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Noe Valley, San Francisco Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide
A valley of 1880s to 1920s Victorian and Edwardian houses and flats between 22nd and 30th streets, with the 24th Street shops through the middle and the J Church streetcar on Church Street.
Noe Valley by the numbers
noe valley by the numbers · live from the mls
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Calculated in your browser from MLS data for Noe Valley (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets). Sales are single-family homes, townhomes and condos.
homes in noe valley · live from the mls
Homes for sale, for rent and recently sold in Noe Valley
Every active listing, rental and closed sale in Noe Valley 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 (Noe Valley (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets)); it may not match every local definition.
the story
How Noe Valley came to be
Noe Valley and Noe Street are named for José de Jesús Noé. The land was part of Rancho San Miguel, an 1845 land grant of about 4,444 acres that ran from Mount Sutro south past today's county line (Planning's Eureka Valley context statement). In the 1850s the Horner brothers bought much of it and surveyed a 600-acre piece into a street grid, mapped in 1854 as Horner's Addition, but lots sold slowly and the Horners lost the land in 1856. For decades the valley had only scattered houses, a few stores and some farm and quarry work; as late as 1906 a company was crushing rock at Clipper, Douglass and 26th streets.
A ride downtown changed that. Castro Street was cut through the hill from Eureka Valley in 1887, and the Market Street Railway's cable cars ran down Castro to 26th Street from 1888. Planning's Diamond and Elizabeth Streets survey counts about 400 houses in the valley's northwest corner by 1896, many built by the block by local builders such as Jonathan Anderson and Fernando Nelson. The same survey says the 1906 earthquake did little damage there, the fires never reached it, and flats and small apartment buildings followed. On August 11, 1917, the J Church streetcar opened through a cut in Dolores Park and down Church Street to a terminal at 30th Street; it reached Balboa Park in the 1990s.
Between 1889 and 1906 24th Street emerged as the main commercial street, and Planning has found a small 24th Street historic district from those years eligible for the California Register. Nine residential districts in the outline are on the eligible list too, from Diamond and Elizabeth streets (225 contributing properties) to short runs of cottages on Jersey, 25th, 27th and Fair Oaks streets and the Juri Street cul-de-sac.
streets and homes
The streets and the houses
Noe Valley is a grid laid over a bowl. The numbered streets, 22nd through 30th, run east to west; Guerrero, Dolores, Church, Sanchez, Noe, Castro, Diamond, Douglass and Hoffman run north to south and climb as they go west toward Diamond Heights and Twin Peaks. Grand View Avenue, Clipper Street and Duncan Street work up the steep west side, and short streets such as Elizabeth, Jersey, Valley, Fair Oaks, Chattanooga and Juri fill in between. 24th Street carries the 24th Street-Noe Valley Neighborhood Commercial District, and Church Street carries the J.
The housing is older and denser than 'valley' suggests. The Assessor's 2025 roll counts about 2,825 single-family houses inside this outline, 43% of about 6,560 residential parcels; the rest are about 1,840 condo units (each its own parcel), about 1,590 flat, duplex, TIC and other two- to four-unit buildings, and about 310 larger buildings. The houses' median recorded year built is 1908, the median lot is about 2,850 square feet and the median house about 1,700 square feet. Planning's Diamond and Elizabeth survey sums up the sequence: a few 1880s Gothic Revival and Italianate cottages, then mostly Queen Anne, Italianate and Stick/Eastlake houses from the 1890s boom, then post-1906 flats.
About 54% of the zoned land is RH-2 (two-unit residential), with RH-3, RH-1 and some RM blocks; the Family Zoning Plan's corridor zoning (RTO-C) covers only about 3%. The whole outline sits inside the Central Neighborhoods Large Residence Special Use District, so on RH-zoned lots a project that would create a unit over 3,000 square feet of gross floor area, or over the district's floor-area ratio, needs Conditional Use approval from the Planning Commission, with an exception for small additions. Add the historic districts and the west side's slopes, and a remodel here can be as much a review exercise as a design one.
streets in noe valley
- 24th Street
- Church Street
- Sanchez Street
- Noe Street
- Castro Street
- Diamond Street
- Douglass Street
- Dolores Street
- Guerrero Street
- Elizabeth Street
- Jersey Street
- Alvarado Street
- Clipper Street
- Duncan Street
- Valley Street
- Day Street
- Grand View Avenue
- Hoffman Avenue
- Fair Oaks Street
- Vicksburg Street
- Chattanooga Street
- Juri Street
- 23rd Street
- 25th Street
- 26th Street
- 27th Street
- 28th Street
- 29th Street
- 30th Street
- Cesar Chavez Street
parks and places
Parks, shops and landmarks near Noe Valley
- shopping
24th Street
The 24th Street-Noe Valley Neighborhood Commercial District runs along 24th Street from about Chattanooga Street west to Diamond Street (city zoning map). Planning's eligible 24th Street historic district (1889-1906) covers some of its early storefront buildings.
- park
Noe Valley Town Square
A 0.28-acre Rec and Park plaza at 3861 24th Street, between Sanchez and Vicksburg streets. It opened October 27, 2016, and a public restroom was added in April 2024; Rec and Park built it for markets, music and community events.
- park
Douglass Playground
About 7.9 acres at 26th and Douglass streets on two levels: an upper terrace with an off-leash dog area, and a lower terrace with a playground, tennis and basketball courts, a ball field and picnic areas, plus a view of downtown.
- park
Upper Noe Recreation Center
A 2.9-acre center at 295 Day Street with an indoor gym, auditorium, baseball diamond, dog run, tennis and basketball courts and a playground.
- landmark
Noe Valley/Sally Brunn Branch Library
451 Jersey Street. San Francisco Public Library's seventh branch: a two-story, Spanish-style brick and terra cotta building paid for with a Carnegie grant, designed by John Reid Jr. and completed September 17, 1916. It is City Landmark No. 261 and was renovated in 2008.
- transit
J Church
The J has run here since 1917; its old terminal at Church and 30th streets served for about eight decades before the 1990s extension to Balboa Park.
schools and commute
School districts and getting around
School districts
Noe Valley is in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), which assigns students by application; an address's attendance-area elementary school is a tiebreaker, not a guarantee, and the elementary policy is changing, so check SFUSD's current rules. SFUSD schools located in the neighborhood include Alvarado Elementary (625 Douglass Street), Mission Education Center (1670 Noe Street) and James Lick Middle School (1220 Noe Street). Attendance areas change; check any address with SFUSD's Enrollment Center.
Getting around
- Muni Metro: the J Church runs on Church Street with stops at 24th, 26th, 28th and Day streets, north through Dolores Park to the Market Street subway and south on San Jose Avenue to Balboa Park station.
- BART: 24th St Mission is about 0.5 mile straight-line from 24th and Church streets and about 0.9 mile from 24th and Castro; Glen Park BART is about 1.1 miles from the middle of the neighborhood.
- Castro station (Muni Metro, Market Street) is about 0.8 mile straight-line from 24th and Castro streets.
- Buses include the 48 Quintara/24th Street.
- Driving: San Jose Avenue at the east edge leads south to I-280 ramps near Glen Park station, about 0.85 mile straight-line from 30th Street; Market Street and Portola Drive on the west edge climb over the hill to the west side of the city.
nerd notes
Buying or selling in Noe Valley: what we check
Buying here
- Know which kind of property you are buying. Single-family houses are 43% of residential parcels here; condos (often two or three units in an old Victorian), TIC interests and flats are most of the rest. For a condo, read the HOA's CC&Rs, budget, reserve study and minutes and check current dues; for a TIC, read the TIC agreement and line up a lender that makes fractional TIC loans before you write an offer.
- If anyone rents the unit or another unit in the building, check the Rent Ordinance. Single-family houses and condos are exempt from its rent-increase limits only if the tenancy began on or after January 1, 1996, and they stay under its just-cause eviction rules either way; a house with a legal in-law unit counts as a two-unit building (city Rent Board guidance).
- Check historic status before you plan exterior work. Much of the neighborhood sits in Planning-identified California Register-eligible districts (Diamond and Elizabeth, Clipper Street, Jersey Street, Fair Oaks Street, Juri Street, 25th and 27th streets, Noe and Alvarado, and Horner's Addition East near Guerrero and 24th). Contributors are treated as historic resources (Category A), so façade changes and demolition get historic review; look up the address on the Property Information Map's Preservation tab.
- On the steep west side, check the slope and the state hazard maps. The California Geological Survey maps landslide zones on parts of the Clipper Street, Carnelian Way and Diamond Heights Boulevard slopes and near Cesar Chavez and Douglass streets, and a small liquefaction zone around Guerrero, Fair Oaks and Ames streets near 22nd and 23rd. Planning's environmental checklist calls for a geotechnical report for bigger projects (for example 50 cubic yards of excavation, or more than 1,000 sq ft added outside the footprint) on slopes of 20% or more or in a landslide zone.
- For flats and apartment buildings, check the city's Mandatory Soft Story Program list: it shows about 170 buildings inside this outline, most marked work complete with a certificate issued and about a dozen marked non-compliant (city data, October 2026). FEMA maps the area as Zone X (minimal flood hazard), but also check the SFPUC 100-year storm flood map for the address.
Selling here
- Pull the permit history and the Property Information Map report before you list, and make sure the floor plan, unit count and any ground-floor rooms match the permits; an unpermitted unit raises Rent Ordinance and legalization questions that buyers will want answered.
- San Francisco requires sellers to disclose whether a property is in the SFPUC's 100-year storm flood risk zone, in addition to the state natural hazard disclosures, so order the reports early. A few west-side and Guerrero-side blocks are in state seismic hazard zones.
- If you are selling a two-unit building, tell buyers where it stands on condo conversion. Public Works' rules let a two-unit building skip the conversion lottery once the separate owners of each unit have each lived there for a year; larger buildings go through the lottery, which is capped at 200 units a year when it runs.
- Price the lot, not just the house. Planning's code summary says many RH-zoned lots can now hold up to four units (six on corner lots) under conditions, not counting ADUs, while the Central Neighborhoods Large Residence SUD limits very large single units; a short feasibility memo from an architect helps buyers see what is possible.
nerd noteCommissions are always negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what's included.
faq
Noe Valley questions, answered
What are Noe Valley's boundaries?
This guide uses the Realtor association's Noe Valley map: 22nd Street on the north, San Jose Avenue and Guerrero Street on the east, 30th and Beacon streets on the south, and Diamond Heights Boulevard, Portola Drive and Market Street on the west. City maps draw the north edge a little differently.
Is Noe Valley mostly single-family houses?
Less than half. The Assessor's 2025 roll shows about 2,825 single-family houses, 43% of residential parcels; condo units, flats, TIC buildings and small apartment buildings make up the rest. Most houses date from the 1880s to the 1920s.
How do people get downtown from Noe Valley?
The J Church streetcar runs on Church Street and through Dolores Park into the Market Street subway, and 24th St Mission BART is about half a mile straight-line from 24th and Church.
Is Noe Valley a historic district?
Not as a whole, but Planning has found many smaller districts eligible for the California Register, and the Jersey Street branch library is a city landmark. Contributors get historic review for exterior changes.
Which schools serve Noe Valley?
SFUSD. Alvarado Elementary, Mission Education Center and James Lick Middle School are located here, but SFUSD assigns students by application, so check with its Enrollment Center.
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