Office
The deepest discount in America — for buyers who can tell character from commodity
No U.S. market repriced office harder than San Francisco, and no market offers a wider spread between the assets that will recover and the ones that won't. The winners in the $2M–$20M band are character buildings: Jackson Square brick-and-timber, smaller pre-war FiDi buildings with operable windows and identity, SOMA warehouse conversions with the high ceilings AI tenants keep signing for. The losers are commodity floors in buildings with no story and big capital needs.
Two ways to win: buy character office at a fraction of replacement cost and lease into the recovering boutique market, or buy functionally obsolete office cheap enough that residential conversion — which the city is actively incentivizing — becomes the exit. Both require honest capital-expenditure math up front; I build that into every office underwrite.
Retail
Two markets wearing one label: corridors vs. core
San Francisco retail is a tale of two products. Neighborhood corridor retail — Clement, Irving, Noriega, 24th Street, Chestnut, Hayes — is daily-needs space serving dense housing, and it stayed leased through the entire downturn. It trades $1M–$6M, often with decade-plus tenants, and it's the most defensive income in the city. Core retail — Union Square and the downtown blocks — repriced dramatically and now rewards buyers who can carry space while the district's next tenant mix forms.
Underwriting retail here means reading the corridor, not just the lease: pedestrian counts, tenant mix maturity, parking and transit patterns, and whether the operator category (food, services, medical) is one that survives every cycle. That's street-level knowledge, and it's exactly what I bring to each candidate building.
Mixed-Use
The signature SF asset: storefront below, flats above, two income streams
Walk any commercial corridor in San Francisco and you're looking at the city's defining investment product: a two-to-four-story building with retail at sidewalk level and apartments upstairs. The income diversification is structural — when office sneezed, the flats kept paying; when residential rents paused, the taqueria's lease didn't.
These buildings dominate the $1.5M–$8M band across the Mission, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Chinatown and the avenues. The value-add menu is rich: re-tenant a tired storefront, renovate units on turnover, capture below-market legacy rents over time. They're also the most common landing spot for my 1031 exchange and out-of-state buyers — enough income to matter, small enough to avoid institutional bidding wars.
Multifamily (5+ Units)
Rent-ordinance fluency required · patient money's favorite SF asset
San Francisco apartment buildings of five or more units are trading at cap rates the city hasn't offered in fifteen years, in a market where the housing shortage is measured in decades. Pre-1979 buildings sit under the Rent Ordinance: increases on sitting tenants are capped, vacancies reset to market. That single rule shapes everything — a building full of long-tenured, below-market tenants trades at a discount that is also, over a hold period, its upside.
Serious multifamily underwriting here covers tenant profile and turnover history, soft-story seismic status, banked passthroughs, and realistic operating costs — insurance and city fees have moved. Get those right and SF multifamily is what it's always been: the asset patient capital never regrets. Get them wrong and the pro forma is fiction. I've seen both files; I'll make sure yours is the first kind.
Industrial & PDR
The scarcest asset in the city · last-mile economics · zoning-protected supply
Inside city limits, industrial space is nearly extinct by design — and what remains, concentrated in Bayview, Dogpatch and southern SOMA, is protected by PDR zoning that blocks conversion to shinier uses. Warehouses on Evans and Cargo Way, food-production buildings, contractor yards along the Third Street spine: this is the infrastructure that services an entire city from within it.
The investment case is simple scarcity. Last-mile delivery, trades businesses and makers all need to be near their customers, supply cannot grow, and per-foot pricing still trails every northern district. Listings are infrequent and often trade to the fastest credible buyer — which is why my industrial clients get called before the sign goes up, not after.
Matching the Asset to the Investor
First commercial buy
Corridor retail or small mixed-use: understandable tenants, real day-one income, $1M–$5M entry.
1031 exchange landing
Mixed-use and multifamily match exchange equity well and exist in enough depth to beat the 45-day clock.
Yield-first mandate
Bayview/Dogpatch industrial and avenue retail carry the strongest in-place returns in the city.
Value-add appetite
Under-rented Mission walk-ups, tired storefronts on strong corridors, character office with lease-up stories.
Contrarian conviction
FiDi and Union Square repricing — the widest discount, the longest runway, the boldest bet.
Long-hold family capital
Rent-ordinance multifamily in established neighborhoods: slow, compounding, generational.
Property Type FAQ
Is SF office actually investable again?
Character buildings, yes — boutique space is leasing and priced far below replacement. Commodity space remains a conversion-or-carry bet. Knowing which file you're holding is the whole game.
How does rent control change apartment underwriting?
Pre-June-1979 buildings cap increases on sitting tenants but reset to market on vacancy — so tenant tenure and turnover history drive value more than the current rent roll. I underwrite both the income you buy and the income the building can become.
Why do investors target SF mixed-use specifically?
Two income streams under one roof, corridor locations with permanent foot traffic, and a price band ($1.5M–$8M) below institutional radar. It's the most resilient structure in the SF inventory.
Is there enough industrial in San Francisco to bother with?
Little supply is precisely the thesis: PDR zoning prevents new competition and conversion, while last-mile demand grows. You don't buy SF industrial for volume — you buy it because nobody can build more.
Which property type should I start with?
For most buyers: corridor retail or mixed-use. But mandate, financing and risk appetite decide it — bring me those three things and I'll bring you a shortlist.