The Changing Landscape of the City
Long time San Francisco residents will notice something strange in the above charts: historically inexpensive neighborhoods, especially downtown and the surrounding areas, are now some of the most expensive...Over the past year, rents have continued to increase, but not uniformly. Asking rents have increased tremendously downtown, mid-market, and in the southern part of the city that offers the shortest commutes to the South Bay.

They looked at every home that was sold in the years 2003 and 2013, then compared the median sale prices, adjusting the 2003 prices for inflation.

What they found from comparing the more than 6,000 transactions completed in San Francisco in 2003, and the 8,000 done in 2013, was that prices are indeed on the rise in most parts of the city.  


"It's a very hot, hot market, and this really underscores everything else everyone is talking about in San Francisco," Jorisch said. "Whether it's the rental market or sales market, there's not much available in San Francisco, and if you're intending to live there, it's costly. It's the best example of supply and demand out there." 

SF Examiner:
It’s a concentration of more than 50 cloud-computing companies that have set up shop between Market Street and AT&T Park. Today’s Cloud Corridor is roughly located in what used to be called the Multimedia Gulch during the first dot-com era. Names come and go. But with our digital lives moving to the cloud, these techies claim their innovations will determine the future as much as Silicon Valley has transformed our lives already.

Such impact requires a memorable name.

Is Cloud Corridor a marketing ploy? Sure. But so was Silicon Valley. No one called it that until 1971. The media forever branded it the place where cool stuff happens.

Names matter because any city that gets to coin the zeitgeist’s next big tech destination will enjoy economic benefits for decades to come. Based on the venture capital dollars flowing into San Francisco, we’re already being called the “new” Silicon Valley. But we deserve a unique name.

Median rents for one-bedroom apartments by neighborhood in San Francisco (Zumper).

The apartment rental startup Zumper has updated its maps of the median rents for one and two bedroom apartments in San Francisco by neighborhood. It found that the median price for a one-bedroom in the city is now $2,764. The median price for a two-bedroom is $4,000.
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The median is the numerical value separating the higher half of a data set from the lower half.

In San Francisco, these rates vary substantially depending on which part of town you're looking in. Much like its notorious micro-climates, the city features micro-pockets of relatively affordable rental units.

For example, here are the three most expensive neighborhoods to rent a one-bedroom:

South Beach - $3500
Russian Hill - $3410
Financial District - $3350

And here are the three least expensive neighborhoods to rent a one-bedroom:

Outer Richmond - $1850
Outer Sunset - $1975
Inner Richmond - $2015

As for the three most expensive neighborhoods to rent a two-bedroom:

Financial District - $5800
Marina - $5450
Cow Hollow - $5400

And the three least expensive neighborhoods to rent a two-bedroom:

Outer Mission/Excelsior - $2460
Outer Sunset - $2525
Lakeshore - $2640

Zumper Co-Founder & CEO Anthemos Georgiades explained the methodology the company uses to construct these maps:

• "We use medians for the average prices to discount outlier listings and so as to not over/understate the real prices."
• "These May 2013 asking rents are perhaps different to what some readers may currently be paying if they rented a few years ago or if they are still paying rent- controlled prices. However, these are the current prevailing prices for available apartments on the market today."
• "Most units on the market tend to be newer (read: non-rent controlled) developments built post-1979, since they experience more turnover. These units are often renovated with many more amenities than their rent-controlled counterparts, making them more expensive."

As for the "least expensive" neighborhoods on the list, this too is a relative matter, especially for low-income families. Earlier this year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition reported that San Francisco is thesecond least affordable rental market among all U.S.cities, after Honolulu.

The rental situation is driving some of those seeking apartments to take extreme measures to enhance their chances.