Where to Buy a Home in San Francisco for the Money You Want to Spend

The charts below are based upon San Francisco home sales reported to MLS during the 12 months from 2/16/16 – 2/15/17, breaking out the neighborhoods with, generally speaking, the most sales within given price points. Other neighborhoods not listed did have smaller numbers of sales within given price segments.

Where to Buy a HOUSE for under $1 millionThe overall median HOUSE price in the city in 2016 was $1,325,000, so the under-million-dollar house is becoming increasingly rare. For context, in 2011, 75% of San Francisco’s house sales were below $1,000,000; that percentage has dropped to 24% to 26% (depending on how one is measuring). The vast majority of house sales in this price segment now occur in a large swath of neighborhoods running across the southern border of the city, which are by far its most affordable house markets: from Bayview through Portola, Excelsior, Visitacion Valley and Crocker Amazon, to Oceanview and Ingleside.

The chart’s horizontal columns reflect the number of sales of houses with at least 2 bedrooms, with parking, for under $1 million, while the median sales prices noted are for all 2BR house sales during the period. Median price provides a good idea of overall neighborhood house prices.

Where to Buy a CONDO, CO-OP OR TIC for under $1 million

The overall SF median condo price in 2016 was $1,095,000, and sales under $1m still occur in almost every area of the city that features these property types – but a studio unit in Russian Hill may cost as much as a 2-bedroom condo in Diamond Heights. Note that these charts only reflect sales reported to MLS, and many new-project condo sales do not.

Of these property types, condos make up about 90% of sales, stock co-op apartments 1 to 2%, with TICs making up the balance. TICs typically sell at a significant discount (10% – 20%) to similar condos.

The horizontal columns reflect the number of sales under $1m broken out by 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom units. You can see that if you want to buy a condo in the South Beach/Mission Bay district, you are pretty much limited to 1BR units (or studio units). The box of median sales prices is just for 1BR units, again simply to give an idea of relative values between neighborhoods. Median price is that price at which half the sales occurred for more and half for less.

Spending $1 Million to $1.5 Million in San Francisco

In this price point for houses, one starts moving into another layer of neighborhoods in the west and the central-south areas of the city: The Sunset and Parkside neighborhoods, Golden Gate Heights, Miraloma Park, Sunnyside, Mission Terrace, Bernal Heights and others as shown. There has been a lot of upward pressure on these areas in the past 2 years in particular.

The horizontal columns reflect the number of sales, with the average dollar per square foot values for the homes in this price range noted alongside.

Condo and co-op sales in this price range are mostly concentrated in those areas where newer condo developments have surged onto market over the past 10 – 15 years, and continue to arrive in increasing numbers – South Beach, Mission Bay, Inner Mission, Hayes Valley, Dogpatch, SoMa – as well as in high-end neighborhoods such as Pacific Heights, Russian Hill and the greater Noe-Eureka Valleys area.

Condos & Co-ops for $1.5 million to $1.85 million

Houses for $1.5 million to $2 million

Buying a HOUSE for $2 million to $2.999 million

When you get to the $2 million to $2.999 million range, the house market becomes dominated by the greater Noe-Eureka-Cole Valleys district, the St. Francis Wood-Forest Hill district, the Potrero Hill-Inner Mission area, the Inner-Central Richmond and Lake Street area, and Inner Sunset/ Golden Gate Heights. One no longer can find much in this price range in the Pacific Heights-Marina district.

Buying a LUXURY HOME in San Francisco

San Francisco houses selling for $3 million and above, and condos, co-ops and TICs selling for $1.85 million and above constitute about 10% of sales and, for the purposes of this report, are designated as luxury home sales. What you get in different neighborhoods for your millions of dollars will vary widely. Views often play a significant role in SF home values, but particularly in the luxury condo market, where the most expensive units often offer staggering views from very high floors. Over the past 15 years – and accelerating in the current market recovery – there have occurred some very large shifts in the luxury home market, with districts other than the old-prestige, northern neighborhoods becoming major destinations for (very) high-end homebuyers. However the northern neighborhoods like Pacific Heights still dominate the ultra-high end in SF: houses selling for $5 million or more. The greater South Beach-Yerba Buena area, with its many new luxury condo towers now comes in second place for luxury condo sales (reported to MLS) after the Pacific Heights-Marina district.

Luxury CONDO, CO-OP & TIC Sales

Luxury HOUSE Sales

San Francisco Neighborhood Map