San Francisco's Most UNDERRATED Neighborhood (Don't Tell Anyone) - Lake Street

If you're looking for a best of both worlds neighborhood in San Francisco without giving up the city's tremendous food and nightlife scene, but also having a suburban park-like feeling perfect for pets or kids without totally breaking the bank, then there's one neighborhood on the north side of San Francisco that you need to have your eye on, and it's the Lake Street District. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County, and this little sliver of heaven on the north side of San Francisco is a hidden gem that doesn't get anywhere close to the attention that it deserves. And in this video, I'm going to break down everything you need to know about the Lake Street neighborhood, including what day-to-day day life is like there, how much it costs to own a home in the area, and why it's the perfect suburban escape for people wanting to feel like they don't live in a major city without having to actually leave the city and give up all the incredible things the city has to offer. If you like neighborhood tours just like this, or you want to learn about current events, new developments, or all the things going on in the crazy San Francisco real estate market, definitely subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about buying a home in the area, I'd love to be a resource for you. I moved to San Francisco over a decade ago. To work as a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real estate. And I've helped numerous people relocate across the city from all over the country. I'll put my contact information in the description below. Reach out anytime. Now let's get to the Lake Street neighborhood and why it needs to be on your radar if you're looking for an escape from the city without actually escaping the city. So first of all, where is even the Lake Street neighborhood? Lake Street is a really small part of the city on the north side of San Francisco. There's an actual street called Lake Street, which is why the neighborhood is named that, and it runs through the center of the neighborhood, and the general neighborhood basically just surrounds Lake Street. So runs from California Street to Mountain Lake Trail, Mountain Lake Park, south to north, and then from Arguello to the east and 27th Avenue to the west. You're probably more familiar with some of the neighborhoods that Lake Street borders, the Richmond, Presidio Heights, Seacliff, very well-known San Francisco neighborhoods. Lake Street is basically a small cutout in between all of those neighborhoods and actually offers a lot of pluses that those neighborhoods don't. So how would I describe Lake Street? Well, I think the easiest thing to do would be to show you this one thing that I think best embodies or represents what Lake Street is all about. And it's this sign right here that says Slow Street. San Francisco instituted what's called the Slow Streets program during the pandemic with the goal of minimizing car access on certain streets to provide residents with a safe, open outdoor space really meant to prioritize like alternative forms of transportation. So biking, jogging, walking, and just focusing on building local community. Car access is really limited today on these streets, even post-pandemic, and it's really designed for people accessing their residence. It's really like a locals-only type street. After the pandemic, a lot of slow streets were eliminated as people had access to other outdoor spaces again and people needed thoroughfares to get to and from work as they started going back to the office. So didn't really have as much need for slow streets anymore. But there are a few slow streets that remained in the city, and Lake Street is one of them. And by maintaining the slow street throughout the neighborhood, it basically maintains a park-like environment throughout the entire area. It's minimal street traffic, so there's pretty much no street noise. You got people jogging all day long, walking, biking, you know, walking their dogs, playing with kids all throughout the area at all times of day, all times of the week. I bet you if you didn't know anything about what Lake Street was or where it was and you saw photos or videos of it, you would not think that Lake Street was in a major metropolitan area like San Francisco. And what keeps traffic so minimal here, in addition to the slow streets, is that there aren't really a lot of businesses in Lake Street itself. Like, there are no commercial corridors that have a ton of bars and restaurants in the Lake Street District. So you don't have a lot of people coming to and from the Lake Street area to go out on weeknights or on weekends. It's really a locals-only, a residents-only type place. Now you might say, well, that sounds nice, but I don't want to be like too removed from most places. There's a reason why, you know, you still want to live in San Francisco. You want to be close enough and have easy enough access to things that you want or need on a regular basis. Things like grocery stores, things like restaurants. You know, one of the best reasons to live in San Francisco is because of the A+ food scene. Pretty much no matter where you live in the city, you want to be close to parks, you want to be close to downtown if you need to get to or from work, or you want to go shopping downtown. And you can still get all that in the Lake Street neighborhood, even though none of those things are in the Lake the Lake Street neighborhood itself, except for parks, which I'll show you in a minute. If you live in the Lake Street neighborhood, you're on the border of the Richmond, which is known for a very diverse food scene. You're just a few blocks away from Clement Street, which has perhaps the most robust Asian food scene in the entire city. They've also got American food, Italian food, and a ton of other cultures represented, but, you know, really heavy prevalence of Asian food. You're also nearby one of the best bakeries in SF, Arsicault Bakery on Arguello. There's food along Geary Boulevard, along California Street, and depending on where you live in the area, you're also going to be pretty close to the incredible food on Sacramento Street in Presidio Heights and Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights. You're also only a few minutes' drive away from multiple local grocery stores at Laurel Village. You've got Cal Mart there and Bryan's, both of which have awesome food, really great butchers worth checking out. There's also a bunch of other, you know, fast food type places and other stores at Laurel Village as well. So while Lake Street itself doesn't have the plethora of food options, you won't be lacking for that optionality because you are still quite close to a lot of other neighborhoods that have a lot of options. And at the same time, you still get that really residential, really quiet, peaceful living situation. Now you may not have restaurants and bars in the actual neighborhood itself, but what you will not be short on is parks. Mountain Lake Park immediately borders the area to the north. It's a 14-acre park established in the 1800s. It includes a 4-acre lake, which is beautiful when the weather's nice, and it's actually one of the few remaining natural lakes in all of San Francisco. Mountain Lake Park is perfect for dog walking, morning jogs, or other exercise. Really peaceful place to walk around. There's also a playground, there are tennis courts, there are hiking trails throughout. Mountain Lake Park is also immediately next to the Presidio Golf Course. So if you live in the Lake Street area, you have pretty much immediate access to Presidio Golf Course, incredible golfing in the city, as well as the Presidio itself, which is a massive national park. You're also only a few minutes drive away from Golden Gate Park as well as Lincoln Park, both incredible open green spaces with a ton to do. All of these parks surround surrounding the area combined with the actual park-like environment you get living in the area itself make it one of the most serene places you can live in all of San Francisco. So it really does give you that feeling of being removed without actually being removed from all the incredible things you want living in a city like this. And at the same time, you're connected to other parts of the city as well. The neighborhood is close to some pretty major thoroughfares that you're going to be using to either commute to downtown San Francisco or potentially to the North Bay or the South Bay. You've got California Street on the southern border of the Lake Street neighborhood, running east to west. That's going to be the main way that you're going to get to downtown San Francisco, to the Financial District, or to Mission Bay. You know, maybe you, you know, just got a job at a tech firm that's based in Mission Bay, or at a law firm or financial firm that's based in downtown or the Financial District. You're going to be taking California Street probably to get to work. If you live in the area, you'll also be close to Park Presidio, which runs north to south throughout the city. So if you want to go like hiking or biking in Marin for the day, or you want to go to Napa or Sonoma for wine tasting, or maybe you work in the South Bay and need to commute South Bay, you'll either take Park Presidio to the bridge or take Park Presidio to the south. So while the Lake Street area is definitely removed from the city, it is not disconnected at all. You have a lot of different ways of getting to a lot of different places that you're going to want to go to in the city and outside the city. And of course, the last piece I think that really contributes to the serene park-like environment is the real estate. What would a suburban escape be without absolutely incredible architecturally significant homes, historic homes, all throughout the neighborhood. Classic Edwardian and Victorian single-family homes, beautiful tree-lined streets. It's not a neighborhood where houses are often torn down and rebuilt as new modern buildings. So you really do get a lot of historic, you know, 100-plus-year-old architecture here. It's preserved with, you know, maybe interior modifications with nice amenities without sacrificing that beautiful exterior SF architecture that we all love. On top of the beautiful homes, you'll also have lots that are larger than the typical lot in San Francisco. A standard San Francisco lot is typically 25 feet by 100 feet. 2,500 square feet, but the average lot of homes that sold last year was over 3,000 feet, about 3,200 square feet. So you can definitely find places here with bigger backyards, great for that indoor-outdoor living, great for entertaining, great for kids, great for pets, great for just lounging around. Again, contributing to that park-like suburban feeling still being in the city. If you do have a lot of outdoor space in Lake Street, I highly recommend getting either or both of a fire pit or a hot tub because it isn't the warmest part of San Francisco. From a weather perspective, general rule of thumb is that the further west you get, you know, closer to the Pacific Ocean, the colder, more foggy, more windy the weather tends to be. There are sort of 3 different zones in the city: the cold zone on the west side, the transitional zone running through the middle of San Francisco, and then your hot or Sun Belt zone on the east side of the city. Lake Street is on the edge of the, you know, western colder side of San Francisco, the fog belt area, very close to the transitional zone, but still technically in that cold zone. If you're in the lower avenues of Lake Street, you're gonna have a little bit milder weather because it is further east, closer to that transitional zone. But if you're in the upper avenues where, especially where the homes get a lot bigger, you know, closer to 25th, 26th, 27th Avenue, the weather's gonna be a lot cooler. And it's not just single family homes in the Lake Street area. There are condos as well, and some of them do have great outdoor space. Most of the condo buildings there tend to be smaller. Maybe there are houses that were converted into 2 or 3 unit buildings. There are some mid-size buildings there, you know, 5 to 10 units potentially. You're really not going to find a big mix of like these hotel-like buildings there. It's not very dense at all. And a lot of these houses do have views. Some of them will have views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean. A lot of them will have views of the city to the east and the south. A lot of them will have views of the Presidio and Mountain Lake Park as well. Now I said you can live here without totally breaking the bank, and you can, especially by like North San Francisco standards, which is where the, you know, most expensive neighborhoods in San Francisco tend to be. You can find condos here that sell for under $1 million, which is well below the city average. Average. Definitely not everything sells for $2 million plus. In fact, the average condo over the past year sold for about $1.5 million, just about $1,100 a foot. So definitely not breaking the bank by San Francisco standards. Different story for single-family homes. Less than 2 dozen sold in the past year or so. Inventory is incredibly scarce, and because of the details that I talked about, the characteristics of the homes and the park-like environment, they are in very high demand, and that does mean big prices. Average single-family home over that time period sold for $4 million, about $1,250 a foot. There are homes that you can get for under $1,000 a foot, but they do need some meaningful updating. If you want turnkey, especially with views and on these larger lots, and if the home is a historic property, you're definitely going to be paying north of $1,500 a foot. So not cheap by any means, but you can find places at good prices, especially condos, and take advantage of that, you know, serene lifestyle that you can get living in the Lake Street neighborhood. These places also sell really fast. Given how little inventory actually exists. Condos over that time period sold in under 4 weeks when the average condo in the city sold closer to 7 weeks. And single-family homes sold in about 2 weeks when the average single-family home sells for between 3 and 4 weeks. So it's definitely a competitive area, but you know, should absolutely be on your radar if you're looking for a more peaceful living situation in San Francisco. If you want to learn more about what other opportunities are available in the Lake Street neighborhood or have questions more broadly about the real estate market in San Francisco, definitely reach out to me. I've helped people relocate to San Francisco from all over the country, and I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll drop my contact info in the description below. And remember, if you like neighborhood tours just like this, or you want to stay up to date on current events, new developments, or all things San Francisco or Marin County real estate, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And before you go, if you want to learn how Lake Street stacks up to other neighborhoods in San Francisco, I've got a separate video where I rank in tiers some popular and not so popular neighborhoods. I'll link that up top in the description below as well. Go check it out. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one.