Everything the light touches is Bernal Heights.Melia Robinson/Business Insider
For a long time, Bernal Heights was the best kept secret in San Francisco real estate.
Short commutes into downtown, relatively affordable homes, and panoramic hilltop views made it a desirable place for artists, musicians, and tech workers to settle down.
But the residential enclave located south of the city’s Mission District and Noe Valley has seen a surge in popularity in recent years, causing home prices to appreciate 111% over the past six years. The median sales price for a two-bedroom abode is $1.58 million.
In 2014, real-estate site Redfin named the north slope of Bernal Heights, an area that’s densely packed with million-dollar homes, the hottest neighborhood in America based on increases in search traffic to local listings.
I spent an afternoon in Bernal Height’s northern end to see what the buzz is about.
The area where Café St. Jorge sits has gentrified over the past few decades. In the 1980s at the height of the crack epidemic, drug dealers and bike gangs ruled these streets.
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Crime has fallen significantly, though Bernal Heights experiences more incidents of assault along Mission Street (the border between Bernal Heights’s north slope and the Mission District) than the San Francisco average, according to real-estate site Walkscore.
I stumbled into an open house and met Michael Minson, a real estate agent who has lived and work in Bernal Heights for years.
Melia Robinson/Business Insider
He said he sells primarily to people working in tech and financial services, who come for the charming small-town feel and spectacular views.
The house that Minson was showing, listed at $1.3 million, belonged to a “tech family” who upgraded to a bigger property near Precita Park, also located in Bernal Heights.
Minson, the real estate agent, described Bernal Hill’s housing boom as a pair of “golden handcuffs” for some residents.
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People who have been here long before the tech industry arrived like seeing their property values rise, but few can afford to buy new homes, according to Minson.