Most owners of a small multi-unit building in Eureka Valley believe their seismic retrofit obligation is something still on the horizon, a box to check before the market forces the issue. It is not. For any wood-frame building with five or more units, two or more stories over a soft or weak story, and a permit date before January 1, 1978, San Francisco's Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit Program has no open deadlines left. Every compliance tier's deadline passed by September 2021, nearly five years ago. If a covered building has not completed the work, it is not behind schedule. It is currently in violation.
That single fact reframes how a seller of a Victorian or Edwardian flat building, especially one held as a Tenancy in Common, should think about listing this year. Eureka Valley's median sale price sat at $2.52 million as of May 2026, with roughly half a month of supply on the market and prices up 34.3 percent year over year. A market that tight usually reads as pure leverage for the seller. For TIC and small multi-unit sellers specifically, it does something else: it strips buyers of almost every other point of negotiation, so the disclosure packet becomes the place where the deal actually gets decided.
The Deadline Sellers Assume Is Still Coming
San Francisco adopted the Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit Ordinance in April 2013, fittingly on the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake. It applies to wood-frame buildings with five or more residential units, two or more stories over a soft or weak first floor, and a construction permit issued before January 1, 1978. The city sorted covered buildings into four compliance tiers, each with its own design, permit, and construction deadline. All four have expired. A building that matches the criteria and has not been retrofitted is sitting in an active Building Code violation, which can draw Department of Building Inspection fines and enforcement notices, and in some cases a posted "Earthquake Warning" placard on the property itself.
For a seller, that changes the conversation from "we're planning to address this" to "here is proof it has been addressed, or here is why it does not apply." Buyers and their lenders will ask which one it is before they get anywhere near an appraisal.
Not Every Building Meets The Threshold, But Every Seller Still Answers The Question
Eureka Valley's building stock complicates this in a useful way. The neighborhood escaped the 1906 earthquake and fire largely intact, which left it with an unusually healthy inventory of original Victorian and Edwardian buildings, many of them converted from rental apartments into 2 to 4 unit ownership structures rather than the larger 5-plus unit buildings the mandatory ordinance targets. A three-unit flat building technically sits below the ordinance's size trigger.
That does not remove the disclosure obligation. California's standard Transfer Disclosure Statement still asks every seller, regardless of building size, whether they know of cripple walls, unbolted sill plates, foundation deficiencies, or any completed seismic retrofit work. A buyer's agent who works this market routinely asks a 3-unit Eureka Valley seller for the same documentation a 5-unit building would need to produce for the mandatory program, simply because the underlying construction era and foundation types are so similar across the neighborhood's older stock. The size threshold determines whether the city forces the retrofit. It does not determine whether the buyer asks the question.
What A Buyer's Lender Actually Pulls Apart In The TIC Agreement
If the property is held as a Tenancy in Common, the disclosure conversation widens beyond the physical building. A TIC does not give an owner a separately deeded unit the way a condominium does. Ownership is a fractional, undivided interest in the whole parcel, with the right to occupy a specific unit defined entirely by a private, recorded TIC agreement among the co-owners. That agreement, not the building itself, is often what a lender or attorney spends the most time reviewing before financing clears.
The items that come up most often in that review include:
- Whether financing is fractional, meaning each owner carries a separate loan secured only by their own share, or whether the building still operates under an older shared group loan
- Occupancy rights and any restrictions on subletting or short-term rental
- Right of first refusal, transfer approval requirements, and how disputes among co-owners get resolved
- Common expense allocation, current reserve balances, and any pending or planned special assessments
- Permit history and open violations, often documented through the city's 3R Report
- Status of any required seismic or soft-story work, and evidence it was actually completed rather than simply planned
A seller who can hand over a complete, current version of each item before a buyer asks is negotiating from a stronger position than one who has to go find them mid-escrow.
The Loan Era Baked Into Your Agreement
TIC agreements carry a financing history that still shows up in older paperwork today. Before roughly 2005, TIC purchases in San Francisco typically ran on a single group loan, with every co-owner jointly liable for the entire building's mortgage. Selling a share meant the incoming buyer had to assume the seller's portion of that same loan, which in a fast-appreciating market usually required a large cash down payment simply to make the math work. Around 2005, with input from local TIC practitioners including attorney Andy Sirkin, banks began offering fractional loans instead, giving each co-owner an individual mortgage secured only by their own interest.
| Group Loan Era (pre-2005) | Fractional Loan Era (2005 to present) | |
|---|---|---|
| Liability | Joint and several across all co-owners | Isolated to each owner's individual share |
| Buyer's down payment | Often large, to assume the seller's portion of the shared loan | Comparable to a standard condo down payment |
| Resale speed | Slower, contingent on the whole group's loan terms | Closer to condominium resale timelines |
An agreement drafted in the group loan era, or one that has never been updated to reflect fractional financing terms, is a document flag today even if the building itself is in excellent condition. It signals to a lender that the resale process may take longer, and it gives a buyer's attorney a legitimate reason to slow down the timeline while they sort out what happens if a co-owner's loan terms do not match current market practice.
Why Half A Month Of Supply Raises The Stakes On Paper, Not Just On Price
Eureka Valley's inventory has been running at roughly 0.5 months of supply, with a median sale price of $2.52 million, 43 percent above the San Francisco citywide median of $1.77 million as of May 2026 data. In a market that constrained, a buyer for a small multi-unit or TIC property has almost no comparable listing to walk away toward. That scarcity does not make the buyer less careful. It makes the document review the only place left where they can meaningfully protect themselves, because price negotiation and inventory leverage are already off the table.
That shows up in real dollars at closing, too. San Francisco's Real Property Transfer Tax is graduated and paid by the seller: 0.75 percent under $250,000, 1.5 percent from $250,000 to $999,999, 2.5 percent from $1 million to $4,999,999, and 2.75 percent at $5 million and above. On a sale at the neighborhood's current median of $2.52 million, that 2.5 percent bracket alone runs approximately $63,000, before any TIC-specific attorney review, lender fees, or retrofit documentation costs. A seller who has already resolved the seismic and TIC-agreement questions is protecting that entire number from a slow, contentious escrow. A seller who has not is negotiating those costs down against a buyer who knows exactly how little else they have to work with.
Getting The Packet Ready Before You List
The sellers who move fastest in this market are the ones who treat the disclosure packet as the primary sales document, not a formality to assemble after an offer arrives. That means pulling the current TIC agreement and every amendment, confirming in writing whether the building's financing is fractional or still group-based, requesting a current 3R Report to check for open permits, and getting a straight answer, in writing, on whether the building falls under the mandatory soft-story program and what its compliance status is if so.
At Frank Nolan, this kind of preparation is where a boutique team earns its keep. It is less about staging a listing for photographs and more about making sure the paper trail can survive scrutiny from a buyer's attorney before that attorney ever gets the chance to slow things down.
A Few Questions Eureka Valley Sellers Ask First
Does a 3-unit building in Eureka Valley need a soft-story retrofit? Not under the mandatory city program, which applies to buildings with five or more units. The seismic disclosure questions on the standard Transfer Disclosure Statement still apply regardless of size.
What happens if my building was covered by the mandatory program and I never completed the work? The compliance deadlines have all passed, so an unretrofitted covered building is currently out of compliance. That status must be disclosed, and it can affect financing timelines and buyer negotiations.
Is a TIC agreement written in the 2000s automatically a problem? Not automatically, but it needs a careful read. The question is whether it reflects fractional financing terms and current transfer procedures, or whether it still assumes the older group loan structure that can slow a buyer's financing approval.
If you are weighing the right time to bring a Eureka Valley TIC or small multi-unit building to market, Frank Nolan and The Nolan Group can walk through the disclosure packet with you before it becomes a negotiating point instead of a closing formality. Start a confidential conversation whenever you're ready.
