Curbed Cup Comparisons: What $2,700 rents in SF’s top four neighborhoods

Welcome to Curbed Comparisons, a regular column exploring what you can rent for a set dollar amount in different neighborhoods. Is one person's studio another person's townhouse? Let's find out. Today's price: $2,700.

↑ Since we’re in the final round of this year’s Curbed Cup, this week we’ll be comparing only homes in the final four neighborhoods chosen by readers. Bayview moved into the finals, initiating a dramatic showdown between last year’s winner and a newly hot challenger. This one-bed, one-bath condo near Candlestick Point, now renting for $2,670/month, occupies a building from 2007 but is clearly eager to hop onto the neighborhood’s emerging reputation as a development hub now that the old ballpark is out. The view overlooking the southern rump of the park and the peninsula beyond is pretty timeless one way or the other. The ad even mentions the decontamination of nearby Hunters Point, even though these parcels are entirely separate. Nice touch. “Sorry, no pets.”

↑ Meanwhile, the Inner Richmond emerged this year as a reader favorite (and also one of the neighborhoods most likely to initiate a bidding war), moving into the Cup finals as well. This one-bedroom Cabrillo Street apartment is actually a little bit west of the general borders of the inner part of the Richmond, but we cut it some slack for renting at $2,650/month. Which, yes, is quickly becoming a very competitive rate in the city’s northwestern quad. This is the top floor of a triplex just north of Marx Meadow, but “sorry, no pets.”

↑ Readers knocked the Castro out of the running in the semifinals this week. Which is a small surprise, since it’s been one of the most consistently popular San Francisco neighborhoods for several generations now. But with a reputation like that, maybe you don’t need laurels. In any case, this wee studio in a little white clapboard house on 17th Street (dating to sometime pre-1906 or so) rents for $2,600/month just down the street from where the F streetcar turns around. It’s another triplex, sans pets or, for that matter, a stove, but the rent covers your utilities at least.

↑ Nob Hill also came up a little bit short in this year’s vote, but again, what’s a neighborhood with a lifelong reputation like this one need another accolade for anyway? Although traditionally a redoubt of the rich, the hill actually hosts our most affordable of this week’s rentals at $2,500/month for a small (650 square feet) one-bedroom apartment in a 1910 building at the corner of California and Leavenworth. Down at street level, the cable car will be rolling right by your window, and it’s our only lease that will take in the cats and dogs scooted out of the homes in other neighborhoods. Hard to beat that.