San Francisco rents and rental comps

The median asking rent across San Francisco, CA sits at $3,644/month, pulled from active rental listings in 20 zip codes. That's up 3.4% from a year ago.

Rents aren't uniform across the city. ZIP 94105 tops the list at $5,300/month. ZIP 94132 comes in lowest at $2,050/month. That's a 159% spread between the top and bottom zip codes, which is wide. City-wide averages won't tell you much about a specific property here.

A 2-bedroom rents for $4,723/month at the median. 1-bedrooms run about $3,350. 3-bedrooms come in around $6,248.

Average days on market sits at 32 days. Pace is steady.

Rent-to-price math is tight in San Francisco. The gross figure sits at about 3.2% ($3,644/month against $1,350,000 median price). Most investors here are betting on appreciation, not monthly cash flow.

HUD's Fair Market Rent for a 2-bedroom in the San Francisco metro is $2,990/month. City-wide asking rents run about 22% above that. Section 8 vouchers in this area often don't cover market rent without an exception payment standard.

San Francisco is extreme in every direction. High rents, limited supply, complex regulations. Tech drives the economy. The Marina, Pacific Heights, and SoMa are premium. The Sunset, Richmond, and Bayview are cheaper (though still expensive by any other city's standards). SF has some of the strongest rent control and tenant protections in the country. The Rent Board governs much of the housing stock, and Ellis Act evictions and owner move-in evictions each have specific rules. Remote work caused some softening, and the market hasn't fully recovered to pre-pandemic highs in every neighborhood. SF can generate enormous income for landlords, but the regulatory risk is real. Don't invest here without understanding the legal framework.

These numbers are city-wide averages. If you're pricing a specific property in San Francisco, pull comps from the same zip code. The spread is usually bigger than people expect.