San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco, CA

A dense, older housing stock where city rent control, a steep tiered transfer tax and strict local review shape what a building is worth. It also has the best open permit data in the region, so a buyer can check a property's history in detail.

💡 Upside tip

Look up the address in DataSF's building permit records before you count on any added unit or bedroom: unpermitted work and open complaints show up there. If the building has tenants or older rental units, find out which are rent-controlled, because local rent control and recent tenancy can block SB 9 and limit the return on an addition.

Offers & competition

Multiple offers are common, and sellers usually release inspection reports and disclosures before the offer date. Buyers who keep an inspection contingency typically get only 7 to 10 days; in the most competitive cases they waive it after inspecting before the offer.

Closing & who pays

Closings run through escrow and title companies, with no attorney required. By San Francisco custom the buyer pays the escrow fee and the owner's title policy.

Transfer taxes

The seller customarily pays the city transfer tax, which includes the county share and rises by price tier: $6.80 per $1,000 from $250,001 to $999,999, $7.50 per $1,000 from $1M to under $5M, and up to $60 per $1,000 at $25M and above. At $1M to $5M that is 0.75% of the full price.

Seller disclosures

Statewide California rules apply: the TDS, the Natural Hazard Disclosure (NHD) for mapped hazard zones, any Mello-Roos or PACE notice, and the agent's AVID visual inspection, one per unit in a 2 to 4 unit building.

What you can build

State law allows an ADU and a JADU on single-family lots and SB 9 duplexes or lot splits, though SB 9 is barred where rent-controlled or recently tenant-occupied housing would be demolished or altered. San Francisco is an "urban transit county" under SB 79, which since July 1, 2026 allows taller, denser housing near major transit stops.

Permits & records

DataSF publishes building permits (dataset i98e-djp9, about 1.28 million records), plumbing and electrical permits and complaints through an open API, updated weekly. As a city over 150,000 people, San Francisco must also offer a central online application portal with status tracking under AB 920.

Property tax

Prop 13 resets the assessed value to the purchase price, after which it rises at most 2% a year; with local bonds, Bay Area effective rates are typically about 1.1% to 1.3%. Expect a supplemental tax bill after closing.

Rent rules

Covered units may rise only 1.6% from March 1, 2026 to February 28, 2027 (60% of regional CPI). Units outside local rent control fall under state AB 1482, capped at 8.8% for August 2026 to July 2027. Under Costa-Hawkins, single-family homes and condos are exempt from the local cap.

Key risks

The NHD report states whether the property sits in mapped flood, dam-inundation, fire or seismic hazard zones; read it before you plan structural work. The research behind this guide does not cover San Francisco-specific seismic retrofit rules, so check them with the city before buying an older building.

⚠ Still verifying

Whether the transfer-tax tiers are indexed, and whether the proposed 2026 BUILD Act cutting transfer tax on certain projects has passed, are unconfirmed. The pre-June 1979 cutoff for rent-controlled buildings comes from background knowledge, not a fetched source. Local seismic retrofit rules were not researched.

Official sources

Updated: 2026-10 · Summaries of public rules as of the date shown. Not legal or tax advice. Always confirm with the official source.