San Francisco Multifamily Market Insight

Updated November 2026 · Jackson Salamunovich, AMSI · Novo Real Estate, CA DRE 02200078

This page tracks what buyers actually pay for San Francisco apartment buildings, cut by size and district, from sales reported to the SFAR MLS. It is updated with each edition of the AMSI NOVO Market Insight; the current data runs through November 5, 2026 and covers the trailing twelve months, with 747 sales reported, 696 closed on market and 51 reported sold off market. The headline this edition: the small-building market moved up a step inside the year while larger buildings held their price and their yield. The full three-page report is available as a PDF below, and the San Francisco multifamily market report page carries the summary alongside a complimentary property review.

The backdrop: rents at a plateau, not a peak

The median asking rent across all San Francisco homes listed for rent, apartments, flats, condos and houses, is $4,540 a month, up 27% from a year ago, with 684 listings citywide at the end of October. Studios list at a median $2,800, one-bedrooms at $4,295, two-bedrooms at $6,090, and three-bedrooms at $7,285, each up 21% to 26% over the year. Month to month the citywide median is flat, and the two- and three-bedroom medians slipped slightly from September. The year-over-year figure widened from 24% to 27% not because rents accelerated but because October 2025 was a softer base than September 2025. Read it as a high plateau.

CoStar data licensed to Novo Real Estate reads the same from the building side: occupancy across the city’s apartment inventory is within a hair of its ten-year high, asking rents are at a ten-year high, and year-over-year rent growth is running at roughly five times its ten-year average, though it has come off the peak pace it printed in September. Fewer than 800 new units were delivered citywide in the past year and the construction pipeline is under 1% of existing stock. CoStar’s own commentary attributes demand to technology hiring tied to artificial intelligence, return-to-office policies, and mortgage rates that keep would-be buyers renting.

The sliding scale by size, and what moved

Median, trailing 12 months 2 to 4 units 5 to 15 units 16 or more units
Sales reported 539 171 33
Price per unit $812,500 $383,333 $247,059
Price per square foot $680 $456 $351
Gross rent multiple 15.5x 11.9x 9.9x
Cap rate 4.8% 5.7% 6.4%
Sold over asking 60% 36% 24%

The structure holds edition after edition: on a per-unit basis a duplex or triplex sells for roughly twice what a six-unit building brings and more than three times what a twenty-unit building brings, and buyers demand about 160 basis points more yield as buildings get bigger. What changed this year is the level in the smallest band, and a trailing median understates it because it blends old and new sales. Split the window in half and it is plain: two to four unit buildings closed in the first six months sold for a median $743,000 per unit; buildings closed in the recent six months sold for $857,500. Cap rates compressed from 5.0% to 4.6% across the same two halves, and 65% of the recent half sold over asking. The larger bands moved far less. Small buildings are a bidding market driven by owner-occupiers and residential financing; larger buildings are priced on income by investors with commercial loans, and income is what has to move before their prices do.

The neighborhood grid: two to four unit buildings

District Sales Price per unit Per sq ft Cap rate
Marina / Cow Hollow / Pacific Heights 61 $1,492,500 $967 4.1%
Noe Valley / Castro / Haight 113 $1,141,250 $832 4.9%
Richmond / Lake District 109 $829,167 $635 4.2%
Hayes Valley / NoPa / Western Addition 39 $800,000 $661 4.8%
Downtown / Nob Hill / Tenderloin / North Beach 52 $779,167 $601 4.9%
Sunset / Parkside 55 $760,000 $657 5.0%
Mission / SoMa / Bernal / Potrero 73 $580,000 $511 6.0%

Noe Valley, the Castro and the Haight are now the most active small-building market in the city, with 113 sales at a median $1,141,250 per unit, and they crossed the $1 million per unit mark this period. The Richmond and Lake District follows at 109 sales and $829,167. The Marina carries the highest prices and lowest yields; the Mission the highest yields. The market did not rise uniformly: it rose where buyers compete hardest for owner-occupier product, in the central and northern districts, and held in the west and south. Cap rates are shown only where enough sales reported income, and they come from on-market sales.

Larger buildings

Buildings of sixteen or more units cleared mostly in Downtown, Nob Hill, and the Tenderloin: 19 of the 33 sales, at a median $162,500 per unit, $307 per square foot, 8.2 times rent, and a 7.2% cap rate. That segment remains the one place in the city where pricing per unit has not moved this year. The median building sold citywide was built in 1912.

What this means for owners

Price per unit, price per square foot, and the multiple of rent a buyer will pay are the three numbers that value a building, and all three moved this year, unevenly. Buyers paid a median $1.49 million per unit for small buildings in the Marina and $1.14 million in Noe Valley, the Castro, and the Haight, against $580,000 in the Mission. A comparable from early this year can already be well behind in some districts and current in others, and the only way to know which applies to a given building is to look at the sales around it in the last six months, not the last twelve.

If you own two to four units in a central or northern district, the number moved in your favor within this year and the trailing figures understate it. If you own five to fifteen, buyers are paying slightly more for the same income than they were in the spring. If you own sixteen or more, the market is stable and yield-driven. On the leasing side, a plateau is where pricing decisions get harder, not easier: a vacant unit priced off last spring’s momentum sits empty, and one priced off a stale comp is mispriced from day one.

The summary of this edition, with a complimentary preliminary broker opinion of value and market analysis, is on the San Francisco multifamily market report page. If you would like to know where a specific building sits in this grid, reach out.

Editions

The full Market Insight is published as a PDF and this page is updated with each edition.

Jackson Salamunovich · AMSI · Novo Real Estate · CA DRE 02200078 · (415) 969-3694 · jackson@realestatenovo.com

Sources and notes. Sales: based on information from the San Francisco Association of REALTORS MLS as of November 5, 2026; 747 Residential Income sales reported, 696 closed on market and 51 reported sold off market, city of San Francisco, trailing twelve months; not guaranteed. Size bands by unit count; all figures are medians; rent multiples and cap rates use gross scheduled income and net operating income as reported on the listing, from on-market sales, and are shown only where enough sales reported income; neighborhoods are SFAR MLS districts. The September 2026 edition counted on-market closings only, so figures are not directly comparable edition to edition. Rent figures: Zumper Rent Research, San Francisco, data to October 31, 2026, medians of active listings across all rental types. Market context: CoStar Group, San Francisco multifamily analytics and market report, November 2026, licensed to Novo Real Estate. For informational purposes only; not investment advice.