san francisco

I've lived in three apartments in San Francisco over the past decade. For each one, my landlord has always been a "mom and pop" team, an older married couple who bought the house or building as income property or kept it after they moved elsewhere, and decided to handle the renting and tenant management duties themselves. Now brokers and agents have taken control of much of the city's apartment rental market, and the same thing is happening in many American cities since home sales have slowed down.

I've had a good relationship with all of my landlords -- one woke up at 2 a.m. after my frantic call and rushed over to fix a gushing sink pipe; another stopped by with homemade chicken soup when I had the flu. But that type of renter-landlord relationship is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Seventeen years after he left San Francisco as the iconic quarterback of its 49ers football team, Joe Montana is back in town -- this time as an empty-nester renter. The reason for the switch? All four kids have moved out, so "Joe Cool" and his wife, Jennifer, are scaling back to a smaller (relatively speaking) in-town rental and selling off their California residences.

The crown jewel of those homes is Villa Montana, an expansive wine country ranch, currently on the market for $49 million.

But is it worth its pro-league price tag?

The housing market is bouncing back in San Francisco, where sales of houses and condominiums jumped 50 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. Improving technology stocks and a limited housing supply are credited with the increase.

And not just more homes were sold, but at higher prices, with the median price rising 5.4 percent to $685,000. The city and the metro area have ranked first or second among the most expensive U.S. housing markets for 19 of the past 20 years, as homebuyers flock there for its weather and high quality of life.

But how much home can the median price of $685,000 buy in San Francisco? For about $680,000 there are plenty of foreclosures to choose from, many near the border of Daly City. Most are near the edges of the city, but a few are near its center. Here are three San Francisco homes for sale in different parts of the city that are worth taking a look at, and are all in good neighborhoods:

San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood is undergoing a transition that's taking it beyond what it's been known for: excellent hilltop views of the city. For a little more than $1 million, you can buy a house in this vibrant neighborhood. It's not likely to stay that affordable for long.

The New York Times recently highlighted Bernal Heights for its culinary scene and its mix of markets selling foods from around the world.

What can you get for around $1 million in Bernal Heights? This home at 160 Manchester St., for example. Here are the details:

The San Francisco Giants are off to a hot start this season, making the prospect of living near the team's ballpark an especially appealing adventure.

This condo at 657 Third St. is two blocks from AT&T Park, and you can just hear the stadium calling your name as you walk by on a game day -- or is that crowd noise?

Every time I visit a big city, I like to spend a week doing nothing more than going to a live theater performance every night, with sightseeing and a fancy dinner wrapped around it.

For $499,000 in San Francisco that can be done by buying a home within walking distance of its theater district, allowing you a place to stay after a night on the town. Here are three homes for sale for $499,000 or less in different neighborhoods. But all are within a walk or a cable-car ride to Union Square and its nearby theaters and restaurants. With the hilly terrain of Nob Hill, you may want to take a cable car or taxi back home after the show.

For millionaires it must always be a good time to enter the housing market. After all, they can still afford a home when prices are high, and now that they're low again, million-dollar bargains abound. Recent price drops in San Francisco's Telegraph Hill make the area worth looking at again.

I recently wrote about a stunning condo for sale in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood that had its price drop by 5 percent. Now I've found a single-family home in the same hilltop neighborhood that has dropped nearly 11 percent in price --- from $3,350,000 to $2,995,000.

What do some people do when they can't afford their soaring housing prices of San Francisco? They move to the suburbs. Guess what's constituting as a suburb of San Francisco these days? Cities as far as Portland and Seattle, 600 to 800 miles to the north.

In this age of telecommuting this type of scenario is now an outlandish possibility. Newly transplanted Pacific Northwest residents can keep their high-paying San Francisco jobs while enjoying such perks as a $350,000 home that can accommodate a small family. (Rather than living in a cramped Mission District apartment for the same price.)

You've got to love San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. This is where it all happened, man, during the Summer of Love. You can take a walking tour of The Haight, as it's called, and come across houses where the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix lived. Located near the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park, the Haight is one of the quintessential San Francisco neighborhoods. The classic Victorian and Edwardian homes in this neighborhood can range from $300K for a onr-bedroom condo all the way up to $5M for a five-bedroom mansion.

We compared three great single-family homes in and around Haight-Ashbury, all priced under $3 million:

Living in the San Francisco neighborhood of Pacific Heights is expensive. Home prices average $3.1 million, and some mansions price for as high as $13.5 million. But for less than $2 million, we found three excellent homes in Pacific Heights.

Much of the affluent neighborhood was built after the 1906 earthquake, although some Victorian homes built before then still exist. It's a scenic area with stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the San Francisco Bay. And luxury abounds in the district, which embodies Hollywood's vision of the city: blocks of colorful wedding-cake mansions from which you can see for miles.

Of course $2,995,000 is an outrageous amount of money to pay for a fixer-upper house. But in San Francisco's Presidio Heights neighborhood, it's a deal if you consider how far prices have dropped in the stylish neighborhood in the past year.

The house at 3150 Jackson St. is for sale for $2,995,000, although a Trulia listing has it for sale at $2,695,000. Whatever price you get, it's a lot less than it would have been a year ago compared with other homes in the neighborhood.

San Francisco has many beautiful hills, but the views from Telegraph Hill are spectacular enough to warrant living there at least once in your life if you can afford it.

This condo for $1,995,000 at 235 Francisco St. is on one of the more private streets on Telegraph Hill, and is in a residential neighborhood that is much quieter than the neighboring North Beach area and its busy cafes and nightlife.

Here's a question you might be pondering: why does one market tend to have more LEED-certified (green, that is) buildings than another?

Actually, I was thinking about that this week as I'm in Portland, Oregon checking out design and sustainability projects, and you can't get through a rain-soaked day without being impressed with this self-proclaimed green capital's green commitment. Consider, for example, the Oregon Sustainability Center, a $100-million project to design and build the world's most sustainable large-scale building in the world.

So it came as some surprise to learn that goody-goody green San Francisco had snagged the number one spot on the Green Building Opportunity Index - a study that ranks top U.S. office markets on the basis of real estate fundamentals and green development considerations - while Portland pulled in at a measly 12th.

Property is expensive in San Francisco. Still there are bargains. That's why you've got to shop around and compare. Here we'll show you what kind of property can you buy for under $700,000 around the Castro neighborhood. The Castro is one San Francisco's most fab neighborhoods. If you've seen the movie, "Milk," you got a good feel for the Victorian architecture and spirit of this part of town.

So lets compare three properties in that hood and see what you can get for under $700K.

Considering that the average for sale price of homes similar to this $448,000 studio apartment I want in San Francisco's affluent Cow Hollow neighborhood is $699,000, this studio is an inexpensive way to live in one of the greatest cities in the world.

The studio apartment on the fourth floor of the Marina Chateau at 2701 Van Ness Ave. is in a wonderful location and has rooftop views from a shared common area that you can photograph and send to your envious friends around the world.