Russian Hill Housing: Houses, Condos, Age, Assessments

If you are comparing houses on Russian Hill, one gap decides how to read assessed values: as of 8 October 2026, 36 houses of similar size with no recorded transfer carry a median $306,379, against $2,913,120 for 19 last transferred in 2020 or later. The sale date explains the 9.51 times gap, not the house.

Russian Hill housing at a glance, as of 8 October 2026.

Most homes on Russian Hill are not houses. As of 8 October 2026 the neighborhood holds 3,672 residential parcels, and 360 of them, 9.8%, are houses on their own lots. Condo units are 1,891 of the parcels, or 51.5%. The county has no condo category, so a parcel coded as a single-family home with no lot of its own is counted here as a condo unit. Tenancy-in-common and co-operative interests cannot be told apart from condo units, so they sit in that count too.

The other 1,421 parcels, 38.7%, carry the county's multi-family code. Of those, 1,141 are whole apartment buildings. The other 280 have no lot of their own and act as interests in a single unit, many of them in high-rise buildings, so this page never counts them as buildings. None of the residential parcels is vacant land.

A parcel count is not a count of homes, because a whole apartment building is one parcel. Of the whole buildings, 719 hold two to four units and 402 hold five or more, and 43 of those hold 20 units or more. The buildings that record a unit count hold 6,595 units between them. Add the houses and the condo units, and the parcels hold at least 8,846 homes in all. That total is a floor, because 20 whole-building parcels and most of the unit-level interests record no unit count. 74.6% of the homes sit inside whole apartment buildings. If you want a house of your own, you are choosing from 360 of them.

Residential parcels on Russian Hill by type, as of 8 October 2026.

The median Russian Hill house has 2,310 square feet of living space on a 2,498-square-foot lot, as of 8 October 2026. Half of the houses measure between 1,596 and 3,382 square feet, and 15.1% have 4,000 square feet or more. Lots run small. Half of them fall between 1,558 and 3,649 square feet, and 81.4% are under 4,000 square feet.

Living area here is the county's own measure, and it is recorded for 331 of the 360 houses. It differs from the size in a listing by more than 20% on 236 of 457 matched listings, or 51.6%, and the county leaves living area blank on 56.5% of parcels, mostly condo units. Use these sizes to compare one house with another, not to check a listing.

Because the lots are small, the houses build up rather than out. The median floor-area ratio is 0.95, which means a house's living space divided by the area of its lot comes to 0.95, and 44.7% of houses have more living space than ground. The median house rises 2 storeys, 76.9% of houses rise two storeys or more, and 23.1% sit on one level.

Inside, the median house has 2 bathrooms. 44.6% of houses have three or more, and 23.7% have just one. A bedroom count is recorded on 55.3% of houses, so the bedroom figures describe that group. In it the median is 3 bedrooms, and the most common layout, at 16.1% of the houses with both counts recorded, is 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.

House size and layout on Russian Hill, as of 8 October 2026. Living space is the county's measure, not the listed size.

The median Russian Hill house was built in 1917, as of 8 October 2026, and 51.4% of houses went up before 1920. By 1950, 80.7% had been built, and only 3.6% date from 2000 or later. The apartment buildings with two to four units are a little older than the houses, with a median build year of 1911 across 717 buildings. Condo units are a generation newer, at a median build year of 1951 across 1,809 units. Effective year built, the county field that would show a rebuild or a major update, is blank on every parcel, so these figures cannot tell you which buildings have been updated.

On most Russian Hill houses the land carries more of the assessed value than the building. As of 8 October 2026, land makes up a median 60.0% of a house's assessed value, and land outweighs the building on 71.8% of houses. The median land value is $1,125,800 and the median building value is $781,350. These are Proposition 13 assessed values, not what the land or the house would sell for. The split is the county's allocation of a value set at the last sale, so it is not a current appraisal of the land against the building.

A screen for houses that could be rebuilt flags 26.9% of them as strong candidates, but that figure is a ceiling. Effective year built is blank on every parcel, so every house counts as never updated and the score runs high. Four of the five conditions can be tested, which are land share, building value, construction decade and floor-area ratio, and 6.9% of houses clear three of those four. Neither figure says any house will be rebuilt.

The median Russian Hill house is assessed at $1,983,888 as of 8 October 2026, and that figure says more about when each house last changed hands than about the house. Proposition 13 sets an assessed value at a sale and lets it rise no more than 2% a year until the next change of ownership. Houses last transferred in 2020 or later carry a median $3,282,129 against $1,416,213 for those transferred before 2000, which is 2.32 times as much.

Size does not explain the gap. Among houses of 1,500 to 2,499 square feet, those last transferred in 2020 or later carry a median $2,913,120 against $1,361,836 before 2000, or 2.14 times as much. A third group has no transfer on record. Those 36 houses of the same size carry a median $306,379, so the recent group's median is 9.51 times theirs. In the next size band, 2,500 to 3,999 square feet, the same comparison gives 7.80 times. A blank date means the date is unknown. It does not mean the house has been held a long time, so read this group as a floor and never as a hold length.

Condo units show the same pattern. Among units with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, those last transferred in 2020 or later carry a median $1,664,640 against $724,248 before 2000, or 2.30 times as much, counted among units with a recorded bedroom count.

The homeowners' exemption, which marks a home its owner lives in and filed for, points the same way. Houses that carry it have a median assessed value of $1,458,026 against $2,674,677 for houses without it. That gap follows purchase dates, because owners with the exemption have held longer, as the next section shows. It is not a gap in quality.

When you buy, your own assessed value resets at that sale. A seller's or a neighbor's assessed value tells you the year they bought, not what yours will be. The data carries no tax amount, so this page states none.

Median assessed value of Russian Hill homes by when they last changed hands, as of 8 October 2026. These are Proposition 13 assessed values, not market values, and recorded transfers effectively end in March 2025.

The median Russian Hill house last changed hands 13.0 years ago, as of 8 October 2026, and that figure runs short. Recorded transfers effectively end in March 2025, and the latest is dated 21 March 2025, 18.6 months before that date. Every hold figure here is understated by about that gap, and a recent buyer still shows under the owner before them. The earliest transfer date on record is 27 February 1987.

Among the 264 houses with a dated transfer, 59.1% have been held more than 10 years, 33.3% for 20 years or more and 16.3% for 30 years or more. A further 26.7% of houses carry no transfer date at all, which means the date is unknown. It does not mean a long hold. Owners who carry the homeowners' exemption hold far longer, at a median 21.4 years against 9.5 years for houses without it, and both run short for the same reason. Condo units show a median hold of 12.0 years.

How long Russian Hill homes have been held, as of 8 October 2026. Every figure runs short, because recorded transfers effectively end in March 2025.