San Francisco Long-Term Rentals Yield 2.2%, Houses vs Apartments

San Francisco's house-versus-apartment question must be answered through the long-term rental lens only, the city prohibits short-term rental of investment properties, so any Airbnb math is theoretical rather than actionable. Across 28 ZIP codes, the median 3-bed house at $1,734,060 produces a gross long-term yield of 2.2%, sitting 1.8pp below the California median of 4.0% and 3.1pp below the national figure of 5.3%.

San Francisco is an appreciation play, not a cash-flow market. Apartment entry prices sit lower than houses, but apartment rents do not drop proportionally, so apartments tend to deliver tighter rent-to-price ratios on paper. Those headline yields are gross figures before homeowners association fees, property tax, insurance, and management, and they are city medians across 28 ZIP codes, so your specific neighborhood may sit well above or below.

Long-Term Rental Yields by Bedroom Count

City medians across 28 ZIP codes. Gross long-term rental yields before homeowners association fees, property tax, insurance, and management.

Short-term rental yields are excluded from this table because San Francisco prohibits short-term letting of investment properties. Owner-occupants may rent up to 90 nights per year, but no investor strategy is supported.

Why Apartments Look Better on Paper, and What Eats the Difference

Apartment entry prices are lower because you are buying air rights and a share of common property rather than land plus structure. A 2-bed apartment at $949,836 sits well under a 2-bed house, but the rent it commands does not fall proportionally, tenants pay for proximity to work, transit, and amenities, not square footage of dirt. That mechanic is what drives apartment gross yields above house gross yields almost everywhere in the city.

The catch is that apartment yields in the table are gross figures. Homeowners association dues in San Francisco range from a few hundred dollars a month in older walk-up buildings to well over a thousand a month in newer downtown towers with concierge, gym, and rooftop amenities. A typical 2-bed condo might carry $500–$900 a month in dues, which can compress the apartment yield advantage by one to two percentage points once netted out. Houses carry no such fee but expose you directly to roof, foundation, and exterior maintenance costs.

Even setting the city ban aside, individual condo associations frequently prohibit any rental shorter than 30 days regardless of municipal law, and many San Francisco buildings cap the percentage of units that can be tenant-occupied at all. Always read the homeowners association's covenants, conditions, and restrictions document before signing.

The Bedroom Count Curve

For houses, gross yield tends to flatten or fall slightly as bedroom count rises. Larger San Francisco houses concentrate in premium neighborhoods like Pacific Heights, Noe Valley, and the western Sunset, where buyers pay a substantial premium for land and views that rent does not fully recover. The 4+ bed category is sparse and skewed by trophy properties, so its median moves around more than the others, treat it as directional, not definitive.

Apartment yields tend to be strongest in the 1-bed and 2-bed range, where the underlying buyer pool is largest and pricing most efficient. 3-bed and 4+ bed condos are rarer and often sit in luxury developments where price-per-bedroom rises sharply, dragging yield back down. The long-term rental curve here behaves more conservatively than a short-term rental curve would, because long-term rents scale with bedroom count more linearly than nightly rates do.

Suburb Variation Across San Francisco

The city median hides substantial dispersion. Bayview/Hunters Point (94124) leads on yield at 4.1% with a median price of $875,000, while premium downtown ZIP codes like Rincon Hill/South Beach (94105) sit at 3.8% despite rents around $5,752 per month, the entry prices simply absorb the higher rent. SoMa (94103) and Mission Bay/Dogpatch (94158) cluster near the upper end of the yield range, while quieter premium pockets sit closer to the city median. The dashboard shows suburb-level data for every bedroom count and property type, so you can compare within the specific area you are evaluating.

View San Francisco in the dashboard → Free preview · every bedroom count and property type

What the Table Does Not Capture

• Homeowners association fees: Apartment yields shown are gross. San Francisco condo dues commonly run $500–$1,200 per month and are not deducted in the table above.
• Property tax under Proposition 13: New buyers reset to the statutory rate of 1.2% on the purchase price, producing roughly $19,942 a year on a median 3-bed house. This is a structural cost that neither rent strategy escapes.
• Capital appreciation: San Francisco is historically an appreciation market. Houses with land typically outperform apartments on long-run value growth, which can outweigh a one-point gross yield advantage on the apartment side over a long hold.
• Renovation and unit-mix optionality: Houses offer extensions, accessory dwelling unit conversions, and basement build-outs that apartments cannot match. California's accessory dwelling unit rules are unusually permissive and can add a second income stream to a house that no apartment can replicate.
• Financing and association rules: Some lenders restrict mortgages on small condos under 500 square feet or in buildings with high investor-to-owner ratios. Many San Francisco condo associations also impose rental caps that limit how many units can be tenant-occupied at one time.
• 4+ bed data breadth: The 4+ bed category bundles 4, 5, and 6+ bedroom listings. A small number of trophy properties can pull the median in either direction.

San Francisco Sits Far Above State and National Medians

The median 3-bed house at $1,734,060 runs 152.4% above the California median of $687,000 and 615.1% above the national median of $242,500. Rent of $3,380 per month sits 48.8% above the California median and 215.9% above the national figure. Rent has not kept pace with prices, which is exactly why gross yield is compressed at 2.2%.

This is the textbook profile of an appreciation market. Investors buying San Francisco are underwriting future capital growth and the quality of the underlying tenant pool, finance professionals, tech workers, medical staff at UCSF, rather than near-term cash flow. If cash flow is the primary objective, California's permissive Central Valley and Inland Empire ZIP codes deliver gross yields several times higher, but with weaker long-run appreciation and tenant covenants. The house-versus-apartment decision in San Francisco is therefore less about yield arithmetic and more about which asset you believe will compound faster over a 10-year hold, and whether you want exposure to land or to a share of a building.

Methodology notes are available in our market score methodology and data sources documentation. Explore rental data in the dashboard to model your own price and rent assumptions.

Data reflects market conditions as of May 2026.

This information is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial or legal advice. Regulations and market conditions change frequently. Verify current rules with local authorities before making investment decisions.