San Francisco • Real Estate Tours

I had to cover the gamut of residential options for San Francisco, including the suburbs. Having lived in a huge city like Chicago, I guarantee you, an hour train ride into the city is nothing when you consider how much more house you can get if you’re willing to commute, so I’m showing those houses too. As you can see from the thumbnails, $1,000,000 doesn’t buy you squat in San Francisco. Rule of thumb: The closer you are to downtown, the more you’re gonna pay for a much smaller house. But if you’re looking at some of the more middle class suburban homes farther out and thinking “$2.5 million dollars?!! I wouldn’t pay more than $250,000 for this in Cincinnati”, you’re not mistaken. Technically, you’re right. Nobody would. Not in the Midwest. 

But this is the Bay Area. You’re not just paying for the land or the house. You’re paying for the Northern California lifestyle. You’re paying for the views, the beaches, the palm trees and warm weather, and to not shovel snow. You have to be willing to pay a lot more to get a lot less house than you would back East. But if you want the California lifestyle, you’ve gotta pay California money. More than anything, this is why there’s such a homeless problem in California. You have to be millionaire to afford a place to live. Everyone else is permanently camping.