity at full value; the sold line subtracts selling costs.

Property facts

Asking price $1,600,000
Units 4
Beds / baths 3 / 4
Square feet 2,950
Year built 1880
Property type Multi-Family
Days on market 127
Neighborhood Duboce Triangle / Market & Octavia edge
Strategy lane small multi-unit (cache-verified quadruplex — owner occupies the studio, three units stay at in-place rent-controlled rent; OMI/Ellis-displacement dependency flagged at gate)
Nearest catalyst CPMC Davies Campus (0.27 mi)
Modeled appreciation 3.5%/yr

Unit count verified: 4 units, corroborated by county assessor records and the listing itself.

small multi-unit (cache-verified quadruplex — owner occupies the studio, three units stay at in-place rent-controlled rent; OMI/Ellis-displacement dependency flagged at gate) — Duboce Triangle / Market & Octavia edge · 0.27 mi from CPMC Davies Campus.

Nearby projects on our catalyst watch:

  • N-Judah / J-Church rail confluence (Duboce & Church / Church St corridor) · 0.1 mi · open today
  • Market & Octavia Plan area — Castro gateway (Market St, Buchanan→Church→Castro reach) · 0.2 mi · open today
  • CPMC Davies Campus (601 Duboce Ave) · 0.3 mi · open today

From the 2026-08-18 screen: 400 scanned · 34 beat the S&P at our defaults · 366 rejected; this one ranked #14.

If the market turns

Modeled appreciation is an assumption, so we replayed this deal against history: every 10-year window in the federal house-price index for San Francisco County (41 windows), each one swapping its actual price path in for our modeled appreciation.

History replayYearsEnds vs the never-buy path
Worst window1989→1999−$676,179
Median window1991→2001+$782,869
Best window1996→2006+$3,191,164

5 of the 41 windows ended behind the never-buy path.

Replay the 2001 downturn as it hit this area and the deal ends year 10 $527,983 behind the never-buy path; the deepest point comes in year 8, $678,386 behind. The replay holds rent growth to the local legal cap the whole way down.

These windows track San Francisco County as a whole. Within the county, individual ZIPs' realized 10-year outcomes typically differed from the county's by about ±0.6 points/yr — one zip-decade in ten differed by ±1.8 points/yr or more, and the largest gap since 1975 was 7.4 points/yr. A specific building varies more than its ZIP, not less.

Where these numbers come from

Of the 12 inputs behind this analysis, 4 trace to evidence (our listing feed, area comps, county records); 2 are standing conventions; 4 are derived from other inputs.

  • Purchase price: an unclassified source · corroborated
  • Rent while you live in one unit: derived from other inputs here · single source
  • Rent after you move out: derived from other inputs here · single source
  • The rent you would pay on the never-buy path: derived from other inputs here · single source
  • Property tax rate: an unclassified source · no independent witness
  • Unit count: county assessor records · corroborated

A standing convention is a deliberate modeling choice we apply to every deal. We flag it rather than dress it up as evidence.

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Record v7 · engine aafb236 · profile fha-house-hack