The True Monthly Cost of Owning a Home in San Francisco

For a $1.1M condo with 20% down at a 7.32% rate, in line with the roughly 7.3% to 7.4% Freddie Mac weekly averages of October 2026 (as of 2026-10-25, check current figures), the mortgage payment is $6,045 a month but the real cost of owning is about $8,250. For a $1.9M house, $10,441 becomes about $14,150 before utilities. Then a supplemental tax bill arrives in year one. Budget to the second number, not the first.

Principal and interest is only 70 to 80% of the real number

The house loan is $1.52M, above the 2026 conforming limit of $1,249,125 for San Francisco County, so it is a jumbo with its own pricing; the table uses the conforming average. Rates move weekly; as of 2026-10-24, check the current figure.

Property tax: the 1.18% rate, bonds and the supplemental bill

San Francisco's combined secured rate for fiscal 2025-26 is $1.18268325 per $100 of assessed value, or 1.1827%. The 1% base comes from Prop 13; the rest is voter-approved debt. The Board of Supervisors adopts the rate each year, usually in September, and it drifts: 1.1714% last year, 1.1827% this year.

Three things trip up new owners:

• Your assessed value resets to your purchase price, then rises at most 2% a year under Prop 13, which is why long-time neighbors pay far less.
• Fixed-dollar parcel taxes and special assessments are separate line items; look at a current bill for the property during your disclosure review.
• The supplemental bill. The Assessor must reassess after a sale, but the regular bills for the first year were computed on the seller's old value. The difference, prorated for the part of the fiscal year you own, comes as a separate bill, typically six months to a year after your deed records. It is mailed by the Treasurer, payable in two installments, and your lender's impound account will not cover it.

Example: the seller's assessed value was $660,000 and you pay $1.1M. The $440,000 gap at 1.1827% is about $5,200 a year; close on January 1 and you owe roughly half, about $2,600, on top of the regular bills. The Assessor publishes a supplemental tax calculator; use it before you close. Supplemental tax bills covers timing and what to do if the estimate looks wrong.

HOA dues: what they cover, why they rise, and special assessments

Median dues in the SF metro reached about $502 a month in 2025, up from roughly $360 in 2019. Dues typically cover the master insurance policy, common-area maintenance, management, reserves, and often water and garbage; never your interior, your HO-6 policy, electricity or internet.

Why dues keep climbing:

• Insurance. Boards renewing master policies have been pushed onto pricier carriers or forced to raise dues to keep coverage.
• Deferred maintenance coming due. California's SB 326 required condo associations to complete their first balcony and elevated-element inspection by January 1, 2026 (a deadline AB 2579 pushed back from 2025), with repeats every nine years, and those reports surface repairs.
• Lender pressure. Fannie Mae will not buy loans in buildings with significant deferred maintenance or unsafe-condition repair directives, and for loan applications dated on or after August 3, 2026 it retired its Limited Review, so established condo projects need a Full Review or a project review waiver, and a budget that relies on a reserve study must fund the study's highest recommended reserve allocation (announced in early 2026; check the current Selling Guide). Buildings respond with higher dues or special assessments.

A special assessment is a one-time charge split across units when reserves fall short. Read the budget, reserve study and the last year of board minutes before you remove contingencies; HOA documents explains what to look for.

Insurance in a hard market

California's statewide average homeowners premium is roughly $1,600 a year for $300,000 of dwelling coverage, but an older San Francisco house needs far more than $300,000 of rebuild coverage and will cost a multiple of that. Quotes for the same house can differ by thousands, and some carriers are not writing new policies. The FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, received an approved statewide average dwelling rate increase of 29.1%, effective October 15, 2026 for new and renewal policies after it had asked for 35.8%, and State Farm received a 17% emergency interim increase in 2025; check current figures. As of 2026-10-24, a house insurance figure is a quote you must get, not a number you can look up.

Condos are easier: a standard HO-6 policy in San Francisco averages about $600 a year in published estimates and covers your interior, personal property, liability and loss assessment, while the master policy covers the structure. Ask for the master policy's deductible, which can land on you after a water leak.

Earthquake damage is excluded from both. The California Earthquake Authority sells separate policies with deductibles from 5% to 25% of dwelling coverage; a 15% deductible on $800,000 of coverage means you pay the first $120,000. Premium estimates vary widely, roughly $800 to $3,000 a year for a $500,000 dwelling in published ranges depending on soil, construction and deductible (as of 2026-10-25, check current figures), and the CEA has raised rates in recent years, so run its online premium calculator for the home you want. The USGS puts the probability of a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake in the Bay Area before 2043 at 72%. Earthquake insurance helps you decide.

Maintenance on SF housing stock

The rule of thumb is 1% to 4% of value per year, with homes over 30 years old toward the top; most SF houses are far older. Items that show up often in SF inspections:

• Dry rot and water intrusion from fog, failed flashing and old stucco.
• Drainage and foundations, especially on slopes and in filled areas.
• The sewer lateral. You own the entire lateral from house to main; the SFPUC repairs or replaces structural defects in the lower section (curb to main) at no cost in most cases once you report them through 311, but the upper section is yours. Get a camera inspection.
• Seismic. The city's soft-story ordinance mandated retrofits for wood-frame buildings of five or more units and three or more stories (or two over a basement) permitted before 1978, but two- to four-unit buildings and single-family homes with living space over a garage can have the same weakness without any mandate.
• Original wiring, plumbing and roofs reaching the end of their lives.

For a condo, 0.5% is a reasonable reserve, and the building's reserve study tells you how likely a special assessment is.

Utilities and city services

Houses pay all of these; condos usually have water and garbage inside the dues.

Add internet; for a house, roughly $500 a month is a fair planning figure.

One-time costs

• Closing costs and prepaids: plan on roughly 2% of the price, so about $22,000 on $1.1M and $38,000 on $1.9M. Closing costs line by line itemizes them.
• Moving and first repairs: get three mover quotes and set aside a repair fund; inspections always miss something.
• The supplemental tax bill in year one, as above.

Worked examples and a fill-in worksheet

Your worksheet, monthly:

1. Principal and interest at your quoted rate: ____
2. Purchase price times 0.0118, divided by 12: ____
3. HOA dues from the current budget: ____
4. Homeowners insurance quote divided by 12: ____
5. Earthquake insurance quote divided by 12 (or zero if you decline): ____
6. Maintenance: price times 0.005 (condo) or 0.01 to 0.02 (house), divided by 12: ____
7. Utilities not in dues: ____
8. Total: ____
9. One-time: closing costs (price times 0.02), moving, repair fund, and the supplemental bill from the Assessor's calculator: ____

For the price in line 2, use recent sales rather than list prices; the comps tool shows what comparable homes closed for.