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Excelsior & Outer Mission, San Francisco Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide
San Francisco's south edge between I-280 and McLaren Park: the Excelsior, Mission Terrace, Crocker-Amazon and Outer Mission, mostly 1920s-1950s houses along Mission Street down to the county line.
Excelsior & Outer Mission by the numbers
excelsior & outer mission by the numbers · live from the mls
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Calculated in your browser from MLS data for Excelsior & Outer Mission (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets). Sales are single-family homes, townhomes and condos.
homes in excelsior & outer mission · live from the mls
Homes for sale, for rent and recently sold in Excelsior & Outer Mission
Every active listing, rental and closed sale in Excelsior & Outer Mission from the MLS, updated automatically, with a map of the neighborhood outline.
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Listings come from MLSListings and other MLSs through IDX and show their listing brokerage; confirm details with the listing agent. The map outline is the neighborhood boundary used by our listing search (Excelsior & Outer Mission (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets)); it may not match every local definition.
the story
How Excelsior & Outer Mission came to be
The street map tells the Excelsior's story. Its north-south streets carry European city names (London, Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, Edinburgh, Naples, Vienna, Athens, Moscow, Munich, Prague, Dublin) and its cross avenues carry country names (France, Italy, Russia, Persia, Brazil, Peru), a grid laid out on the slope between Mission Street and what is now McLaren Park. South of Geneva Avenue, Crocker-Amazon breaks the pattern with curving streets such as Winding Way, Chicago Way and South Hill Boulevard, while Mission Terrace and the Outer Mission fill the strip between Mission Street and San Jose Avenue.
Rail lines predate most of the houses. An SFMTA history notes that a Southern Pacific line once followed today's I-280 through the area, with a stop near the present Balboa Park station since the 1800s. In 1901 the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway built an office building and car barn at San Jose and Geneva avenues, designed by the Reid Brothers; Muni took the complex over in 1944 and used it until the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged it. Rec and Park acquired it in 2004, it was listed on the National Register in 2010, and the restored powerhouse opened to the public in May 2020 as an arts space.
The houses came mostly after 1910. The Assessor's roll shows about 4,000 of today's houses built in the 1920s and about 2,700 more in the 1940s and 1950s, and the 1930s added public buildings that are now city landmarks: Balboa High School (1930), the Alemany Emergency Hospital and Health Center on Onondaga Avenue (1933, by City Architect Charles H. Sawyer, with two 1930s frescoes) and the Storybook and Art Deco Royal Baking Company building on Mission Street (1935). McLaren Park, on the east side, was established in 1927, and many of its trails were built by the WPA during the Depression.
streets and homes
The streets and the houses
This guide combines four areas the Realtors' map draws separately. The Excelsior is the grid between Mission Street and McLaren Park north of Geneva Avenue, with streets like Athens, Vienna, Edinburgh, London and Lisbon. Mission Terrace lies between Mission Street and San Jose Avenue north of Geneva, around Balboa Park and Cayuga Avenue. Crocker-Amazon is south of Geneva and east of Mission, around Crocker Amazon Playground, and the Outer Mission is the strip west of Mission Street from Geneva Avenue to the county line, along Alemany Boulevard, Cayuga Avenue, Ottawa Avenue and Sickles Avenue.
It is overwhelmingly houses: 11,575 single-family dwellings, 91% of residential parcels, with about 300 flats-and-duplex parcels and about 180 flat-and-store buildings, most of them on Mission Street. The Assessor's median year built is 1926 in the Excelsior and Crocker-Amazon, 1927 in Mission Terrace and 1936 in the Outer Mission, and it records about four in five houses as one story. Lots are mostly about 2,500 square feet; Crocker-Amazon's run larger, with a median near 2,700 square feet and a quarter over 3,200 square feet.
Zoning is mostly RH-1, one-unit residential, with the Excelsior Outer Mission Street Neighborhood Commercial District along Mission Street from near I-280 to the county line and small commercial clusters on Ocean and San Jose avenues near Balboa Park. The Family Zoning Plan's RTO-C district appears along San Jose Avenue just south of Balboa Park station. Planning lists Balboa Park itself, bounded by Ocean Avenue, San Jose Avenue, Havelock Street and I-280, as a California Register-eligible historic district.
streets in excelsior & outer mission
- Mission St
- Geneva Ave
- Alemany Blvd
- San Jose Ave
- Ocean Ave
- Silver Ave
- Cayuga Ave
- Persia Ave
- Brazil Ave
- Russia Ave
- France Ave
- Italy Ave
- Excelsior Ave
- Avalon Ave
- Athens St
- Vienna St
- Naples St
- Madrid St
- Edinburgh St
- Lisbon St
- London St
- Paris St
- Prague St
- Moscow St
- Munich St
- Rolph St
- Winding Way
- Chicago Way
- Brunswick St
- Delano Ave
parks and places
Parks, shops and landmarks near Excelsior & Outer Mission
- park
John McLaren Park
The city park on the east side, established in 1927, with more than 7 miles of walking trails (including the 2.7-mile Philosopher's Way), McNab Lake, Coffman Pool, the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, a golf course and natural areas.
- park
Crocker Amazon Playground
A 57-acre sports complex at Moscow Street and Geneva Avenue with athletic fields, a baseball diamond, tennis, basketball, pickleball and bocce courts, a skate park, a playground and a community garden.
- park
Balboa Park and Balboa Pool
About 25 acres at San Jose and Ocean avenues (511 Havelock Street) with soccer and baseball fields, tennis and basketball courts, a skate park, a play area and Balboa Pool, whose renovation was completed in February 2019.
- park
Excelsior and Cayuga playgrounds
Excelsior Playground (1.9 acres, 579 Madrid Street) and Cayuga Playground (3.6 acres, 301 Naglee Avenue) are the neighborhood-scale Rec and Park sites.
- shopping
Mission Street
The Excelsior Outer Mission Street Neighborhood Commercial District runs along Mission Street from near I-280 to the county line, with the Persia Triangle plaza where Mission Street, Ocean Avenue and Persia Avenue meet.
- landmark
Geneva office building and powerhouse
2301 San Jose Avenue, the 1901 Romanesque office building and car barn of the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway, city landmark No. 180. The restored powerhouse opened in May 2020; Rec and Park lists improvements to the office building as a second phase.
- landmark
Excelsior Branch Library
4400 Mission Street, opened October 1, 1967, designed by Appleton and Wolfard, and reopened in July 2005 after a seismic and accessibility renovation.
schools and commute
School districts and getting around
School districts
The area is served by the San Francisco Unified School District, which assigns seats by application and lottery; an address's attendance-area school is a tiebreaker, not a guarantee. Public schools in the area include Balboa High (1000 Cayuga Avenue, a city landmark building), James Denman Middle (241 Oneida Avenue), June Jordan School for Equity (325 La Grande Avenue), the K-8 San Francisco Community school (125 Excelsior Avenue), and Cleveland (455 Athens Street), Guadalupe (859 Prague Street), Longfellow (755 Morse Street) and Monroe (260 Madrid Street) elementary schools; Hillcrest Elementary is just outside on Silver Avenue. Check the exact address with SFUSD's Enrollment Center.
Getting around
- BART and Muni Metro: Balboa Park station at San Jose and Geneva avenues is about 0.5 mile straight-line from Mission Street and Geneva Avenue and about 0.6 mile from the center of the area; the J Church ends there and the M Ocean View runs south from it on San Jose Avenue. Glen Park BART is about 0.3 mile straight-line from Mission Street and Silver Avenue, at the north end.
- Muni buses: the 14R Mission Rapid runs the length of Mission Street to downtown and to Daly City BART, which is about 1.7 miles straight-line from Mission Street and Geneva Avenue.
- Freeways: I-280 runs along the north and west edges; the US-101 / I-280 interchange is about 1.4 miles straight-line northeast of Mission Street and Silver Avenue.
- Caltrain: Bayshore station, just over the line in Brisbane, is about 2 miles straight-line from the center; San Francisco's 22nd Street station is about 3.6 miles.
- Trails: McLaren Park's trail network, including Philosopher's Way, starts at the east edge of the Excelsior and Crocker-Amazon.
nerd notes
Buying or selling in Excelsior & Outer Mission: what we check
Buying here
- Most lots are RH-1. Planning's summary of Section 207 allows up to four units on many RH lots (six on corner lots) under conditions, and ADU rules apply separately; check the parcel's zoning and height district before you price in a ground-floor unit.
- If the ground floor has been finished as rooms or a unit, ask for the permits and final inspections; an unpermitted unit changes both value and financing.
- Hazard maps are light here: FEMA shows no special flood hazard area, and the state's seismic hazard maps put only about 1.5% of the area in liquefaction zones (mostly along San Jose Avenue and I-280 and along Alemany Boulevard near Huron Avenue) and about 1% in landslide zones on steep slopes near Geneva and Brookdale avenues by McLaren Park. Still check the parcel.
- Flat-and-store buildings and flats on Mission Street: check Rent Ordinance coverage for the apartments (buildings first built before June 13, 1979), commercial leases for the storefront, and the soft-story list for wood buildings with five or more units.
- Check historic status in the Property Information Map's Preservation tab; Category A or B houses can trigger review for façade changes or demolition. Along San Jose Avenue just south of Balboa Park station, the Family Zoning Plan's RTO-C zoning allows more housing on some corridor parcels.
Selling here
- Lead with the lot and the layout: lots vary from about 2,000 to over 3,200 square feet across the four areas, so give buyers the Assessor's lot size and a floor plan that shows the ground floor.
- Gather permits for any ground-floor rooms, ADU or additions before listing; buyers' lenders and inspectors will ask.
- Note the transit facts buyers search for, such as straight-line distance to Balboa Park or Glen Park BART and the nearest Mission Street bus stop.
- Check sf.gov for the transfer tax tier that applies to your sale price, and get the natural hazard disclosure early.
nerd noteCommissions are always negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what's included.
faq
Excelsior & Outer Mission questions, answered
What areas does the Excelsior & Outer Mission guide cover?
Four areas on the Realtors' map: the Excelsior, Mission Terrace (around Balboa Park), Crocker-Amazon (south of Geneva Avenue) and the Outer Mission (west of Mission Street to the county line). Together they run from I-280 to the Daly City line and from San Jose Avenue to McLaren Park.
Why do the Excelsior's streets have city and country names?
Its north-south streets are named for European cities such as London, Paris, Madrid and Naples, and its cross avenues for countries such as France, Italy, Russia and Brazil. Crocker-Amazon, south of Geneva Avenue, uses a different pattern with curving ways.
What kinds of homes are in the Excelsior and Outer Mission?
Mostly single-family houses: 11,575 of them, 91% of residential parcels on the Assessor's 2025 roll, with a median year built of 1927 and typical lots around 2,500 square feet. Flats and flat-and-store buildings line Mission Street.
How far is BART?
Balboa Park station is about 0.5 mile straight-line from Mission Street and Geneva Avenue, and Glen Park station about 0.3 mile from Mission Street and Silver Avenue. Daly City BART is about 1.7 miles straight-line from Mission and Geneva.
Is the Geneva Car Barn open?
The 1901 office building and powerhouse at 2301 San Jose Avenue are city landmark No. 180 and on the National Register. Rec and Park says the restored powerhouse opened to the public in May 2020; the office building is a second phase with no completion date on the project page.
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