Free edition The Rent Hacker SF Proper, CA · May 9, 2026 1,207 listings scanned · 499 passed screen · 102 beat the S&P 500 We scan ~1000 listings weekly so you don’t have to. |
This week, our screen ran across 4 San Francisco-metro ZIPs. The funnel: | Active listings, San Francisco metro | 1,207 | | Passed market-research screen | 499 | | Beat S&P 500 (cautious assumptions) | 102 | | This week's top 5 | 5 |
Assumptions: 3% down, 2-year owner-occupy, then full rental. 10-year hold vs S&P 500 total return. Two of the three highest-margin properties this week were 14-unit and 9-unit mixed-use buildings the filter let through because RentCast underreported the bedroom counts. We caught both at the verification gate and dropped them — not because the math was wrong on paper, but because residential-loan defaults silently model commercial multi-family with the wrong assumptions. The picks that made it through are smaller, more boring, and underwrite to the lane the avatar actually uses. — Danny Brown, founder · danny@therenthacker.com |
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★ Pick #5 · Unlocked for free readers 1608 Folsom St Western SoMa · 94103 $2,075,000 · 6 bd / 5 ba · 4,185 sqft · built 1914 |
Wealth advantage · 10 years +$1.23M vs S&P 500 · S&P would need 23.7%/yr for 10 years to match |
Strategy Live in one unit, rent the other two (plus an unwarranted studio) | Financing Owner-occupied at 3% down | Live-in rent $11,000/mo | Full rental $16,500/mo | Renter pool AI-cohort engineers / Cultural-event economy workers | Catalyst The Hub (0.39 mi) |
Why this is a steal A 1914 triplex (3 × 2bd/1ba) plus an unwarranted studio at $2.075M, 0.39 mi from The Hub in Western SoMa. The building is fully tenant-occupied at ~$13,080/mo gross — well below the $16,500/mo conservative whole-rent the units would clear at turnover. The deal here is buying a long-hold appreciation play with mark-to-market upside as SF Rent Ordinance protected tenants turn over; don't underwrite move-in until a unit vacates. The unwarranted studio is legal-risk upside — model the deal without it; treat any rent it pulls as bonus. 1608 Folsom is a long-hold appreciation play, not a day-one cash-flow deal. The building is fully tenant-occupied at ~$13,080/mo gross — well below the $16,500/mo conservative whole-rent the units would clear at turnover. The Gate-2 concern: under SF Rent Ordinance, you cannot displace tenants for owner-occupancy at market reset, so the move-in date depends on natural turnover, which historically averages 7-10 years per protected unit. If turnover lags 5 years longer than modeled, the conservative $1.23M margin compresses by roughly $400-500K. The unwarranted studio is legal-risk upside — model the deal without it. The model's at therenthacker.com/methodology if you want to challenge any of the inputs. Why pick #5 is the free unlock 1608 Folsom is the free unlock because the address is guessable from the disclosed ZIP, price, and 1914 vintage — you would find it on Redfin in two minutes. The four picks above are paid because three of them needed a forced rewrite this week to disclose tenant-occupancy and rent-controlled in-place rates the original hooks glossed over. |
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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 1911 triplex · Civic Center BART corridor 🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta · breakeven +$1,800K – $2,000K | #2 1911 fourplex · Civic Center BART corridor 🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta · breakeven +$1,800K – $2,000K | #3 1921 4-flat · between the two Mission BART stations 🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta · breakeven +$1,600K – $1,800K | #4 1900 Edwardian quadruplex · UCSF Mission Bay walkshed 🔒 price · address · per-unit rents · S&P delta · breakeven +$1,400K – $1,600K |
4 of these 5 picks sit within 0.5 miles of a BART station — Civic Center, 16th-Mission, or 22nd St Caltrain — clustered along the same SoMa/Mission transit spine. |
Get this week's full report 102 deals cleared this week. Here’s the shape of the pool you’re getting: | | Median price | $970,500 | | Median S&P breakeven | 12.9% | | Median margin vs S&P | $186,971 | | By units | 6 × 1 unit (6%) · 74 × 2 units (73%) · 11 × 3 units (11%) · 11 × 4+ units (11%) |
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Five ranked deals. The reasoning behind every kill. Get every Gate 2 kill, every rent-by-unit model, every named risk that almost broke the deal, and the ranked pool of all 102 listings that cleared the cautious-case S&P benchmark this week. 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 · first issue free if you forward this |
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This week's 4 ZIPs | 94103 | SoMa / Mid-Market · Civic Center BART, DRFD live Feb 2026 | | 94110 | Mission · Two BART stations, La Maravilla 382 units | | 94107 | Potrero / Dogpatch · UCSF Mission Bay 12K jobs, Caltrain electrified | | 94105 | Transbay · Salesforce HQ walkshed, DTX FFGA July 2027 |
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Every figure uses cautious rent estimates backed by documented comps and computed distances to named growth catalysts. No invented numbers. No hype. Know someone hunting for a San Francisco deal? Forward this — they get a free first issue. The Rent Hacker · SF Proper, CA · May 9, 2026 Manage regions · Unsubscribe |
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