What $4,100 rents you in San Francisco right now

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 is another person's townhouse? Today's price: $4,100.

↑ Like the Victorian houses, it’s likely possible to one day get tired of San Francisco’s many old Edwardian townhouses and apartment buildings in neighborhoods like Nob Hill. But it’s hard to say when that day will come with buildings like 1060 Pine around doing their stately, funky, oddly painted thing year after year. A handsome two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in this place rents for $4,100/month as of this current ad, not counting the $75/month additional fee for each pet tagging along.

↑ On the other hand, a building like the Infinity, located in South Beach, doesn’t really have the same degree of character and finely aged vintage charm as the old places up on Nob Hill. But it does have what renters might call soaring ambition, vaulting into the air with supreme confidence set beneath glass as calm and reflective as the bay it overlooks. The one-bedroom, one-bath apartment in this ad—a wide open affair whose center space is interrupted only by support columns and the kitchen’s center island—is actually already leased, but it makes the list here for being a typical representation of the market on Craigslist still. This one was $4,095/month, no word about pets.

↑ A lot of landlords and leasing agents fudge the location of their offerings on Craigslist by trying to pretend the place is really four blocks over in a more prestigious sounding neighborhood. But the ad for this two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in the Mission sticks to a scrupulous accounting of the place, calling it “Dolores Park (almost).” Which, at 21st and Guerrero, is entirely fair, so bonus points for the attention to transparency. It’s $4,100/month and no mention of whether pets are allowed here either. Notice the whitewashed fireplace in the living room, an artifact now long defunct but preserved for posterity.

↑ Breaking away from apartment and sallying forth into the Sunset affords renters the chance to bunk down in a three-bed, two-bath, roughly 1,200-square-foot house on 16th Avenue for $4,000/month, which is at least a pleasingly round figure if not an easily attainable one. That big, beautiful street-facing window is fairly pleasing and round in its own right, as is the gleaming parquet and faux-red brick tile in the kitchen. Notice the small addition of Gothic arches in some of the doorways too. This one’s mum about the pet policy too, though.

↑ Closing out the list for $4,000/month, the headline here reads “house on northwest slope” of Bernal Heights, but what’s actually on offer this time is just one of the two bedroom flats inside. Note the way the beams glide up to meet at the peak of the living room ceiling—not fancy, but elegant in its own way. This ad neglects to discuss the issue of pets too; yet another house of mysteries.