Buying a home in San Francisco is a lot easier when you don’t need parking.
While other buyers are out there competing for properties with one (or even two!) parking spaces, you’ll be one up on the crowd if you can pass on parking.
A quick look at recent sales in the most central San Francisco neighborhoods* proves that intense overbidding on properties without parking isn’t really happening much. Eight percent of the 458 condos sold (from November 2014-February 20, 2015) saw overbids of 20% or more. But only three of the 50 condos sold without parking were overbid by that amount.
The single-family house market has an even wider divide. Buyers overbid 20% or more on a whopping 26% of the 178 homes sold, yet only two of the 19 houses sold without parking were overbid that high.
*Neighborhoods where you could easily live without relying on a car to get to a retail area, public transportation and other services: Districts 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, along with the Inner Sunset/Richmond, Lake and Laurel Heights. (Here’s a link to a map that details all the areas within those districts.)