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625 Humboldt St

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

95404 · North Bay

Underwritten as of 2026-08-24 · record v2

Published at our defaults: House-Hack wins by $57,058 · S&P breakeven 10.7% · crash floor 1.5% full underwriting, cautious case

C C — wins the conservative case, but the S&P 500 only needs 10–13% 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+$57,058+$384,796+$722,199
Rent while you live in one unit$5,200/mo$5,700/mo$6,100/mo
Rent after you move out$6,700/mo$7,350/mo$7,900/mo
Modeled appreciation2.0%/yr3.5%/yr5.0%/yr
Repairs allowance$15,000$8,000$0
S&P breakeven10.7%14%16.8%
Crash floor1.5%0.2%-1%
Wealth at year 10$1,168,929$1,496,667$1,834,070
If you sold at year 10$1,108,284$1,426,490$1,753,033

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 $995,000
Units 4
Beds / baths 4 / 4
Square feet 2,646
Year built 1936
Property type Multi-Family
Days on market 96
Neighborhood Downtown Santa Rosa / Old Courthouse Square
Strategy lane fourplex
Nearest catalyst Downtown Station Area Specific Plan (DSASP) (0.34 mi)
Modeled appreciation 2.0%/yr

Unit count verified: 4 units, corroborated by the listing itself.

fourplex — Downtown Santa Rosa / Old Courthouse Square · 0.34 mi from Downtown Station Area Specific Plan (DSASP).

From the 2026-08-24 screen: 47 scanned · 22 beat the S&P at our defaults · 25 rejected; this one ranked #12.

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 Sonoma County (41 windows), each one swapping its actual price path in for our modeled appreciation.

History replayYearsEnds vs the never-buy path
Worst window2005→2015−$232,491
Median window1984→1994+$558,678
Best window1996→2006+$1,770,716

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

Replay the 2008 crash as it hit this area and the deal ends year 10 $635,668 behind the never-buy path; the deepest point comes in year 7, $727,902 behind.

These windows track Sonoma County as a whole. Within the county, individual ZIPs' realized 10-year outcomes typically differed from the county's by about ±0.3 points/yr — one zip-decade in ten differed by ±0.8 points/yr or more, and the largest gap since 1975 was 2.1 points/yr. A specific building varies more than its ZIP, not less.

Where these numbers come from

Of the 11 inputs behind this analysis, 7 trace to evidence (our listing feed, area comps, county records); 3 are standing conventions; 1 is derived from other inputs.

  • Purchase price: our listing feed · corroborated
  • Rent while you live in one unit: our listing feed · single source
  • Rent after you move out: area rent comps and research bands · single source
  • The rent you would pay on the never-buy path: area rent comps and research bands · single source
  • Property tax rate: local rent regulation · single source
  • Unit count: our listing feed · 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 v2 · engine aafb236 · profile fha-house-hack