Find Your Dream Home in San Francisco: Start Your Journey with Kevin + Jonathan Today
Congratulations on deciding to buy a home in San Francisco! You’re about to achieve what few can, and that’s an accomplishment worth celebrating. With Kevin + Jonathan by your side, your chances of success have significantly improved.
Navigating the San Francisco real estate market can be daunting, but it's also immensely rewarding, connecting you deeply to the city's vibrant life. As your dedicated team, we commit to guiding you through the myriad of information and critical decisions that come with buying property here.
Our unique team combines the skills of a lawyer, reporter, nurse, and guide dog—each bringing a deep passion for real estate and a love for technology that simplifies and democratizes the buying process. We enjoy seeing the city anew through your eyes, constantly learning and vigilantly monitoring the market. For us, real estate is not just about transactions; it's about enhancing your life.
Explore the resources, tips, and testimonials below to get a glimpse of what to expect as you embark on this exciting journey. Ready to begin?
Buying a Home Can Be...
Exciting. Nerve-racking. Daunting. Rewarding. Fulfilling. Anti-climatic. Logical. Dramatic. Life-Changing. Expensive. Prudent. Emotional. Imprudent. The ‘Adult’ Thing to Do. Comforting. Wise. Exhilarating.
Time to Get Started.
As we begin the process, here are a couple of items for you to consider.
NEEDS + WANTS
What do you want to buy?
Here’s a chance for you to tell us what your next property looks like. The form below has a short version and long version and should help you get started before we talk.
A BUYER QUIZ
A Quiz Already?! But I just started!
We have an intro pop quiz for you that will not be graded of course. The quiz is designed to help you understand why values vary so much in San Francisco.
ON THE MEDIA
How You Can Help Us
Check out our SF Chronicle guidance on what things Buyers can to do help the process along.
IN JUST A FEW STEPS
How the process will go — an overview
In a nutshell, we’ve listed the buying process in sequential order here.
ON THE MEDIA
Sorting Out Priorities
Check out our SF Chronicle guidance on how Buyers should set their priorities.
Big Picture Things.
To buy confidently and assuredly in San Francisco requires a bit of market knowledge of all the nooks and crannies there are here.
WHERE IS THAT?
Geography, Neighborhoods and Fog
A lot can fit within the 49 square miles of San Francisco. Realtors carved the City up into 10 large districts of the Multiple Listing Service (the MLS). Here is our p.o.v. on all of them including discussion of a neighborhood’s vibe and live home sales data for each.
BUYER TESTIMONIALS
Why Folks Work with Kevin and Jonathan
Here’s where we let our clients tell you their experiences with working with us. We love helping folks change their lives in such an important way.
PROPERTY SEARCH
A Proper Property Search
Better than Zillow-fin. Use our credentials to find property currently on the market all over the Bay Area. Be sure to sign up for an account too.
YOUTUBE VIDEOS
Moving Pictures of Houses, Condos & More
See what properties look like on the inside. If you can’t make it to a property we will often go and preview it for you but instead of just telling you about it, we will make a YouTube video for you. Take a watch of one of the more than 700 that we’ve made to date.
OPEN HOUSES
Where and When
Open houses are the most obvious ways to see properties and they take place on more days than just Sundays. See when below.
What Does the Data Say?
Look Up LIVE MLS Sales Data
Remember that closed home sales data are lagging indicators by at least a month, which is the average time most homes will close in San Francisco
VISUALLY SPEAKING
What if the Buying Journey Were Laid Out in One Place?
Which reminds us, we have a map for that.
Buying a home involves a lot of processes. There are are a lot of different places, paths and tracks we’ll take. There will be stops anticipated and unexpected (even if you’re an all-cash buyer with a short escrow). Keeping track of all the moving parts of the purchase, diligence and closing process can be a bit overwhelming. Don’t fret.
Remember that you’re not only working with talented real estate agents but one of them happens to be a trained reporter who likes graphic design and maps. What’s below is the result of that combination.
Going to Bat For Our Clients
so they can
Hit it Out of the Park
while also
Covering All the Bases.
One of their many strengths is breaking down the many steps of purchasing a home into simple easy to understand terms. Their advice was always considerate, honest and supportive. We are now in our new home and despite having closed 6 months ago are still fortunate to be able to contact them for follow on assistance and help. They are always just a phone call away and always willing and happy to offer guidance. I hope that if you are reading this that you will strongly consider them as your realtor.
— Ross and Sarah, Noe Valley Buyers/Homeowners, Tech, Finance, Parents
Step by step they guided us through the process and advised us on how best to proceed. Most of all their encouragement is probably what kept us in the game that otherwise I thought we could not have won. I worked with other agents in the past but Kevin and Jonathan had the knowledge and commitment to get my me and my family into a home when others could not. Thank you guys!
— R+K, Bernal Heights Buyers/Homeowners, Architecture, Education, Parents
BUYER TESTIMONIAL
Buyer Support Over the Long Haul
All good things come to those that wait! While that’s not really my motto, it turned out to be true for the house search and Kevin was there for the long haul. He was recommended by my coworker and I liked him instantly, he is all about the clients and their needs. He is super responsive, techy, great eye for design and has great ideas and network to help with remodeling, design, etc. He was a lawyer in his previous life, so he’s great at reviewing contracts and the legal expertise.
Our search started in 2012 which was an awful year without much on the market, so we go to know Kevin and he got to know us and what we liked and didn't like and what our goals were. The came 2013, with a but more on the market and a crazy competitive market. We put in about 5 offers and were outbid every time so things can get a bit frustrating. Kevin was very encouraging and told us the right place would come along.
He always sent us places he thought would be good, looked at every place we put in offers and gave us his professional opinion. Even talked us out of a few places where he thought we were caving to the pressure of finding a place, not that anything was pushing us to move except our own desire to buy. He really wanted us to buy a place we loved and felt comfortable in financially.
Finally in 2014 there were more places on the market, prices were high and new construction started to come out and we found the one we love. The benefit of new construction is that there is no bidding and so we got the place we wanted even a bit below asking. Kevin was there every step of the way, set us up with a lender, painter, handy man and was there for all the paperwork, and of course getting our keys.
I can’t say enough about how great Kevin was an agent.
— Inga and Oren, Buyers, Dogpatch
H.R. and Tech/App Development
We’re more interested in getting you the right house, not the house right now.
What’s Important To You?
Buying a home is an endeavor that’s both straightforward and intricate. Here’s how you can understand this dual nature:
Simple Goals: The idea is straightforward—you want to own a home, creating a personal haven instead of renting someone else’s property. Owning a place means building equity with every payment, not just paying a landlord.
Complex Realities: However, the process becomes complex, especially in a market like San Francisco. Here are some challenges you might face:
- Older Inventory: Many available homes may need updates or renovations.
- Limited Availability: Options are often scarce due to high demand.
- Strict Regulations: Local housing laws can complicate the buying process.
- High Costs: Financially, San Francisco is one of the most expensive markets in the country.
Philosophical Considerations: On a deeper level, buying a home is about envisioning your future self. It’s about aligning your current desires with where you see yourself in the years to come, making it essential to:
- Evaluate Your Needs: Understand what you truly need in a home.
- Assess Your Desires: Consider what extras you want that would enhance your life.
- Set Your Goals: Think about your long-term personal and financial objectives.
Having the right support is crucial. You need agents who not only have personal experience in homeownership but also a proven track record of guiding others to successful outcomes. With us as your knowledgeable agents who are by your side, navigating the complexities of the San Francisco real estate market becomes a manageable and more assured journey.
What Does Your Future Home Look Like?
Part of the fun of the house search is imagining what your eventual home will look like. Our work together will steadily fill in the picture, which may turn out to be completely unexpected in the end. Or it may be exactly spot-on with what you pictured. Only time will tell, but the sooner you start the sooner we can get going
So why is it so costly to buy a home in San Francisco?
A combination of human-made and geographic reasons combine to make it dear to live here
There are lots of reasons and draws of the City of course but here are the key things that keep prices up.
Surrounded By Water on 3 Sides
Geographic Limits: San Francisco’s geography—surrounded by water on three sides—leaves little room for expansion. Every inch of land is precious, making new construction a constant challenge. Adding to these constraints, half the city is less appealing to many due to the Bay Area’s iconic coastal fog (affectionately known as Karl), which blankets the western and southwestern parts of the city, limiting desirable housing options to areas east of Twin Peaks.
Other parts of the city, particularly in the north and northeast, are less desirable or off-limits due to liquefaction risks. On top of these natural limitations, human-made constraints like freeways, incompatible zoning, and other regulatory hurdles further restrict development and exacerbate housing shortages.
Plenty of Human-Made Limits Too
Protected Charm: San Francisco’s history and beauty are treasures, but it comes with a price. Stringent regulations like the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and historic preservation laws make it tough to replace or renovate older buildings. Renovating anything older than 45 years, which is approximately 80 percent of the City’s structures, presumptively requires historic review which can be a very long and expensive process. While these measures protect the city’s charm and character, they also slow modernization and exacerbate housing shortages.
NIMBYism Rules: The “Not In My Backyard” mindset runs deep in San Francisco. Community resistance, sometimes from just a single vocal individual, can delay or block projects, significantly driving up costs and discouraging investment. The process is further complicated by a web of overlapping city departments, permits, approvals, and neighbor comment opportunities. What might take weeks in other communities can take years here.
The resulting carrying costs, vacancy losses, and expenses for lawyers, consultants, experts, and administrative proceedings can be overwhelming. These hurdles create bottlenecks that exacerbate housing prices and limit availability, further intensifying the city’s housing crisis.
To address this, California’s state-mandated targets require San Francisco to add thousands of housing units by 2030. Because the city has missed these targets, developers can now pursue so-called builder’s remedies—a legal pathway allowing them to bypass many administrative hurdles to build more and faster. However, how these measures will evolve in practice remains to be seen.
Too Few People to Build: The national shortage of skilled tradespeople has hit San Francisco especially hard, as the city’s already high cost of living makes it difficult to attract and retain workers in the first place. Contributing factors like wildfire reconstruction efforts in nearby Wine Country and the potential for stricter immigration policies go to strain the construction workforce and trades even more. These pressures have driven labor costs to unprecedented levels, making building or renovating homes more expensive than ever.
As of 2025, one trusted contractor told us that high-quality residential renovation work in San Francisco can cost upwards of $700 per square foot. Others report figures reaching $1,500 per square foot or more, depending on the scope and complexity of the project.
Rent and Eviction Control Laws Distortive Effects: San Francisco’s robust rent control and eviction protections offer stability for tenants but come with trade-offs. These policies discourage property owners from selling or making upgrades, leading to fewer homes on the market and a lack of modernized housing stock.
And Taxes (Of Course): Federal and state tax policies present financial hurdles for long-term homeowners. Capital gains taxes that start after $250,000 or $500,000 worth of gains, which is only a modest gain here, and Proposition 13’s lock on how much property taxes can increase are disincentives for owners, especially older people, to sell. This results in fewer homes entering the market, further restricting supply.
Mortgage-based Handcuffs: Previously low mortgage rates that we saw until 2023, have effectively tied many homeowners to their properties, even when they might otherwise have upgraded to something new. Moving often means giving up a mortgage with an interest rate that could be half of what they would face today.
With little financial pressure to sell, many choose to build equity rather than move, further tightening the already limited housing inventory. This creates a cycle that accelerates and exacerbates the housing shortage, making it even harder for new buyers to enter the market.
Dip Your Toes In (Just a Bit)
These terms and concepts might seem like a lot now, but trust us—when you’re house hunting, they’ll quickly become your latest data junkie obsession. Let’s get you started!
Starting Searches
When the time comes, you’ll set up your own search criteria to find the listings that match your needs perfectly. To help you get started, we’ve broken it down by real estate district to give you a head start:
How Long is Too Long? How Fast is Fast?
Our market moves fast here in San Francisco. Just how fast depends on a lot of things like seasonality, mortgage rates, competition and pricing (among more). Take a look at the stats:
Days on Market
One way to assess the state of the market is by examining the median and average days on market (DOM). These figures indicate how long it takes for a property to sell after being listed on the MLS, and provide insight into the market's strength and demand. When DOM is low, it suggests a competitive market with limited inventory, prompting buyers to engage in bidding wars or make multiple offers, as seen in 2018, 2021, and early 2022. In 2023 days went up as rates went up but eventually have went back down as people got used to those new rates. If the DOM number is high, it indicates an excess of inventory, leading to lower selling prices (or not).
While DOM is a useful metric for buyers and sellers, it is just one aspect of market analysis. When DOM is low, buyers must prepare for competition, while sellers should adjust their expectations if DOM is high. However, each case is unique, and 2023's market may defy conventional wisdom, particularly in San Francisco, where inventory remains low, DOM is long, and prices are moderating in some areas, but not all.
Square Footage
Determining the exact property square footage size in San Francisco can be a difficult question to answer as the people doing the measuring may be applying different standards (i.e., gross living area vs. gross internal area) or using differing methods when calculating a property’s living area. Figures may simply depend on why a space is being measured in the first place.
Because of the above, you may see different numbers for the same property: assessor numbers; appraiser totals; condo map numbers; graphic artist tallies; and so on. When it comes to this question, we advise our own buyers that a space is as big as it is. What matters more, in our opinion, is how the space is used and if it fits with your goals for buying a property. Things that make a home livable — ceiling height, layout, flow and natural light, for example — may end up mattering more to some buyers than to others.
When Each Square Foot is $1,000...
It really matters then, right? Well maybe as we pointed out above. But we will still start with the numbers when valuing a property. Here is what has been happening lately for houses and condos in San Francisco:
What Else?
Some potentially relevant links and pages to consider