San Francisco's HIDDEN Ultra-Luxury Neighborhood (Cow Hollow)

If you want the perks that come with living in some of the most expensive neighborhoods in San Francisco without having to actually pay the price that comes with living in those neighborhoods, then the Cow Hollow neighborhood on San Francisco's north side needs to be on your radar. Its grand homes, some of which even have Hollywood pedigree, rival the beautiful homes you can get in the most expensive places in the city like Pacific and Presidio Heights, but at lower price points without having to sacrifice the beautiful views and access to incredible amenities. I'm Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County, and in this video, I'm going to take you through the Cow Hollow neighborhood and show you what it's all about. First, I'm going to give you an incredible overview of the location and then dive into the lifestyle. So let's kick it off with the location. Where exactly is Cow Hollow? Cow Hollow is on the north side of the city, spanning from Lombard to Green Streets north to south and Van Ness to the Presidio east to west. It's right next to some of the city's most popular neighborhoods, including Pacific Heights to the south, the Marina to the north, and Russian Hill to the east. I'm going to talk about all the amenities that you get living close to all of those great neighborhoods, but first I'm going to focus on what is actually in Cow Hollow itself. It's one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city. It is awesome. And all the stuff that you get access to in the immediately surrounding neighborhoods is just icing on the cake. By the way, if you want to learn even more about the neighborhood, how it stacks up to other neighborhoods in San Francisco, or what's going on in the market there, reach out to me. I've lived in San Francisco for over a decade and have helped numerous people relocate from all over the country. I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. Now back to what it's like living in Cow Hollow. And because of that central location that I talked about on the north side of San Francisco, San Francisco, you actually have relatively mild weather by San Francisco standards. A lot of the cold and fog fronts that ordinarily come in from the Pacific Ocean don't always make it as far inland as Cow Hollow, so you don't tend to have as cold or as foggy weather as you would living closer to the Pacific Ocean, like in the Sunset and the Richmond areas. Of course, it also doesn't get as warm as places like SoMa or Mission Bay closer to the east side and the Central Waterfront. It's a happy medium in between those two extremes of San Francisco. The neighborhood is a mix of hilly flat streets. If you're traveling north-south throughout the neighborhood, you're going to have hilly streets. If you're traveling east to west, as you get closer to the Visadaro Street, that's really the peak height of the neighborhoods, you are going to have hilly streets there. But there are portions further east in the neighborhood that are actually very flat and walkable. Really, once you get closer to Fillmore and you get east of Fillmore heading toward Van Ness, the area is much flatter, much easier to walk around. And believe me, if you live in the neighborhood, you're going to want to be out and about because there are so many things to do in Cow Hollow. The main commercial corridor in Cow Cow Hollow is Union Street. You've got multiple gyms and exercise studios. There's a Crunch Fitness, there's an Equinox, there are yoga studios, Pilates studios, SoulCycle, a ton of different options for exercise, which you don't get living in more expensive neighborhoods like Pacific or Presidio Heights, where there's none of that. I live in Pacific Heights and I have to go to the Equinox in Cow Hollow to get a workout in if I want to work out at a gym. I don't have that perk living in Pac Heights. You also have a great collection of bars either on or immediately off of Union Street. Balboa Cafe is probably my favorite in Cow Hollow, really well known for their espresso martinis. They also serve great food. You've also got the Brixton, Bus Stop, Wine Bar Celeste, and a ton of other options if you're looking for a night out. You also have a pretty wide variety of food, Mexican food, American food, Italian food, ton of different options in the area. Mama's Luncheonette right off Union Street on Buchanan is this little hole-in-the-wall spot that serves incredible chicken Caesar salad wraps. It's becoming one of the most popular places in all of San Francisco. Lines at the door pretty much at all times. Another great spot in the area, Rosa's Cafe, one of my go-to brunch spots in the city. Incredible breakfast pizza in a really awesome location right on Union Street. There are also multiple flower shops. There are cute grocery stores. Luke's Local Grocery Store is this really awesome boutique grocer on Union Street. They make great pre-made food if you want to get breakfast or lunch on the go. And then there are a ton of actual like retail shops and boutiques there. Some big name stuff like Lululemon, Vioree, Joe Malone, and then you have more boutique like one-off shops there too. And since generally speaking, the neighborhood isn't very big, no matter where you live in the Cow Hollow neighborhood, you're going to be relatively close, either, you know, a couple of minutes walking or driving or biking to all of these awesome places on or around Union Street. But I mentioned earlier, you are also close to a ton of other great neighborhoods with a lot of these things as well. A lot of great restaurants, bars, and shops. You've got the incredible shopping scene and dining scene on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights immediately to the south. You have Polk Street and Hyde Streets in Russian Hill immediately to the east, and you have Chestnut Street in the Marina immediately to the north. So if for some reason you're not able to get what you want immediately on Union Street in Cow Hollow, there are a ton of options really close by in the immediately surrounding neighborhood. Now, the downside of having so much to do in the area is that it gets really busy and parking can be really challenging. So if you're buying a place in Cow Hollow, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you buy a place that has parking. You can definitely get by without a car because you do have so many things in the immediate vicinity, especially if you work from home. But not everybody's going to have that luxury, and even people that do will still probably want to have a car available to use once in a while. So highly recommend having parking because street parking can be incredibly difficult. And if you have family or friends visiting, you know, they might have cars and they're going to need parking as well. You might want to take a car to Napa or Sonoma or to go hiking in Marin, or you might have to drive downtown either for work or you want to go shopping near Union Square, or maybe you commute to the south side of the city or to the South Bay you might want a car. So highly recommend buying a place that has parking. And another reason parking is difficult and it gets so busy in the area is because there are also a ton of outdoor amenities in the area as well. You have two small parks in Cow Hollow, Aleen Park and Cow Hollow Playground. Great for kids, walking your dog. One of the most famous homes in San Francisco, one of its octagon houses called the McElroy Octagon House, is actually in Aleen Park. It was built in the 1860s and it's now a museum. Cool to see the structure preserved, and it's a really interesting, unique feature of this specific park. And if you want a larger green space, you have the Presidio to the west, nearly 1,500-acre national park with tennis courts, basketball courts, pickleball courts, golf course, incredible views of the city and north to the bay. They have food trucks that come to the open green spaces, the picnic spaces in the area. There's also a food hall opening in the Presidio next year. You've got the Presidio Tunnel Tops. There's so much to do in the Presidio. You also have the Marina Green and Crissy Field., you know, 15 to 20+ minute walk from parts of Cow Hollow to the north. These are huge open green spaces literally on the North Waterfront in San Francisco. So you have unobstructed views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Bay, the Marin Headlands, Alcatraz. It's incredible. If you live in Cow Hollow, you're also close to Fort Mason, which is a former military site that's now used for exhibitions and, you know, food truck festivals. And they have a ton of great restaurants coffee shops, and art stores there. A few blocks to the south in Pacific Heights, you have Lafayette Park and Alta Plaza Park. Depending on which part of Cow Hollow you live in, you'll go to one or the other because they're on the east and west ends of those neighborhoods. These are both terraced parks with playgrounds, basketball courts, tennis courts, incredible views of the city to the south and to the east, and children's play areas, picnic spaces, you name it. So if you want a bigger park than what you can get at Cow Hollow Playground or Lean Park, you have a ton of options in the immediate vicinity. Maybe you're throwing a kid's birthday party or you are doing something for Fleet Week, you have those options available to you. And there are also some pretty well-known locations in Cow Hollow. I mentioned the famous Octagon House before, but there are some others too. The first one, one of my favorites, is the Lyon Street Steps. The steps run from the edge of Billionaires Row in Pacific Heights all the way down the hill to Cow Hollow, one of the most popular spots to exercise outdoors in San Francisco. If you come here on the weekend, you will see people jogging or walking up and down the stairs, taking in the incredible architecture surrounding the stairs and those beautiful views. Sometimes you'll even see people working out at the landing at the top of the stairs, jump roping, doing push-ups, working with trainers. I've seen all of that. It's a great outdoor exercise spot and it is super picturesque. At the top of the stairs, you have incredible views all the way across the bay. You're also surrounded by Billionaires Row of San Francisco. So some of the most absurd real estate on that street. And at the base of the Lyon Street steps, you probably have the most famous location in all of Cow Hollow, the Princess Diaries house. This was actually used as the facade for the school in the movie The Princess Diaries, but in real life,— it's a single-family residence. You see people outside taking photos in front of the house all the time. It is a very well-known spot. The home itself is gorgeous and embodies a lot of the characteristics of some of the grand homes that you'll see, especially on the west side of Cow Hollow, where the homes tend to be larger than the east side. You've got things like the historic moldings and details to the incredible north-facing views, views of the bay, views of Alcatraz, and views out east of the city. And that's just a taste of the incredible architecture that you get living in Cow Hollow. Like I said, this home, the Princess Diaries home, is on the far west side of Cow Hollow, abutting the Presidio. And as a general rule, the farther west you get in Cow Hollow, the more expensive the homes are going to be, in part because a lot of those homes are larger and tend to have the best views. You have a lot of classic Victorians, Edwardians, some colonial-style homes, but there's also a mix of more modern homes as well. There also aren't as many condos on the west side of Cow Hollow. You do have some, you know, 2 or 3, you know, very small multi-unit buildings. For the most part, they're going to be larger-scale single-family residences on this side of Cow Hollow. As you get farther east in the neighborhood, you start to get a broader mix of housing from like mid-rise co-op buildings, larger multi-unit condo buildings, and then more single-family homes. Of course, you also get new construction amenity buildings the farther east you go in the Cow Hollow neighborhood, which is pretty rare on the north side of San Francisco. You have the Amaro The Belvedere and Union House on the far east side of the neighborhood. Each of them are very close to Union Street, so really great locations for access to all the things you'll want to do in Cow Hollow. Belvedere and Union House, for example, were each built in the last 5 years. Doorman buildings with incredible rooftops, unobstructed views to the west, so all the way to the Presidio, and then to the north, so you get the bridge views, Alcatraz views, Marin views. They're beautiful rooftops. You also have the Murano on Lombard and Pierce, which is another newer construction building with an amazing rooftop area. So there are some newer construction amenity buildings in Cow Hollow, something that you don't often get on the north side of SF in places like the Marina, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights. There is one in Pacific Heights called the Pacific, but you have to pay substantially higher prices to get into that building. Even 2 bedrooms in that building go for around $4 million, well above what these newer construction 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom units go at these buildings that I just talked about. So again, just underscores that you get the benefit of living close to the amenities in places like Pacific Heights, for example, without actually paying the prices of living in Pacific Heights. And there are other examples of that too. Generally speaking, the most expensive homes in Cow Hollow will be around the $2,000 a foot range. Very rare circumstances can go a little bit above that. But in contrast, the most expensive homes in places like Pacific and Presidio Heights will go well north of $3,000 a foot. So significant price differences, especially at the upper end of the spectrum. Over the past year, the average single-family home in Cow Hollow is about $5.2 million, or about $1,350 per square foot. So definitely not cheap, but way less expensive if you compare it to Pacific Heights, for example,, where the average home over the past year was about $7.3 million or about $1,520 a foot. And in Presidio Heights, which is, you know, a neighborhood to the west of Pacific Heights, about $8.9 million or $1,570 a foot. So you get a lot of the same amenities available to you, like park access, the views, proximity to shops, bars, and restaurants without having to pay that meaningfully higher price point to get into the Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights neighborhoods, for example. And the same kind of trend applies for condos. Average condo in Pac Heights, about $2 million, about $2.2 $2 million in Presidio Heights, but it's about $1.8 million in Cal Hollow. So meaningfully less expensive, still expensive, but substantially less expensive than those other neighborhoods with basically the same amenity set. And honestly, in my opinion, I think you have better access to a lot of these amenities than you would if you lived in Pacific or Presidio Heights. You're closer to the water, like closer to the North Waterfront. So you're closer to Mirny Green, closer to Crissy Field, you're closer to Union Street. I mean, it's in actual Cow Hollow. You're closer to the shops, bars, and restaurants on Chestnut Street. You're closer to Fort Mason. You're closer to the Palace of Fine Arts. You are just as close to the Presidio as living in a lot of these places. So you really do have a lot of the same amenities available to you, and in fact, easier access to a lot of these amenities without paying that higher price point. And you don't even have to pay that much to get into the neighborhood. These are just average prices. For example, I just sold a 2-bed, 2-bath, little under 1,200 square foot condo in Cow Hollow right off Union Street for $1.35 million. It had an extra office space, it had 2 parking spaces, storage space, shared yard, updated primary bathroom, updated kitchen. It was a really beautiful unit that was built in late 1800s and somebody purchased it for $1.35 million. So you can definitely get things for well below average and it'd be really difficult to find something like that with parking in a place like Pacific Heights or Presidio Heights. All in all, Cow Hollow really is one of the best neighborhoods to live in the city., you can see why it's so popular with people from all walks of life, all stages of life, from young single professionals to executives to retirees. There really is something for everyone, and you're close to so many amazing things as well. If you wanna learn more about what's going on in the neighborhood or the broader market, reach out to me. I was a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real estate. And like I said, I've helped numerous people relocate from all over the country. I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact information in the description below. Reach out anytime. And if you like videos about what it's like living in San Francisco, current events, new developments, and all things San Francisco real estate, make sure to subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And before you go, if you wanna learn more about what it's like living in some of the surrounding neighborhoods I talked about, like Pacific Heights, I've got neighborhood tours, pros and cons videos, walking tours, bunch of videos on these places that I'll link in the description below. Go check 'em out. I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you in the next one.