Central Sunset Houses: Size, Age and Assessed Value

Buy a house in Central Sunset and its assessment changes with you. Houses last bought in the 2020s carry a median assessed value of $1,650,360 as of 20 September 2026, against $215,398 for houses with no recorded transfer since 1987. The two groups are about the same size. Under Proposition 13, the purchase year sets the figure.

These figures cover every residential parcel in Central Sunset, not a sample, as of 20 September 2026.

The ownership record stops in March 2025, about 18 months before this page's date, so the hold figure runs a little short.

Mostly houses, with more flats than you might expect. Of 5,784 residential parcels, 4,759 are single-family houses, 82.3% of the total. Another 846 are multi-family buildings, 14.6%, and 179 are condominium units, 3.1%. No residential parcel is vacant.

Condominium units have no class of their own in the parcel record. They are recorded as single-family, which puts 4,938 parcels in that class. We counted a single-family parcel with no land of its own as a condominium unit, and 179 moved across on that rule. The house count of 4,759 is what remains.

The condominium units are a different product, not a smaller house. Their median year built is 2001, while the median house went up in the 1930s. Only 40.8% of them carry the homeowners' exemption, against 57.6% of the houses. We also left 182 commercial, office, industrial and mixed-use parcels out of every count on this page, because they are not homes.

The median house has 1,592 square feet of living area. More than half, 54.1%, fall between 1,500 and 2,499 square feet, and 39.0% between 1,000 and 1,499. That living area comes from the parcel record. A listing often gives a different size, and on more than a fifth of the homes with both sizes recorded the two differ by more than 20%, so we never mix them in one comparison.

The land under the houses is small and nearly uniform. Measured across every one of the 4,759 single-family parcels, the median land area is 2,996 square feet. 61.4% of houses sit on between 2,900 and 3,099 square feet of land, and 99.2% on less than 4,000. So the choice here is between houses, not between very different pieces of land.

The median house covers 0.58 of its land in living area. That ratio, called floor-area ratio, divides the living space by the land it sits on. Most houses are recorded as one storey, 83.2%, and 16.8% as two or more.

The bathroom count is the surprise. The median house has one bathroom, and the one-bath share stays high well into the larger sizes. The table shows it by size, as of 20 September 2026.

Only 17.6% of houses have three bathrooms or more. The parcel record counts baths its own way and can miss a half bath, so confirm the count on the listing before you rule a house out.

They went up almost all at once, between the wars. The median house was built in 1936, and 37.8% went up in the 1930s alone. 97.5% were built before 1950. Only 0.1% of houses were built in 2000 or later, a handful in all.

A stock this uniform changes what you compare. Two houses built a year apart on the same size of land started out close to identical. What separates them now is what has been done to them since, and the inspection is where that shows up.

Owners stay a long time. Among houses with a recorded transfer, the median owner has held for 23.2 years. 58.1% have held for twenty years or more, and 27.1% for thirty or more. Another 37.7% of houses show no recorded transfer since 1987 at all.

Two limits sit under those figures. The ownership record stops on 14 March 2025, about 18 months before this page's date, so every hold length here runs a little short. The hold figures also cover only houses with a recorded transfer since 1987. That makes the median hold and the twenty- and thirty-year shares floors, not ceilings.

Little of the stock changes hands. Only 8.4% of the dated houses had a recorded transfer in the record's last five years. How recently houses changed hands is the one measure of change this record can support, because it carries no renovation dates and no sale prices.

More than half the houses carry the homeowners' exemption, which the county grants on an owner's main home. It is the closest thing to an occupancy count the record gives us. It is not an investor count, and we derive none from it. Owners with the exemption have held a median 25.3 years, against 18.4 years for houses without it.

Under Proposition 13, a house is assessed at its base-year value when it changes hands or is newly built. That value then rises by no more than two percent a year. So an assessed value here mostly tells you when a house last sold, and it is never a market value or a sale price.

The staircase below shows how far apart that puts two groups of matched houses. It covers single-family houses as of 20 September 2026.

The 2020s buyers are assessed at 7.7 times the long-held houses, on nearly the same living area and the same median land area. Your own assessment will start from your purchase price. Neither the seller's figure nor the neighbor's tells you what yours will be.

Across all 4,759 houses, the median assessed value is $559,126, and land makes up a median 57.1% of it. Land outweighs the building on 63.6% of houses. The median assessed value per square foot of living area is $352, an assessment measure and not a price.

The homeowners' exemption does not explain the gap. Houses with it are assessed at a median $533,190, and houses without it at $604,247. Among houses held twenty years or more, the two medians close to $590,546 and $625,164. The length of the hold does the work, and 38.2% of the houses without the exemption show no recorded transfer since 1987.

Not much land, and a narrow set of candidates. No vacant residential parcel exists. The parcel record lists RH-1 on 75.4% of house parcels, and we report that designation only as recorded. It may predate the city's recent rezoning, so check a parcel with San Francisco Planning before you plan an addition.

On the four teardown markers the record can measure, 7.5% of houses meet three or more. A wider screen flags 29.7%, but that figure is an upper bound, not a count. The record carries no renovation history, so that screen treats every house as unrenovated. Many of the low building values that drive it are old base years under the tax cap.

Every figure on this page is as of 20 September 2026 and covers every parcel in Central Sunset, not a sample, so no sample label applies. The residential count is 5,784 of 5,966 parcels, after 182 non-residential parcels are left out.

The ownership record's most recent transfer is dated 14 March 2025, about 18 months before this page's date. Every hold length and recent-transfer share is short by about that gap. The record's transfer dates begin in January 1987, and 37.7% of houses carry none, so the hold figures cover dated houses only and are floors.

Assessed values are the county's assessed figures under Proposition 13. They are not market value, not worth and not a sale price, and comparing them across houses mostly measures the purchase year. The homeowners' exemption marks an owner's main home, and we use it only as that.

Living area comes from the parcel record. It differs from listing sizes by more than 20% on more than a fifth of the homes with both sizes recorded, so the two are never mixed, and this page's sizes will not match the Inventory tab's. Land area is measured across every single-family parcel, all 4,759 of them. The bath count follows the record's own rules and can miss a half bath. The condominium count rests on the rule that a single-family parcel with no land of its own is a condominium unit. The 29.7% teardown screen is an upper bound, because the record carries no renovation history, and the measured figure is 7.5%.

This page cannot tell you what any house would sell for, what its tax bill is, who owns it, or what has been done to it inside. The parcel record carries no sale prices, tax amounts or owner names. The Inventory tab covers sale prices. The rest needs the listing, the permit history and an inspection.