Avoid Moving to the Wrong Area of San Francisco

Some of San Francisco's most desirable and prestigious and expensive neighborhoods might be the absolute wrong neighborhood for you. Just because a neighborhood has beautiful homes or tree-lined streets or actors, athletes, and billionaires living in them doesn't mean they're the right option. And what makes San Francisco a particularly difficult market to buy in, aside from the astronomical prices and brutal competition that we're experiencing right now, is that there are nearly 90 different subpockets of San Francisco, each of them vastly different from each other, even ones that are immediately next to each other just a few blocks away. So one might potentially be a great fit for you, but a potentially disastrous fit for somebody else. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer and real estate agent in San Francisco. And unless you've spent some meaningful time here, it's really hard to get the neighborhood exactly right. After 13+ years of living in neighborhoods all over San Francisco and helping dozens of people relocate here from all across the world and from within San Francisco itself, buying something in the wrong neighborhood, I will tell you, it can absolutely wreck your budget. And it can also be disastrous for your daily life or destroy what you hoped your daily life would be. So in this this video, I'm breaking down which neighborhoods to avoid depending on what things you care about, what your priorities are. For example, if you need to commute to the South Bay, if you're prioritizing walkability, if you're prioritizing peace and quiet, or you're just looking for a good deal. I'll also tell you what neighborhoods you should be looking into if you're prioritizing any of these factors. Let's get right to it and start with where you shouldn't be moving to if you need to commute to the South Bay. I spend a ton of time on this channel talking about some of the most expensive, most desirable, and prestigious neighborhoods to live in San Francisco, places like Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Seacliff, Cow Hollow, the Marina, Lake Street, places like that. They're among my favorite places to, you know, spend time in the city. And I live in Pacific Heights and I love it. But they would be absolutely the wrong choice if you need to commute to the South Bay. These neighborhoods comprise the northernmost neighborhoods in San Francisco, and they're stunning architecturally. They have incredible walkability. They have great park access, and some of them have incredible food, nightlife, and shopping scenes to go with it. All that's great, but if you move to any of these places and you need to commute to the South Bay, you're probably going to want to pull your hair out. Each of these neighborhoods is completely disconnected from transit paths to the South Bay, principally the highway and Caltrain. If you travel by car, you're going to be taking the highway to get to the South Bay, and just getting to and from the highway every single day is going to be 20+ minutes, and it's not even a pleasant 20+ minutes. Mm-hmm. Because aside from, you know, the bikers and the pedestrians and the other drivers in San Francisco who ignore all the rules and behave erratically and ignore everyone else around them, the roads themselves are in awful condition. It is potholes galore. So it is not going to be a pleasant 20-plus minute drive. And if you take public transit to Caltrain instead of driving to the highway, you're experiencing those same issues except you're doing it on a 45-plus minute bus ride instead of a 20-plus minute car ride. So there's a lot I love about living on the north side —of the city, but if you are spending several extra hours every single week and having to deal with that after a long, hard day's work, not really worth it, especially at those price points. There are a lot of other great neighborhoods you can live that will offer a lot of the same amenities, or at least similar amenities or subset of them, and you can get those homes at substantially lower price points, and it'll just be better for your day-to-day life. For example, if you're okay with living in a condo, Maybe you want a high-rise amenity building with a doorman and that added security, and you want big views. Well, then you can move to South Beach or Yerba Buena. The neighborhoods are almost entirely flat. They have some of the best weather in San Francisco. They're close to Oracle Park, close to Chase Center. They're close to Mission Bay, close to downtown, and close to the Embarcadero. And they're some of the few remaining neighborhoods in the city where buyers still have solid leverage to get good deals. And it's ideal if you commute to the South Bay because it's walking distance or a very short bike ride to Caltrain., and it's a very short commute to get to the highway by car. If you want a single family instead of a condo, maybe you want, you know, more outdoor space or just larger space, then an area I would look at is West Portal. West Portal is a small enclave on the southwest side of the city, right next to 19th Avenue and Highway 1, which feed directly into Highway 280. And if you want to go entirely carless, you can take Muni from West Portal Station all the way to Caltrain. And you wouldn't even have to sacrifice proximity to good food and cute shopping because there is a great commercial corridor right along West Portal Ave in the heart of West Portal. There's also a great mix of historic homes in West Portal, and they come at a substantially lower price point than what you would find in any of the other neighborhoods that I talked about earlier, Pac Heights, Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow, and other similar northside neighborhoods. One downside though is that West Portal trends colder and more foggy because of its proximity to the Pacific Ocean. So if you want a single-family home,, but you want warmer weather and you need to commute to the South Bay, an area that I would look at with similar price points is Potrero Hill. It's really close to Caltrain. It's got some of the best weather in San Francisco, and it offers some great views of downtown and the bay. And prices there are more in line with San Francisco's average than, you know, homes on the North Side. Those are just a few suggestions for neighborhoods you might want to consider and might want to avoid if you need to commute to the South Bay. There are a ton of other options available to you at varying price points with different trade-offs. If you want to talk more about any of those neighborhoods or any other neighborhoods in San Francisco, reach out to me. I was a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real estate, and I've helped numerous people relocate here from all over the world. Be happy to be a resource for you. I'll drop my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. And if you like videos about San Francisco neighborhoods, lifestyle, current events, new developments, its incredible history, or all things San Francisco real estate, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. Now back to the neighborhoods that might not be great fits for you depending on your priorities. And the next category of neighborhoods I want to talk about are neighborhoods to avoid if you want walkability. One of the most popular neighborhoods in San Francisco where we are seeing absolutely insane competition and absurd price growth right now is Noe Valley. It's one of the toughest markets to get into right now. Beautiful historic homes, great parks, great weather, big-time views in a beautiful commercial corridor along 24th Street. But unless you live really close to that commercial stretch on 24th Street, it is not a neighborhood I would call by any means walkable. Noe is built almost entirely on rolling hills, and they include some of the steepest inclines in the city. So getting in and outta your car on those inclines is really annoying. And the thought of walking to or from the grocery store or a coffee shop, or even one that's like 6 blocks away, even you will sweat just even thinking about it because of how steep that walk is. Two other neighborhoods that present some walkability challenges are the Outer Sunset and the Outer Richmond. They are both mostly flat, you know, gentle rolling hills or actual flat streets, very walkable in theory. But the problem is, is that they're not very densely packed and they're so big that unless you live immediately next to the commercial corridor, it kind of feels like you're living in a food desert or retail desert. They're also much colder neighborhoods than your typical San Francisco neighborhood because they immediately border the Pacific Ocean. So those cold and fog fronts and wind fronts coming in from the ocean directly hit those neighborhoods. So you're going to be walking great distances to get to the places you need to get to, and it's not going to be the most pleasant walk from a weather perspective. Another one I'd recommend against if your focus is on walkability has become a haven for like mega-millionaires, tech millionaires, and that's Clarendon Heights. The views from the area are absolutely A+. It is near the highest elevations of any neighborhood in San Francisco, and the houses there are insane. 6,000+ square foot modern marvels, a ton of parking, huge lots. There really is a lot to love about Clarendon Heights, but it's purely residential there. No businesses, no, you know, grocery stores, no coffee shops, no restaurants, no bars, nothing. And because you're so high up, it's a pain to try and walk to any of those places to get, you know, closer to civilization where those things exist. So it is a great place to live, just not a great place to live if you want a walkable neighborhood. Some places I would recommend if you want walkability: Pacific Heights is near the top of my list. It has the hilly quality in some parts that places like Noe Valley has, except Pac Heights is a lot more dense when it comes to parks, restaurants, coffee shops, retail. So no matter where you live in Pac Heights, you're not more than a few blocks from a commercial corridor of some sort. So even though it has hills, it's really easy to get by without a car for day-to-day necessities because you're not going that far. Plus, there are actually plenty of areas of Pac Heights that are completely flat stretches where you can get to those commercial corridors without having to go up and down hills. Another neighborhood I'd look to is North Beach. It's the first neighborhood I moved to when I moved to San Francisco back in 2013. No matter where you live, you're walking distance to the main commercial corridor along Columbus and all the bars and restaurants on the streets surrounding Columbus. You're walking distance to the North Waterfront and Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. You're close to Washington Square Park. You can walk to Jackson Square, which has its own incredible food and shopping.. You can walk to downtown San Francisco. You can walk to Chinatown. I lived in North Beach for several years and actually got by without a car at all. It's one of the few neighborhoods I would say where you actually can get by without owning a vehicle. When I did own one, when I lived there, I used it maybe once a month, and I was using it so little that I ended up selling it. So for about 3 of the 5 years that I was there, didn't have a car at all and got by just fine. Another potential neighborhood to look at is one I mentioned a minute ago, and that's Jackson Square. Entirely flat. Walking distance to the waterfront, A+ food and shopping, walking distance to downtown, walking distance to North Beach. You can really get by without a car there, no problem. Both North Beach and Jackson Square are very condo-heavy neighborhoods. If you don't want a condo, if you're more focused on potentially getting a single-family home, then I would look to Pacific Heights, for example, if you can afford it. Another area that I might consider, which has a good mix of condos and single-family homes, again, if you can afford it, is the Marina. The Marina is along the North Waterfront in this kind of central portion of San Francisco, an entirely flat neighborhood, awesome collection of food and shopping along Chestnut Street. You have multiple A+ parks along the Northern Waterfront, and it has great connectivity to Marin, to the Presidio, Golden Gate Bridge, all of that. Cole Valley would be another one I would look at. It is really hilly, but it's so tiny that no matter where you're living in Cole Valley, it's not going to take you that long walking up and down those steep hills to get to grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants, and that type of stuff. And the last one I'd suggest, or at least that I'm going to talk about in this video, is The Mission. The Mission has some of the best weather in the city. Most of The Mission is flat, so it is really easy to walk around. And of all the neighborhoods that I've talked about, it's the most dense in terms of food and nightlife. Now, all of those neighborhoods that I just talked about, they're, you know, great for walkability because they're so amenity-rich. They're just packed with amenities, things to do. But the downside of that, if you're looking for an area that is peaceful and quiet, that's probably not going to be those areas. All those amenities means a lot of car traffic, a lot of foot traffic, especially people coming in on weekends and at night. So if you're prioritizing peace and quiet, not all of those neighborhoods are neighborhoods that I would necessarily recommend. North Beach, Jackson Square, the Mission, parts of Pacific Heights, the Marina, It gets very loud there and it gets very busy there, except maybe in small pockets of Pacific Heights and the Marina. Neighborhoods near Oracle Park where the San Francisco Giants play, like South Beach and near Babuena, or neighborhoods near Chase Center where the Golden State Warriors are, and near Thrive City where there are a ton of restaurants, like Mission Bay is near there. Those aren't places I would necessarily recommend living in either if you're looking for peace and quiet because of how much traffic is generated in those areas. Those are also really close to the highway, so just every single single day you're going to get that commuter traffic aside from like the recreational traffic. If you want true peace and quiet, you want a feeling like you're living in the suburbs without actually living in the suburbs, there are a few neighborhoods in San Francisco that I would suggest. St. Francis Wood, which is on the south side of the city, is one of those neighborhoods. Because of historical zoning restrictions, there are zero businesses within St. Francis Wood. It is just single-family homes, and the single-family homes there are detached from their neighbors. So you not only have a quieter environment as a general matter, like when you're outside, you also have more peace and quiet from within your home itself because you aren't hearing your neighbors blast music or, you know, watch TV or hear them argue or hear kids playing or whatever it might be. And a cool feature of St. Francis Wood is that the streets there are extra wide. So it feels like you're driving around the LA suburbs when you're in St. Francis Wood, not in a major metropolitan area like San Francisco. It's super luxe. Another area I'd recommend for peace and quiet with some similar characteristics is Seacliff, which is on the complete opposite side of the city, on the north side of the city. Like St. Francis Wood, it consists of single-family homes, Most of them are detached from their neighbors. There's no commercial, you know, businesses, commercial buildings in Seacliff. It is just residences. Seacliff does get a little bit busier than St. Francis Wood because it is connected to Baker Beach, so you do get some through traffic for beachgoers, but overall it's still a very peaceful and very quiet neighborhood. Right next to Seacliff is Lake Street, and that's another one that I would recommend. It's a very small enclave on the north side of the city, and it runs along one of San Francisco's few remaining slow streets. Slow streets were streets that were closed to through traffic during the pandemic to give residents a place to exercise outdoors with safety from traffic. Lake Street is one of those, and the neighborhood surrounding it borders Mountain Lake Park, borders the Presidio. It has a beautiful collection of historic Victorians and Edwardians. It's great for kids, it's great for dogs. It's very family friendly, very peaceful and quiet. Presidio Terrace is another one. It's the only private gated community in San Francisco. It's the most exclusive community in San Francisco. Only 36 lots in the community. All of them are detached single-family homes. It doesn't get more peaceful than that in San Francisco, except on Halloween where people come from all over the city for trick-or-treating. But aside from that, it is easily one of the quietest neighborhoods in the city. And right next door, and the last one I'm going to talk about for this category, is Presidio Heights, home to actors, athletes, titans of tech and finance, A+ views, beautiful parks, beautiful historic homes. It's why so few homes actually trade there every single year. Once people move into that neighborhood, it's very rare that they want to leave. All of those neighborhoods I just talked about are perfect if you are prioritizing peace and quiet, but they are absolutely not what I would recommend if you're just deal hunting. If your goal is to get a good deal on a piece of property, do not touch those neighborhoods. The luxuries of detached homes, extra wide streets, beautiful architecture, privacy, and seclusion— those factors do not lend themselves to good deals. When only 10 to 15 homes in a given neighborhood come up for sale every single year, a lot of people clamor at the door for them. They'll overpay. They will pay astronomical amounts of money for homes there. So it is not the place to go deal hunting. And believe it or not, in the market that we're in right now, those prices are getting even farther out of reach. Given the changes we've seen in city dynamics and the supply-demand imbalance, which I go over in another video about San Francisco's housing market, which I'll link in the description below if you want to go check it out, there are only a few neighborhoods remaining in the city city where I can genuinely say that good deals are still available. What do I mean by that? Buyers have the ability to negotiate. Buyers don't have to make decisions within a week and compete against 6, 10, or 15 other potential buyers for the same piece of property where you can actually get things for under ask or with credits. Some of the ones I've talked about already are among the best examples. Yerba Buena, South Beach, Jackson Square. Those neighborhoods were among the hardest hit during the pandemic because the main attributes are, you know, positives of those neighborhoods, or at least one of the main positive attributes of those neighborhoods is proximity to the commercial centers of San Francisco. But during the pandemic, where people didn't need or want to be near the commercial centers of San Francisco, demand for those properties fell and prices fell in those neighborhoods precipitously. Pretty much to the point where you could buy condos there in 2025 for prices that they were selling for in 2015 or even 2012 or 2010, depending on, you know, the building. Pricing has started to stabilize, and for the right units, high floors, newer condition, good views, well-run buildings, pricing is starting to shift back up. But generally speaking, demand still lags in those areas compared to most other San Francisco neighborhoods. So you have the opportunity to be the only buyer submitting an offer on a property, and you might be able to get it under ask. Another neighborhood that got hit really hard during the pandemic where you can still get great deals is Nob Hill, and it's one of the most quintessential San Francisco neighborhoods. Beautiful architecture, some of the nicest hotels in the city. Proximity to downtown, proximity to Union Square. On paper, all great qualities. But again, because of the changes we saw in city dynamics, overall demand for property in Nob Hill fell precipitously during COVID As the city picks back up, as more employees return to office, as more retail comes back, as tourism comes back, as crime keeps falling, as homelessness keeps falling, and more people move back to the city, I think Nob Hill is going to be one of the more sought-after neighborhoods and is going to be on the up and up again. But for now, it's still a good neighborhood to focus on if you're deal hunting in the city. These are just some of the factors that people prioritize when they're looking for a new home. Other people want great views, they want a robust, you know, food scene or nightlife scene. There are a number of other factors that you might be thinking about when you're thinking what the right neighborhood is for you when you're purchasing a home. And what I might have as my top 5 favorites could very well be your lowest 5 choices. So, you know, every situation is unique. Week. It's really important you consider all the factors when figuring out what the right neighborhood is for you personally. If you want some help narrowing things down as you get to know the city better, or if you just have general questions about what's been going on in our market in light of all these changes that I've been talking about, reach out to me. I've lived in San Francisco for over 13 years, and I've helped numerous people relocate here from all over the world. Happy to be a resource for you. My contact info is in the description below. Reach out anytime. And if you like videos about San Francisco real estate, neighborhoods, lifestyle, current events, new developments, or its incredible history, subscribe to my because I make videos about that stuff every single week. If you want the biggest San Francisco headlines delivered directly to your email inbox, I have a weekly newsletter that accomplishes exactly that. The link to subscribe is in the description below. I would love to have you on there. And before you go, if you want to learn more about the positive changes we're seeing across the city right now with office and retail and crime, homelessness, tourism, all of those things that are making San Francisco a place where people want to be, I'll link a video that I made about all that in the description below. Go check it out. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]