What $6,900 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: $6,900.

↑ Some homes have the goods and love to show it. Take the case of this flat in Russian Hill, deemed an “exceptional Edwardian condo” in the ad hoping to vet it to highly exceptional renters who can somehow afford $6,900/month. No doubt about it, the place at least looks like a lot of money, with “custom built-ins,” “Carrera marble,” “custom glass shower enclosure,” and “thick crown moldings [and] curved bay windows. There’s also a “bonus room” with en suite bathroom and separate entrance. It’s two beds and two and a half baths, and the only thing not so pretty about it (other than the price tag, perhaps) is that the lease does not allow pets.

↑ On the other hand, some places really do have all of the makings of a true great SF home but evidently need a little bit of extra help showcasing the hot stuff. This NoPa Victorian apartment has gorgeous corbels, original moldings, a baroque facade, and sensational stained glass accents that stretch like a headband across the front windows, but unfortunately most of the photos provided with this current ad largely obscure the most attractive elements. Still, you can’t keep a good home down, particularly if you want to charge $6,850/month. That high monthly rate does yield a lot of cargo though: four beds and two baths and 2,000 square feet, all underneath 13 foot ceilings, which in this context is a lucky number indeed.

↑ A trip to the Financial District will yield only half as much in the form of this New Montgomery Street condo, which runs two beds, two baths, and 1,000 square feet for $6,900/month, but maybe the downest of all downtown locations will make up for the full apartment’s worth of space when comparing this entry to the previous one. Notice that one of the bedrooms is a Japanese-style Tatami room, right down to the prints on the wall (which are also part of the deal, since this home comes furnished). The promise of “dazzling views” is pretty standard—this is San Francisco, so half of homes on the market have great views almost by default—but in this it’s also a downtown “conner unit” (presumably corner), which ups the grade a little bit, along with the building’s rooftop barbecue pit. No reference to pets in the ad though.

↑ See what we mean about the “amazing views” promise? It shows up again here in this Noe Valley townhouse, which is a three bed and two bath bit of business for $6,850/month, which at over 1,800 feet is almost as impressively large as the NoPa offering. To make up the difference it offers three beds, two and a half baths, bonus room, garden, French doors, a shared garage, and there’s even a Jacuzzi on the garden patio. There’s also a window to wall ratio outstripped only by those towering new construction condos in South Beach in which the windows effectively are just the walls themselves. Despite all of this though there’s no room for pets, or at least no room for the ad to tell us about it.

↑ Speaking of South Beach, that’s where this tour ends, with a “luxurious two bed” and two bath condo for $6,900/month measuring just over 1,000 feet. Note that the ad here says almost nothing about the home itself but instead spends the entirety of its length putting over the neighborhood—namedropping the ballpark, the waterfront, and even Saks—along with a few references to the building bonuses, including a stretch of lap pool that practically extends into the pier.