Sell Your Commercial Property In San Mateo, CA

Who rents in San Mateo

Renters occupy 50.1% of San Mateo's 39,895 occupied households, per the Census Bureau's ACS 2020-2024 tenure table. Multifamily buildings of five or more units hold 42.1% of the city's housing stock, and the median year a structure was built is 1965, so 70.4% of San Mateo's housing predates 1980. That older, renter-heavy stock is the base an owner evaluates before deciding to sell commercial real estate in San Mateo, CA.

Rents and affordability

Median gross rent in San Mateo is $3,077 a month, per the Census Bureau's ACS 2020-2024 estimate. Under HUD's FY2027 fair market rents for the San Francisco HUD Metro FMR Area, which covers San Mateo County, a two-bedroom unit is set at $3,697. Owners underwrite in-place rent against that market-rent benchmark before any sale.

Property taxes in San Mateo County

San Mateo County assesses real property under Proposition 13 at a 1% base rate, so a $2,000,000 apartment building carries a $20,000 annual general tax before any voter-approved debt add-ons, which vary by tax rate area per the County Controller's tax rate book. On a sale, the county's documentary transfer tax is $1.10 per $1,000 of value, or $2,200 on that $2,000,000 sale. San Mateo is one of the few Bay Area cities with its own added tax: Municipal Code Section 3.48.010 charges 0.5% of consideration under $10 million, or $10,000 more on that same sale, for a combined $12,200 in transfer tax alone. That added cost is one reason to sell commercial property in San Mateo, CA with a buyer who already prices local closing costs.

Landlord rules

Security deposits on San Mateo rentals of five or more units are capped at one month's rent under statewide AB 12, effective July 1, 2024, per San Mateo County's own notice. Separately, San Mateo's Residential Tenant Protection Program (Municipal Code Chapter 10.100) requires just cause to end a tenancy after 11 months and one month's rent in relocation assistance for no-fault terminations, paid within 15 days of notice. San Mateo has not adopted its own rent-increase cap; Chapter 10.100 covers eviction and relocation only, not rent levels. These rules matter to anyone selling multifamily property in San Mateo, since in-place leases and deposits transfer with the building.

What it means for an owner

An owner planning to sell your apartment building in San Mateo is pricing a market where renters hold half the households, five-plus-unit buildings cover 42.1% of the stock, and 44.8% of renters already pay 30% or more of income toward rent, per the ACS 2020-2024 rent-burden table. The city's own 0.5% transfer tax, layered on the county's $1.10-per-$1,000 rate, is a cost to model before listing. Run the numbers with Skyline Capital Investments' cap rate calculator, and when ready to sell commercial property in San Mateo, CA, Skyline buys 5+ unit apartment buildings directly through its sell-my-apartment-building page.