Episode 2 · Property Types & Supply Dynamics
Cow Hollow Houses: Size, Age, Ownership, Assessed Value
Cow Hollow is a San Francisco neighborhood built around Union Street, where old houses on small lots share the blocks with condos and small multi-unit buildings. This page shows what kinds of homes the neighborhood holds, how large and how old the houses are, and how long owners keep them. It also explains why the county's assessed value of a house records when someone bought it, not what it is worth.
💡 Key Insights & Takeaways
- Condo units make up 979 of Cow Hollow's 2,432 residential parcels, or 40.3%, and multi-family buildings make up 895, or 36.8%, as of 27 October 2026.
- Living area for the median house is 2,572 square feet, and the median lot is 2,812 square feet, with 80.8% of the lots under 4,000 square feet.
- The median house was built in 1914, and 82.9% of the houses were built before 1950, yet the median house has 3 bathrooms.
- Houses last transferred in 1999 or earlier have a median assessed value of $567 per square foot, against $1,667 for those last transferred in 2021 to 2024, or 2.9 times as much. These are assessed values, not prices.
- The median house was last transferred 12.0 years ago, but the county's data stops recording transfers after 2 January 2025, so every hold time on this page is understated.
Only 556 of Cow Hollow's 2,432 residential parcels, or 22.9%, are single-family houses as of 27 October 2026. Most of the rest are condominium units and multi-family buildings. The house is the smallest of the three kinds of home here, and the county's single-family label covers far more than houses.
At a glance
Table: Cow Hollow houses at a glance, as of 27 October 2026.
| Measure | Value | Counted |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family houses | 556 | 2,432 residential parcels |
| Median living area | 2,572 square feet | 498 houses |
| Median year built | 1914 | 554 houses |
| Median time since last transfer (understated) | 12.0 years | 407 houses |
| Median assessed value (not a sale price) | $2,243,470 | 556 houses |
What kinds of homes does Cow Hollow have?
The county sorts Cow Hollow's 2,432 residential parcels into four kinds, and the table counts each kind as of 27 October 2026.
Table: Cow Hollow residential parcels by kind, as of 27 October 2026.
| Kind of parcel | Parcels | Share of 2,432 residential parcels |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family houses | 556 | 22.9% |
| Condominium units | 979 | 40.3% |
| Multi-family buildings | 895 | 36.8% |
| Vacant parcels (2, too few to compare) | 2 | Not shown |
The county files 1,536 parcels under a single-family label, but 979 of them have no lot of their own. A condominium unit is a home you own inside a shared building, and a unit has no lot, so this page counts those 979 as condos and not as houses. That is why the house count is far smaller than the county's label suggests.
One rule finds the condominium units, a single-family label with a lot size of zero. The rule can miss a condominium that keeps a lot size, so the 556 houses may include a few condo or townhouse units. Among the 874 multi-family buildings with a recorded unit count, 70.5% have 2 to 4 units.
A further 209 commercial and mixed-use parcels sit inside the neighborhood's boundary but outside this count, which makes 2,641 parcels in all.
How big are Cow Hollow houses and their lots?
The median Cow Hollow house has 2,572 square feet of living area, counted across the 498 houses with a recorded living area, as of 27 October 2026. The county measures living area its own way and it often differs from the size on a sale listing, so this median will not match one taken from sales.
The median lot is 2,812 square feet across all 556 house parcels, and 80.8% of those houses sit on a lot under 4,000 square feet. The living area is close to the size of the lot. The median floor-area ratio, which is living area divided by lot size, is 0.95 across 498 houses.
Of the 541 houses with a recorded story count, 74.7% have 2 or more stories and 25.3% have 1.
How old are Cow Hollow houses, and what is inside them?
The median Cow Hollow house was built in 1914, and 82.9% of the 554 houses with a recorded year were built before 1950, as of 27 October 2026. The 1900 to 1909 decade alone built 36.6% of them, and only 6.5% went up after 2000.
The insides do not match the age. The median house has 3 bathrooms, 52.0% have 3 or more, and only 17.5% have 1. That mix points to changes made after the houses were built. The county's record has no field that dates remodeling work, so this page cannot say how many houses were remodeled or when.
Why do two similar Cow Hollow houses have such different assessed values?
The county's assessed value follows the year a house last changed hands, not the house itself. Under Proposition 13, the county sets a base-year value when a house is bought, and that value can then rise by no more than 2% a year. A sale triggers a reassessment on transfer, and the value resets to the new price.
Houses last transferred in 1999 or earlier have a median assessed value of $567 per square foot of living area, and houses last transferred in 2021 to 2024 have $1,667, which is 2.9 times as much, as of 27 October 2026. The two groups are about the same size, with median living areas of 2,608 and 2,475 square feet. These are assessed values and not prices, so the gap shows when each owner bought and not what the houses would sell for.
Table: Assessed value per square foot of living area by year of last transfer, Cow Hollow houses, as of 27 October 2026.
| Year of last transfer | Median assessed value per square foot | Houses counted |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 or earlier | $567 | 70 |
| 2021 to 2024 | $1,667 | 81 |
| Ratio of the two | 2.9 times | 70 and 81 |
| All houses with a recorded living area | $1,119 | 498 |
The county's data stops recording transfers after 2 January 2025, so a house sold after that date still shows its earlier owner's date and sits in an older group than it belongs in.
The 149 houses with no recorded transfer have a median assessed value of $484,147. The county's data starts on 21 January 1987, so this page does not assume that those houses have been held for a long time. The median assessed value of all 556 houses is $2,243,470, which is an assessment and not what a house would sell for.
Land carries 60.0% of the assessed value of the median house, and land is assessed above the building on 70.9% of houses. That is the county's split of one total between land and building, not a measure of how scarce land is. The shares cluster at exactly 60% and 70%, and they rise with the year of the last transfer.
How long do owners keep Cow Hollow houses?
The median Cow Hollow house was last transferred 12.0 years ago, among the 407 houses that carry a transfer date, as of 27 October 2026. That is the hold time, the years since a house last changed hands. The county's data stops recording transfers after 2 January 2025, which is 21.8 months before that date. Every hold time here is understated by about that gap, and the empty months since are a limit of the records and not a pause in sales.
Of the 407 houses with a date, 57.0% were held more than 10 years, 32.4% more than 20 years and 13.8% more than 30 years. Separately, 16.7% of those houses changed hands in the 5 years to 27 October 2026, and that share is a floor, because sales after 2 January 2025 are missing. A further 149 houses, or 26.8% of the 556, have no transfer date at all, so they are left out of every hold figure.
The homeowners exemption is a property tax break that an owner claims on a primary home. It is on 231 of the 556 houses, or 41.5%. It is the closest the record comes to an occupancy count, and it is a floor, not a rate. A house without it is not shown to be rented.
Table: Cow Hollow houses by homeowners exemption, as of 27 October 2026. Hold times are understated by about 21.8 months.
| Group | Houses | Median years since last transfer | Median assessed value |
|---|---|---|---|
| With the exemption | 231 | 20.8 years (147 houses) | $1,661,571 |
| Without the exemption | 325 | 7.5 years (260 houses) | $2,711,833 |
Houses with the exemption have been held longer and carry lower assessed values, which is the Proposition 13 pattern again. The county's data does not name owners, so this page cannot say how many houses are owned by companies, trusts or people who live elsewhere.
How many Cow Hollow houses could be rebuilt?
The county's record cannot say, but a screen of the 556 houses flags 41, or 7.4%, as strong candidates for a rebuild, and that count is a ceiling and not a forecast. The screen tests 4 conditions that the record can show: a high land share, a low building value, a year built earlier than the median decade, and a low floor-area ratio. A house is a strong candidate when it meets at least 3 of them.
The count is an upper bound for 2 reasons. The record has no effective year built, which is the date of major remodeling, so the screen cannot rule out a house that was already remodeled. The low building value condition also tracks how long ago a house was assessed, because many houses that meet it have no recorded transfer. Counting houses that meet 2 of the 4 conditions raises the share to 26.6%.
The lots are mostly small, as the size section shows, so the 41 is a ceiling and not a list of projects. The county codes 47.4% of the 555 houses that have a code as RH2, a residential zoning code. The code is only a label in the county's data. It does not say what a project would be allowed to build, so check any lot with the city's planning department.
The county files 2 parcels as vacant, which is too few to say anything about vacant land, and the record does not show that either one could be built on.
Common questions
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