The MYTHS You Probably Still Believe About San Francisco

You know, something that I find hilarious is that when I'm in another city meeting people for the first time and they find out that I live in San Francisco, they get this completely shocked look on their face. There's like a mix of concern, disbelief, fear. They always ask me really scared and nervous, like, oh my God, how is it there? Is everything okay there? What's going on? And obviously they've just been watching way too much news, which spills a ton of BS about the city. The city. And it's funny, when I'm helping people move here for the first time, even people who haven't spent a lot of time in the city but are coming here for the first time because of work or other reasons, I don't actually have to do anything or say anything to dispel that myth about San Francisco. It's clear from just like walking or driving around that the vast majority of the nearly 90 different neighborhoods in the city are not all like the Tenderloin, and the stuff that you see and read about in the news is complete [MASKED]. And I've got literally hundreds of videos on my YouTube channel taken over the 2 and a half years that show you exactly what it's like in San Francisco right now. So you don't have to take my word for it, you can just go watch the footage. And conversations like that, which happen all the time, get me thinking about a bunch of other myths about San Francisco that are totally wrong. The city is dead and isn't coming back. The weather in San Francisco sucks. The city isn't walkable because of the hills. The city's only for wealthy people. And you don't need a car to live in San Francisco. So I thought I'd make a video going over each of those, dispelling some myths about San Francisco backed up by actual data and my experience having lived here since 2013. So let's get right to it and start with the one that I hear most common that I alluded to earlier. The city is an apocalyptic wasteland, a zombie wasteland. Crime is rampant. You can't go anywhere without seeing human shit and needles everywhere. Basically, the city is dead and never coming back. It's just so wrong on so many levels, but it does stem from some semblance of truth. There's no doubt that during the pandemic and immediately after the pandemic, crime rates were on the rise. Homelessness was on the rise. Overdose deaths were on the rise. Tourism was falling off office vacancies were rising. It's a recipe that you don't want to see in any major city. But a lot of these trends are beginning to reverse course, signaling renewed growth for the city. Obviously a lot of work to do, but we're definitely heading in the right direction. Both violent and nonviolent crime rates are down substantially. You can see the data in this chart here from the SFPD, which is current through near the end of June 2025 when I'm filming this video. We have the lowest crime rate in over two decades, the lowest murder rate since the 1960s. There's a renewed police presence in places like Union Square and a lot of new policies that implemented in fighting crime, new technologies that are being used to help fight crime like drones. And it's clearly working and will continue to improve. Office vacancies are also falling. They reached their peak of over 37% in Q3 of 2024, and each of the past 3 quarters they've gone down. And the drop from Q1 of 2025 to Q2 of 2025 was the largest single quarterly drop that we've seen since 2015. In Q2 of 2025, we had over 1.1 million more square feet that was leased than was given up. So the trend is positive. Vacancy is still high, over 35%. So definitely a long way to go, but it's clearly improving thanks in big part to the number of AI firms leasing space in the city who will continue to grow their presence here and take up even more office space. And these positive trends that we're seeing in our broader economic market are having demonstrable impacts on our local real estate markets. Whereas values were falling year over year for several years in a row for condos, especially during and immediately after the pandemic, we actually have positive year over year growth across all property types, which is really great sign, especially for the condo market that was hit so hard by remote work and an exodus from San Francisco during the pandemic. For single-family homes, the average price per foot is up 1.7%. Median sale price is up 1.9%. The percentage of homes on the market cutting their list price is lower than it was in both 2023 and 2024. And we're seeing the same trends with condos. Average price per foot up 2.5%, median price up 1%, and the percentage of condos cutting their list price is less than it was in 2022, 2023, and 2024. So those downward trends that we with our local real estate market are starting to reverse course, in large part because of the positive changes we're seeing in the broader market of San Francisco. There are a ton of new events happening all over San Francisco to drive more traffic to the city. A great example of that is the Downtown First Thursday events. First Thursday of every month, a different part of downtown is used up for like an outdoor block party with live music and vendors. It brings tens of thousands of people to the area. It's a huge boom to local businesses that sponsor those events. We have new retail pop-ups all across the city that are paving the way to more permanent retail leases in these vacant spaces. We've got free concerts all across the city. There's so much going on driving more traffic back to downtown. Now, that said, there are things that SF still has to work on. Tourism has not recovered yet. It is not back to pre-pandemic levels. We do have a good boost in, like, business tourism because of all the major events and conferences that are happening here, and we're getting more and more conferences and major events in the city every year as things improve in the city. But we don't have that leisure tourism back. But that's not just true for San Francisco. We're seeing drops in leisure tourism, leisure travel nationwide because of broader geopolitical factors. SF has also made a lot of progress on the homelessness front. The number of tents in the city as of March 2025 was the lowest tally since the city began publicly tracking that data in 2019. But we still have a high unhoused population, both in shelters and unsheltered, and a lot of work needs to be done to fix that. Drug overdose numbers still aren't great. We've had some improvement over the past couple of years, but they are still at high levels. And honestly, any levels unacceptable. And to be clear, it's not like everybody's setting up tents and using drugs openly and notoriously all across the city. These issues have always been largely centered in a few subdistricts of San Francisco, places like the Tenderloin, Mid-Market, Civic Center, parts of the Mission, parts of Bayview. It's improving in all of those areas. It's not like the other 80+ subdistricts in the city have had these rampant problems. It's always been limited to those narrow parts of the city. Those just get the most national attention. Bottom line is there are problems. They definitely need fixing, but things are getting better. Things are improving across the city, across all different markets. It's still one of the best places to live. Just come here and experience it for yourself. You don't have to take my word for it. By the way, if you want to learn more about what it's really like living in San Francisco, or want to learn more about 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 if you're thinking about buying a place in the city but are having trouble figuring out the right neighborhood for you, or have questions about what's going on in our local market because of all the changes that I'm talking about, reach out to me. I was a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real real estate, and I've helped numerous people relocate to SF 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 dispelling some myths about living in San Francisco, and the next one I want to talk about is the myth that San Francisco has horrible weather. The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. You've all heard that famous Mark Twain quote, and it's sort of true. San Francisco's summer is actually not very warm. Our warmer months are more like September and October. It's actually pretty gloomy in June. And it's also true that because San Francisco is close to the Pacific Ocean and because of its unique topography, there are a lot of wind and fog fronts coming in from the ocean. So it's colder than what you might expect from other, like, coastal California towns, in particular in Central and Southern California. So if you live near the coast in The Sunset, in Richmond, Parkside, West Portal, say, for instance, you'll probably experience more of that colder and foggier weather on a day-to-day basis. But it's still relatively mild, generally speaking, in the 50s and 60s. It's not like it's freezing here. And if that's not your cup of tea, Not all of San Francisco has that kind of weather. There are dozens of microclimates all over the city. You can literally go from one neighborhood to the neighborhood next door and experience complete shifts in weather. Generally speaking, the more east you go and the further south you go, the more likely it is that you'll experience better weather. So places like Noe Valley, the Mission, Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, SoMa, South Beach, Mission Bay, Castro, all of them have substantially better weather than what you'd get living next the Pacific Ocean because those cold and fog fronts don't make their way all the way over to those parts of the city. Sometimes the difference in temperature can be like 10 or even more degrees on the same day, completely sunny there when a neighborhood a mile over is completely covered in fog. So yes, 100%, depending on where you live, the weather can be very gloomy, very dreary, but it's not that way everywhere. So if weather's a priority, there are specific places in SF that you can go and experience awesome weather. If you wanna learn more about my favorite neighborhoods in each of the cold, moderate and Sunbelt zones of San Francisco. I've got a separate video on that. I'll link in the description below. Go check it out. Now, the next myth I want to dispel in this video is that the city isn't walkable because of all the hills. I've heard a ton of people say this before they really get familiar with the city. They come here maybe on vacation with their friends and family and do a few long, hard walks up and down hills that are needed to get to some tourist destinations in the city and are kind of in shock and awe that people think that that type of environment is at all walkable. Or they might see famous shots of the curvy part of Lombard Street or Tower in Telegraph Hill, or see incredible views of the Golden Gate Bridge from atop these giant hills in, like, Pacific Heights. So I understand if you don't live here, it's reasonable to think because of these pictures and these videos that it actually isn't walkable. But even a lot of the most hilly neighborhoods in the city are actually extremely walkable, and it's because of how close you are in a lot of different neighborhoods in San Francisco to everything that you might need on a day-to-day basis. Take my neighborhood, for example, Pacific Heights, which has has some of the steepest hills in the entire city. The hills largely run only in the north to south direction, and where I live, it's actually flat east to west. I'm a block from Alta Plaza Park. I'm 4 blocks from Fillmore Street, which has a ton of shops, bars, and restaurants. I'm 2 blocks from Sacramento Street, which has a ton of shops and restaurants. I'm 4 blocks from the closest grocery store. I'm around the corner from a small bodega. I live in one of the steepest parts of the city, but I can walk to all of those places in 5 to 10 minutes or even less. And I can walk to a lot of those places completely avoiding the steep hills. And there are neighborhoods like that all over the city with proximity to everything that you need, where you can avoid a lot of long walks up and down big hills. Places like Russian Hill, Cole Valley, parts of Noe Valley, Cow Hollow. And then you have other neighborhoods that are almost entirely flat. You've got places like Dogpatch, SoMa, South Beach, the Marina, Lake Street, the Mission, all of them with close to perfect walk scores. So many things that you can get to just by walking, no matter what part of the neighborhood that you live in. The first neighborhood that I lived in when I moved to San Francisco over a decade ago, North Beach, hands down one of the most walkable neighborhoods in the city. I was a block from Joe DiMaggio Park. I was within 2 blocks of 2 grocery stores. I was a block away from my gym. I was 20 minutes walking distance from downtown San Francisco where my law firm was. I was a few blocks away from all the restaurants and bars on Columbus. I was a few blocks away from Washington Square Park. I was within walking distance of pretty much anything I could possibly need on a day-to-day basis. Now, there are definitely some neighborhoods that are more removed from those daily necessities that are hilly and not very walkable. Places like Clarendon Heights, Corona Heights, parts of Noe or Twin Peaks or Bernal. A lot of it is going to depend on how far you are from like the main commercial corridor of that particular neighborhood. And some of those neighborhoods don't actually have commercial corridors at all. So there are parts of the city that are definitely not walkable. And there are some places in the city, depending on where you live, that might be close by but that you wouldn't walk to because of those hills. But you could take longer routes to avoid those hills potentially. But overall, the city is extremely walkable. But that doesn't necessarily mean you don't need a car, and I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes. But before I get there, the next myth I want to dispel is that the city is only for the wealthy, and that's just not true. 100%. The city is expensive. It's one of the most expensive cities in the world, but you do not need millions and millions of dollars to own property here. There are a ton of great neighborhoods you can live in with options that are well below the city average without sacrificing safety, cleanliness, beauty, general quality of life. They're awesome. Places like Potrero Hill, Bernal Heights, South Beach, Dogpatch, Mission Bay, Sunset, Richmond, Parkside. All of them are awesome neighborhoods with a ton of amenities where you can get places well below the cost of an average home or the average condo in San Francisco. And just because they're below average cost doesn't mean you're like buying crap property, like buying crap quality property. A perfect example of this, I just got clients into a new construction, 2-bed, 2-bath condo in Dogpatch with views of the water, amenity building, gym, rooftop coworking space, really close to public transit, walking distance to so many awesome amenities like Chase Center and multiple parks. for under $1.2 million. The average 2-bed, 2-bath in the city is about $1.35 million, and that's just an average 2-bed, 2-bath, not new construction. New construction is substantially more expensive than that. So they got new construction quality for under $1.2 million with water views. And that's just one example. So you don't need to be like a mega millionaire to buy good quality places in good quality neighborhoods in San Francisco. There are options for people at all price points, Don't believe for a second that you're necessarily priced out of what you want. Do your research, and if you have any questions about it, you can hit me up. I've actually got a separate video going over my favorite neighborhoods where you can buy property at less than the cost of city average. I've linked that in the description below as well. Go check it out if you're interested. And now for the last myth I want to dispel, which I alluded to earlier, is that you can get by in the city without a car. I hear it from locals all the time, and I actually only think it's true for some people, and I think it's false for most people. Who do I think it's actually true for? Somebody who lives in one of the more walkable parts of the city, close to grocery stores, parks, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and somebody who either works from home or is within walking distance of their office. So I'm the perfect example of that. When I first moved to North Beach in 2013, I was walking distance to all those things I talked about, including work. I legitimately did not need a car, and I didn't own one for several years. I love driving, so I eventually bought a car and I sold it within about a year and a half because I was only driving it once a month. I legitimately did not need a car because of my exact location within that neighborhood and because of where I worked. But if I wasn't in an area with that level of convenience, I promise I would have bought a car sooner and I would have used it. If you live in an area further away from either downtown or SoMa where most of the businesses are, you're not within walking distance to the office, so you'll either have to take the bus or take a car. The bus system is great. It is fairly robust in the city. The problem is it's not always the most pleasant experience on the bus, and it's not the most reliable depending on the bus line. When I first moved to the city, I took the bus for the first 6 weeks to work. It was routinely late. It was rush hour, so it was always packed with people. And you, you know, have to fight for either a seat or you're just crammed in there, kind of like you are on the subway system in New York. And the most frustrating part was that the bus that was closest to my place didn't actually drop me off off that close to my office. I still had to walk about 8 minutes from where the bus dropped me off to get to the office. So all in, when you compare the amount of time it would take to walk to work versus the bus ride, it was actually quicker and less expensive to walk to work. And if you're coming from farther away from downtown than where I was, the bus ride is going to be substantially longer. You just have that many more stops and that many more people along the way, and that just compounds if and when the bus is late. So could you get by without a car if you lived farther away from downtown? Theoretically, yes, but it is going to be a severe inconvenience, and you'll have to plan for that as part of your day. And think about groceries if you don't have a car. If you're not within a few blocks walking distance from a grocery store, what are you going to do with all your groceries? Are you going to go to the grocery store every day just to get one or two bags of groceries and then wait at the bus stop for a few minutes and then get on the bus so you can get them home? No, you're probably gonna go to the grocery store less than every single day, and you're probably gonna take a car. And what about the gym? Are you really gonna wake up at like 5:30 or 6 AM, stand outside in the freezing cold in your gym clothes, wait for the bus to come, and drop you off, and then after the gym when you're all sweaty and nasty, get onto a packed bus closer to rush hour, wait outside in the cold for the bus to get you, and then go home and sit next to a bunch of people while you're all nasty and sweaty? Probably not. Realistically, you're going to take a car or you'll have a very strong preference to take a car. So unless you're in like the very specific situation that I was in when I first moved here where I was walking distance to literally everything, you're probably going to want a car. And setting aside everything like in your immediate neighborhood or the things that you need on a day-to-day basis, you still want to experience all the great things that San Francisco has to offer. Offer. Maybe you live on the north side of the city but you want to go to Golden Gate Park or to Twin Peaks, or you live on the south side of the city and you want to go to the Presidio. Or think about all the awesome things there are to do outside of the city— Napa, Sonoma. You've got hiking and biking in Marin and the East Bay. You've got golf, you've got Carmel, you have Monterey. All of those things, you'd have to really, really, really be willing to inconvenience yourself to take public transportation to those places. You're gonna take a car. Yeah, you could probably choose to rent a car when you're going to these places, or potentially you could take rideshare depending on how far away is, but depending on how often you do that, it could actually be a lot more expensive than just having a car. And it's certainly not gonna be as convenient as having your own car, being able to do what you want when you want. Bottom line, could you survive without a car? I think some people could. Maybe you're a lawyer or an accountant. You live walking distance to your office and you're in one of those very walkable neighborhoods where you have every convenience within a few blocks from you. You could totally get by, but most people are not gonna fit neatly in that bucket. Most people are not gonna have that supreme level of community. Yeah. A lot of people might have kids and not want to be on the bus with their kids. A lot of people are gonna want the freedom to do all the incredible things both in and out of San Francisco without having to rely on public transit. So I don't think this is really a car-free city. I don't think it was designed that way, and I don't think it will ever be that way. Well, there you have it. Those are a few of the biggest myths that I constantly hear about San Francisco and my opinions on them. Would love to get your opinions on them, so drop 'em in the comments below. And remember, if you like videos about what it's like living in San Francisco, current events, new developments, all things San Francisco real estate, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about buying a place in the city and are having trouble picking the right neighborhood and navigating our local market, reach out to me. I've lived here 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. My contact info's in the description below. Reach out anytime. I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you in the next one. Austin Klar.