What $4,900 rents 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 another person’s townhouse? Today’s price: $4,900.

Bad press notwithstanding (or leaning), Millennium Tower still continues to demand a premium from would-be renters, consistently topping Craigslist for dollars asked but usually offering small accoutrements in exchange for the scratch. Case in point, here’s a one-bed, one-bath, 750-square-foot condo for $4,900/month. The ad bills it as “newly furnished across from Salesforce Tower” and still promotes the troubled building’s amenities like “club level pool, theatre, spa, fitness area, wine room, and wine locker.” Cats and dogs are included in the deal too, provided they’re not prone to vertigo.

The Portola neighborhood, on the other hand, is about as far from a downtown-oriented locale as a San Francisco renter can get. But down here the buildings stay on their foundations and come more than three times the size for the same money, so who’s fooling who? This four-bed, two-bath, 2,500-square-foot Silliman Street house is also $4,900/month. It comes with gas fireplace, formal dining room, “custom wood blinds,” and “hardwood floors throughout.” Note that the bedroom count includes the separate apartment downstairs. Pets are okay here too.

This list also offers dueling sunset vistas, first an option in the Inner Sunset, a three-bedroom, two-bath, 960-square-foot apartment for $4,850/month, deemed “like new.” The deal includes garage, shed storage, and “all the comforts of home and more,” though by definition only the home comforts are strictly necessary. There’s a working fireplace and a space on the lease for cats, but dog owners get the ruff treatment here.

Whereas a few blocks over in the Outer Sunset, it’s $4,800/month for a three-bed, one-and-a-quarter-bath house (assuming you count quarter bathrooms at all—opinions vary). “Large living room with decorative fireplace and custom wood shutters” comes with the deal, plus a backyard with lawn that looks so spacious and green that it appears to have never heard about the drought. The rent covers landscaping every week, but evidently not any pets.

Over on the eastern edge of the Mission, the proportions contract again with this one-bed, one-bath apartment with no specified square footage count asking $4,800/month. The polished concrete floors, white cabinets, and single wall of floor-to-ceiling windows seems reminiscent of the tidier new downtown condos. Sadly, no pets allowed “with the exception of service animals.”