I've Lived In Pacific Heights SF For 4 Years: My Honest Review
In this 20‑minute vlog, Austin Klar—formerly a corporate lawyer turned Bay Area real‑estate agent—shares an in‑depth, personal review of living in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood. He explains why he and his boyfriend moved there during the early COVID era, describing the blend of urban convenience and suburban tranquility that attracted them. Klar outlines the diverse housing stock, from modest 1,300‑sq‑ft Victorian duplexes to sprawling mansions on Billionaires Row, and provides concrete median price data for single‑family homes ($5.65 M) and condos ($1.65 M) in 2023, highlighting the cost premium versus the rest of the city. He discusses walkability, the flat east‑west streets, hills that offer views, and the fact that a car is not essential for daily life, though parking can be challenging. The video details nearby amenities—Alta Plaza and Lafayette parks, the Presidio, Fillmore and Sacramento Streets’ restaurants (including Michelin‑starred spots), and proximity to other vibrant neighborhoods. Klar balances these positives with cons: a 45‑minute walk to downtown, limited housing density and inventory, a subdued nightlife scene, scarce parking, and modest yard space unless one can afford a multi‑million‑dollar property. Throughout, he positions himself as a knowledgeable real‑estate professional, offering viewers contact information, links to related videos (including a neighborhood ranking series), and an invitation to schedule a consultation. The overall tone is candid, conversational, and aimed at helping prospective Bay Area movers make an informed decision.
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We moved to Pacific Heights over 3 years ago, and honestly, it was one of the best decisions we ever made. But while we do love a lot about living here, there are some things we don't like as well. And in this video, I'm gonna give you my honest review of living in Pacific Heights, the pros and the cons, so that you have enough information to decide whether Pacific Heights is really the right neighborhood for you, and hopefully save you some money and time, you know, driving around, watching a bunch of videos, reading a bunch of blogs, and give you all the information you need in one place. Pacific Heights is located right next to Presidio Heights, which is consistently one of San Francisco's most expensive and most exclusive neighborhoods. I have a separate video about it on my channel. I'll link it in the description below. But Pacific Heights is located in a perfect spot. It is the perfect blend of urban and suburban life. You're close to a lot of the action—shops, bars, and restaurants—but you also have some incredibly quiet streets with gorgeous real estate and incredible views. And in this video, I'm going to break down all the pluses and minuses about living in Pacific Heights. What's up everyone, this is Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County. I moved to San Francisco over a decade ago to work as a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world, representing Fortune 500 companies and C-suite executives in state and federal courts across the country, and now I represent buyers and sellers in one of the largest financial decisions of their lives, their homes. Throughout my years living here, working very closely with all types of buyers and sellers, I've learned the ins and outs of buying in the right and wrong areas. And now I create these videos because I love the Bay Area. I love San Francisco and Marin County, the food, the architecture, the views, the history. So if you love any of that too and you want to know more about what it's like living in San Francisco or Marin County, then this is definitely the channel for you. Make sure to subscribe so you stay notified about my latest videos. So why do we move here in the first place? I was living with my ex-boyfriend at the time in SoMa, which is near downtown. Long story for another time. It's not as crazy as it sounds, but I'd been with my now current boyfriend for a year and a half at that time, and we wanted to move in together. He was living in Presidio Heights at the time in a, you know, century-old, very historic home. He worked in Marin County, which is just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, you know, north of San Francisco. I was near my office, but we weren't going into the office very much. It was the start of COVID You know, everybody was doing remote work. My law firm was doing fully remote work, so I never had to go in, and my boyfriend didn't want to live on the south side of the city because he actually was still going into the office for the most part. You know, his work is not very remote-focused. They didn't allow remote work. They were doing remote work at the very start of COVID but the second in-office was allowed again under the law, they were back in the office. He's an architect. They got drawings all over the walls. They're always in the office. So he didn't want to live on the south side of San Francisco. He wanted to live on the north side to make his commute a lot easier. And I didn't really care that it wasn't, you know, walking distance to downtown anymore because I wasn't going into the office very much and thought I wouldn't be going in for the foreseeable future, which actually ended up being true. And he wanted to live in something similar to what he was living in at the time. Like I said, a century-old house. He didn't want to live in like the modern high-rise condo, which is kind of what I was living in at the time, like an amenity building in SoMa. And Pac Heights has a lot of that and it's on the north side of San Francisco. So after searching for a couple of months, we found the place that we live in right now, which is, you know, only a few blocks away from where my boyfriend was living before. Uh, it's an Italianate Victorian that was built in the 1860s. It was recently renovated. We absolutely love it. It's got that classic San Francisco Victorian architecture with the shotgun hallway and this like huge great room. Hands down the nicest place I've ever lived in. We love it. And you know, it's, it's nothing crazy. 1,300 square feet, 2 bed, 1 bath. It's a duplex. We live on the lower level. It's got 11-foot ceilings, which I absolutely love. It makes everything feel so much bigger. And the area has a lot of that kind of stuff. You have a lot of, you know, smaller condos, a lot of old Victorian homes and old, old homes generally that were turned into condos, turned into duplexes or triplexes depending on how big the house is. You also have, you know, the complete opposite of that in Pacific Heights, these like massive 11,000 square foot, 15,000 square foot mansions in, you know, for example, on Broadway's Gold Coast, which is known as Billionaires Row. Of San Francisco. It's a 3-block stretch of Broadway in Pacific Heights between Divisadero and Lyon Streets with some of those bonkers mansions that you'll ever see in your lifetime, and the views are insane. But that's kind of the range of living accommodations in Pac Heights. You have kind of smaller condo-type living, you have these massive extravagant mansions, you've also got a very, very small subset of like modern high-rise or mid-rise type living in the city. and some like old, very luxurious co-op buildings. From a cost standpoint, it is one of the most expensive neighborhoods to live in. Just to give you an idea, the median home price for a single-family home in Pacific Heights in 2023 was $5.65 million compared to the rest of San Francisco, which is about $1.55 million. About over $1,400 a foot in Pac Heights versus, you know, a little under $1,000 a foot in the rest of San Francisco. So significantly more expensive to own a single-family home here. And for condos, you know, similar situation. It's about $1.65 million median price for a condo compared to about $1.125 million in the rest of San Francisco. A little over $1,100 a foot for a condo in Pac Heights versus a little under $1,000 a foot in the rest of San Francisco. So it is definitely not a cheap place to live. These are just median prices. So, you know, 50% of living accommodations are going to cost less than that. 50% are going to cost more than that. But that's where it roughly shakes out from a median home price standpoint. Thank you. Not every single-family home here is going to cost $5.5 million. Not every condo here is going to cost, you know, $1.5 million. There are some that cost less than that, and there are some that cost more than that. But that's just to give you kind of an idea of where it shakes out compared to the rest of San Francisco. Based on these crazy numbers and just walking around the neighborhood and seeing what kind of houses are here and what the views are, you know, you would probably think that everything here is going to be prohibitively expensive, but that's not the case. I mean, we were able to find something that was affordable, at least for us, and we have plenty of space. We have a great yard. We absolutely love where we live. Just, you know, depends on your lifestyle. I think really people just think it costs more than it truly does to live here, at least, you know, in a normal living situation, you know, setting aside like the crazy extravagant mansions. But, you know, it actually can be relatively reasonable depending on what you're after. Another thing we thought, you know, moving here, I hadn't lived on like this side of the city before moving here. And, you know, just looking at it, it's pretty hilly. So, you know, one of my favorite things about San Francisco is how walkable it is. And I was afraid potentially of losing that, you know, moving here. But that turned out not to be the case at all. All the streets east to west basically are flat, so it is still very walkable. Yeah, if you want to get to certain places, uh, you know, depending on where you are, you are going to have to walk up and down some hills. But hey, it's great exercise, and the hills are how you get those amazing views of the city, of the Golden Gate Bridge, of Alcatraz, of the bay. It's awesome. And also, just, you know, another thing I kind of expected moving here was, you know, just based on the home types and the profile of people who would own these types of places, I thought that maybe they wouldn't be the most friendly, but that turned out not to be the case at all. You know, you can walk outside and everybody's saying hi to each other. Everybody's with their kids or walking their dogs. It is super, you know, community-oriented, very friendly. And a question I get from a lot of people, you know, moving to San Francisco generally, but in particular moving here, is, you know, whether or not they need a car. Before getting into real estate, when I was a lawyer, I didn't own a car. I walked to work, as I mentioned before. I walked to the gym. I to the grocery store. Didn't need one whatsoever. The only reason I have a car right now is because, you know, I drive all over the city looking at places. I drive up to Marin County looking at places. I need a car for my business. But if I wasn't in real estate, I still wouldn't own a car to this day. So for day-to-day life, you really don't need a car here. You're walking distance to shops, bars, restaurants. You're a little bit further away from a gym depending on where you live. Closest gym to me is Equinox, and it's about a 20-minute walk, and I walk that walk all the time. Do go up and down some hills, but not a big deal. It's a great way to warm up. So, you know, bottom line, you don't really need a car if you're living here. And if you happen to need to get somewhere, obviously you can, you can use a bike, you can take an Uber or Lyft. There's also a bus system that can get you pretty much anywhere in town. The weather in Pacific Heights is also pretty great by San Francisco standards. You are far enough away from the Pacific Ocean and like the main fog zones of the city that you don't get a super heavy cold and fog front. You're not in a place like in the valleys of San Francisco where it gets like super, super warm. It's a— you're kind of right in the middle of those two extremes. So the weather here, by and large, is very middle of the road, very pleasant. Yes, it is going to get foggy sometimes. It is going to get cold sometimes. But like, I mean, look where I'm filming right now today. It is absolutely stunning. It's 60 degrees out. I couldn't ask for a nicer day. And that very middle of the road weather really lends itself to the great quality of life you get living in a place like Pacific Heights. Walking distance to some great parks in the city. Alta Plaza Park, my personal favorite, is a block away from where I live. It's a terraced park with, you know, incredible views of the city to the south, which you can see right behind me. On the other side, you get views of the water. You could see Alcatraz and San Francisco Bay. There are tennis courts here, basketball courts. There's a children's playground. It's relatively flat on the north side of the park. So like people have picnics there. People bring their dogs there all the time. Lafayette Park, which is several blocks east of Alta Plaza Park, is a very similar style park, just in a different part of Pacific Heights. You're also about a 5-minute drive or about a 15-minute walk from the Presidio, which is one of the most beautiful parks in San Francisco with insane views of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. You're walking distance to the shops and restaurants on Fillmore Street, which have, you know, kind of trendier, some chains, but some boutiques like restaurants and shops. You've got Sacramento Street, which is home to a lot of great interior design studios and stores. There are also Michelin restaurants on Sacramento Street. My personal favorite, Spruce, used to have a star, doesn't anymore. Food hasn't changed, still amazing. You've got Sorelle, which has a Michelin star, and then you have great spots like Sociale. You've got great brunch spots like As Quoted. There's so many great restaurants on Sacramento Street. And then you're also a very short drive, just a couple minutes away from Union Street in Cow Hollow, Chestnut Street in the Marina, and Clement Street, like, in Richmond, which has a whole bunch of Asian food. There's so much variety. In and around Pacific Heights. So you're in the center of so much great stuff. Now, what's not so great about living here? Well, first, it's not walkable to downtown. That was one of the— my favorite things about living where I used to live is that when I needed to go downtown or wanted to go downtown, you know, to Union Square to go shopping or any restaurants in Financial District, some of which are my favorite in the city, I could just walk there. I can't do that anymore. So I kind of miss that a little bit. If that's a priority for you, then maybe this isn't the right place for you. If you did want to walk from here, it would take about 45 minutes to get there. Another thing I would change, there isn't really a lot of housing options here. It's not the most dense housing population here. You don't see a lot of high-rise buildings here. There are some, but for the most part, they are either single-family homes or single-family homes that have been turned into multi-unit, you know, small 2 to 4 unit buildings. So by and large, it is not a very dense area. And as a result of that, you don't always have a huge selection of available inventory, you know, whether from a rental perspective or a purchase perspective. At any given point. And that's one of the reasons why this area is so expensive, setting aside, you know, all the very desirable reasons people want to live here. There's just not that much optionality, so that's why it gets very expensive. Another thing that, you know, is not so great about living here, I did mention like there are bars in on like Fillmore Street, for example, but if you're looking for sort of a more active nightlife scene, this really isn't the place for that. By and large, the bars and restaurants on Fillmore Street close relatively early. It's not the kind of late-night place. If you're looking for more of like a party vibe place, then you want to go to places more like the Marina or the Castro or the Mission. You know, that's not what you're going to get here. And as a result of that, you know, there aren't as many single people here, I find. I think if you are single and you're looking for that, this probably isn't the right place for you unless you're okay with, you know, walking a bit to get to those places or driving a bit to get to those places. Another thing I don't really like about living here, and this is pretty much true all over the city. I actually think it's a little bit better here than in other parts of the city, is a complete lack of parking. If you don't have a garage spot, you're going to be relegated to street parking, and sometimes, especially on street cleaning days, you're going to be driving around many, many blocks looking for parking. It can get really annoying. Another thing I don't like about living here, and this is generally true in a lot of parts of San Francisco, but it's especially true in certain parts of Pacific Heights, is that, you know, you shouldn't expect a lot of yard space unless you have, you know, $5+ million to spend, which I know a lot of people don't have that. So if, you know, a ton of outdoor space on your property is a priority, I wouldn't recommend living in Pacific Heights necessarily unless you have the budget to afford something very extravagant. Um, but you do have, you know, all the parks that I mentioned very close by. So they're, you know, almost in your backyard. So if you made it to this point in the video, chances are you're probably looking to relocate somewhere in the Bay Area. I've helped so many people find the perfect home and get super smart about what's going on in the market. If you'd like help with your search, definitely reach out to me. My contact information's in the description below. There's also a link you can use to schedule a call with me directly, or you can just shoot me a text. And if you wanna learn more about this area or, you know, what it's like living in San Francisco more generally, go check out a video that I made where I rank different neighborhoods from D-list all the way to S-list, which is like my, my super awesome tier above A-list. I talk about a whole bunch of different neighborhoods in the city. There are over 80 districts in the area. I don't talk about every single one, but grouped a bunch of my favorites and my not so least favorites so you can get a little bit better of idea of, you know, where things rank in relation to each other in the city. And that's it for this one. I'll see you on the next one.
