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SF District 9 Real Estate: Mission, Bernal, SoMa & Mission Bay

By Matthew Martinez, Founder, CEO & Managing Broker, Diamond Real Estate Group. California DRE #01869679.

SF District 9 is the MLS search district the San Francisco Association of REALTORS® uses for the city’s east side: Bernal Heights, the Inner Mission, Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, South of Market, Yerba Buena, South Beach, Central Waterfront/Dogpatch and Treasure Island. It is a listing-search area, not Supervisor District 9, whose election lines are drawn separately. The Assessor uses matching codes, 9A through 9K, and its 2025 roll counts about 39,950 parcels across them.

The district spans a wide range. It runs from Bernal Heights cottages on lots of about 1,750 square feet to condominium towers completed in the 2000s, and from Victorian flats on the Mission grid to a redevelopment district built on bay fill. More than 18,000 of its parcels are condominium units, so building documents matter here as much as lot and house.

SF District 9 homes for sale

SF District 9 market report

The neighborhoods of District 9

Neighborhood (code)	Character	Main transit
Bernal Heights (9A)	Hill of small houses on small lots under its own special use district, with a 30-foot limit for dwellings; Cortland Avenue shops and a 26-acre summit park	67 Bernal Heights; 24th St./Mission BART; Mission Street buses
Inner Mission (9C)	Flat grid of 1900s flats, the district’s largest stock of apartment buildings and post-2000 condos; Mission, Valencia and 24th Street commercial corridors	16th St. and 24th St./Mission BART; 14, 49, 12, 22, 27, 33
Mission Bay (9D)	303-acre OCII redevelopment area on former rail yards and fill: condo and rental buildings from the 2000s, UCSF and Chase Center	T Third; Caltrain, N Judah and T at 4th and King
Potrero Hill (9E)	Residential hill rising to about 341 feet, mostly RH-2 houses and flats in a 40-X height district, plus a newer condo stock (median build year 1996)	Caltrain 22nd Street; 19, 22, 48
South of Market (9F)	Western and Central SoMa: about 2,570 condo units and 1,000 live/work lofts among warehouses, shops and residential alleys, under the Western SoMa and Central SoMa plans	Market Street BART and Muni Metro; T Third at 4th and Brannan; 12, 14, 27
Yerba Buena (9K)	High-rise and live/work condos around Yerba Buena Gardens and Moscone Center under C-3-S downtown zoning; median condo unit built in 2001	T Third at Yerba Buena/Moscone; Market Street BART and Muni Metro; 14 Mission
South Beach (9H)	The district’s largest condo stock, about 3,980 units mostly built 1991 to 2015, including much of Rincon Hill, plus about 760 live/work condos near Oracle Park	Caltrain, N Judah and T Third at 4th and King; 30 and 45 at Townsend and Fourth
Central Waterfront / Dogpatch (9J)	East of Interstate 280: the Article 10 Dogpatch Historic District’s older flats and cottages beside lofts and newer condos, with the Pier 70 and Potrero Power Station sites	T Third at 20th and 23rd streets; Caltrain 22nd Street; 48, 55
Treasure Island / Yerba Buena Island (9I)	Former Navy base being rebuilt under TIDA for up to 8,000 homes: rental and affordable buildings on Treasure Island, condos and row homes on Yerba Buena Island	Ferry to the Ferry Building; 25 Treasure Island bus from Salesforce Transit Center

The Assessor also uses a 9B code, “Financial District South,” for about 3,890 parcels in the blocks south of Market Street toward the Embarcadero, most of them condominium units in high-rise buildings. We do not have a separate guide for it; the South Beach and Yerba Buena guides are the closest match.

District 9 borders District 5 (Mission Dolores, Noe Valley and Glen Park) to the west, District 6 (Hayes Valley) across Market Street to the northwest, District 8 (downtown, Civic Center and the Financial District) to the north and District 10 (the Portola, Bayview and southeast neighborhoods) to the south.

Housing: hill cottages to high-rise towers

The Assessor’s 2025 roll shows how unevenly housing types are spread. These are parcel counts: each condominium unit is one parcel, while an apartment building counts once however many units it holds.

Code	Houses	Flats/2-unit	Condo units	Live/work condos	Apartment bldgs (5+ units)	Median condo year
9A Bernal Heights	4,909	781	631	–	77	1927
9B Financial District South	4	8	2,748	417	194	2009
9C Inner Mission	1,066	1,201	2,441	186	483	2000
9D Mission Bay	0	0	2,378	–	19	2009
9E Potrero Hill	1,200	535	1,968	173	59	1996
9F South of Market	64	147	2,574	1,008	192	2004
9H South Beach	1	4	3,976	764	15	2006
9I Treasure/Yerba Buena islands	0	0	145	–	2	2022
9J Central Waterfront/Dogpatch	29	41	752	355	19	2012
9K Yerba Buena	1	2	864	245	16	2001

Nearly all of the district’s roughly 7,270 houses are in three places: Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill and the Inner Mission. Elsewhere the choice is between condominium buildings, and Bernal is the only subdistrict where the typical condo unit is in a pre-war building. Condo counts include below-market-rate units, which are resold under program rules; our BMR homes guide explains them.

Four kinds of planning rules

Land use controls in District 9 come from different frameworks, and the right one depends on the block:

Eastern Neighborhoods area plans. Planning’s map puts the Inner Mission in the Mission plan area and Potrero Hill in the Showplace Square/Potrero Hill plan area. Both protect production, distribution and repair uses in their industrial cores while directing housing to mixed-use areas and commercial corridors.
Redevelopment plans. Mission Bay is governed by its North and South Redevelopment Plans under OCII and is labeled MB-RA on Planning’s zoning layer rather than carrying ordinary zoning.
A neighborhood special use district. Bernal Heights has its own SUD in Planning Code Section 242, with a 30-foot height limit for dwellings, larger rear yards and a general ban on residential demolition.
Project-specific districts. Planning’s special use district layer names districts for Central SoMa, Western SoMa, Mission Rock, Pier 70, the Potrero Power Station and Potrero HOPE SF, among others, and downtown C-3 zoning covers much of Yerba Buena and Financial District South.

This is general information, not legal advice. Before relying on a development or expansion plan, confirm a parcel’s controls with Planning, OCII or a land use attorney.

Historic districts

Article 10 district	Planning neighborhood	Properties	Period
Liberty Hill (1985)	Mission, west edge	293	1860s–1906
Dogpatch (2003)	East of Potrero Hill	129	1867–1945
South End (1990)	South of Market	78	1867–1935
Clyde and Crooks (2018)	South of Market	19	1906–1935

Planning describes Dogpatch as a roughly nine-block residential enclave within an industrial area and South End as a concentration of buildings from almost every period of the city’s maritime history. Many Liberty Hill parcels are filed under District 5 subdistricts, so search both districts for homes there.

Getting around District 9

BART: 16th St./Mission and 24th St./Mission on Mission Street, each served by four lines; the Market Street stations serve the northern edge.
T Third: light rail on Third Street through Dogpatch and Mission Bay, running since January 2023 through the Central Subway via 4th and Brannan and Yerba Buena/Moscone to Chinatown.
Caltrain: the San Francisco terminal at 4th and King and the 22nd Street station on Potrero Hill’s eastern edge.
Muni Metro: the N Judah’s eastern terminal at 4th and King.
Buses: per published route lists, the 14 and 49 on Mission Street, the 67 Bernal Heights, the 22 Fillmore to Mission Bay, the 48 and 55 into Dogpatch and the 25 to Treasure Island.

US 101 and Interstate 280 both run through the district, meeting near its southern edge. Check SFMTA for current routes before relying on a line.

Fill, creek beds and hillsides

Hazard exposure in District 9 follows old shorelines. Planning’s copy of the state liquefaction map shows one large zone that takes in Mission Bay, Showplace Square and the northeast Mission and extends north across parts of South of Market toward the waterfront, with holes over higher ground, the largest of them near the Bay Bridge approach south of Market Street. A point check on Treasure Island also falls inside a mapped zone.

The two hills are different. The cores of Bernal Heights and Potrero Hill are outside liquefaction zones, but each has small earthquake-induced landslide zones on its steeper slopes, about 20 on Bernal and 18 on Potrero, while narrow liquefaction bands follow Cesar Chavez Street and Alemany Boulevard at their feet. Within Mission Bay, FEMA’s 2021 map includes AE and VE flood zones as well as moderate-risk Zone X.

The roll counts about 1,080 apartment buildings of five or more units in the district. Because DBI’s soft-story program is limited to wood-frame construction permitted before 1978, it reaches the older Mission and Bernal stock far more than the towers. Our hazard maps guide shows how to check a parcel.

How buyers and sellers compare District 9

House buyers in District 9 are mostly choosing among Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill and the house blocks of the Inner Mission, and comparing slope, lot size, expansion rules and distance to BART or Caltrain. Condo buyers range over Mission Bay, South Beach, South of Market, Yerba Buena and Dogpatch, where the comparison is building by building.

Building documents: HOA budgets, reserves and special assessments decide value in the tower districts; our San Francisco condo guide lists what to request.
Tax-bill assessments: Mission Bay’s infrastructure and parks are financed partly through special assessments, so compare total carrying costs.
Tenancies: in the Mission’s apartment and flat buildings, rent ordinance coverage drives value; see our San Francisco multifamily guide.
Live/work units: about 3,150 live/work condos are on the roll, most of them in South of Market, South Beach, Financial District South, Dogpatch and Yerba Buena, and their permitted use should be confirmed before purchase.

Whatever the property type, the city’s point-of-sale rules are the same across the district; our San Francisco selling requirements page walks through them. District-wide sales figures are in the market report on this page.

Questions people ask

Which neighborhoods are in SF District 9?

Bernal Heights (9A), the Inner Mission (9C), Mission Bay (9D), Potrero Hill (9E), South of Market (9F), South Beach (9H), Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island (9I), Central Waterfront/Dogpatch (9J) and Yerba Buena (9K). The Assessor also uses 9B for Financial District South.

Is MLS District 9 the same as Supervisor District 9?

No. The MLS district is a real estate search area; Supervisor District 9 is an election district with its own boundaries.

Where are the single-family houses in District 9?

Mostly in Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill and the Inner Mission, which together hold nearly all of the district’s roughly 7,270 house parcels on the 2025 roll.

Which District 9 neighborhoods are mostly condos?

Mission Bay, South Beach, South of Market, Yerba Buena, Financial District South and Dogpatch, where condominium and live/work units make up most residential parcels.

Is Mission Bay zoned like the rest of the city?

No. It is governed by the Mission Bay North and South Redevelopment Plans under OCII and appears as MB-RA on Planning’s zoning layer.

Which parts of District 9 are in liquefaction zones?

Mission Bay, Showplace Square, the northeast Mission, parts of South of Market and Treasure Island are inside mapped zones; the cores of Bernal Heights and Potrero Hill are not, though both have small landslide zones.

What BART stations are in District 9?

16th St./Mission and 24th St./Mission on Mission Street; the Market Street stations sit along the district’s northern edge.

Does Caltrain stop in District 9?

Yes, at its San Francisco terminal at 4th and King and at the 22nd Street station on the eastern edge of Potrero Hill.

Choosing between District 9 neighborhoods, or preparing to sell in one? We can line up recent sales by property type and pull the zoning, permit and building records that matter for your address. Get in touch, ask for a valuation of your home, or go back to the San Francisco neighborhood guide.

Sources & notes

Last reviewed October 2026 by Matthew Martinez.