Daly City 4plexes: Live in One Unit, Rent the Other Three in Daly City
If Daly City is on your short list, the numbers below are your starting point for Daly City: roughly 101,261 people, median household income of $117,911, and a typical home value of $1,119,784. A house hack in Daly City lives or dies on how a specific building's rents in Daly City compare with its price, and this guide shows how to make that comparison in Daly City.
Daly City by the numbers
Census figures place Daly City at about 101,261 residents in mid-2025. Households in Daly City earn a median of $117,911, while the typical home value in Daly City stands at $1,119,784. Those are citywide markers for Daly City, not property values in Daly City, but they tell a buyer the general price level in Daly City and the depth of the tenant pool in Daly City before touring anything in Daly City.
| Measure | Daly City | Sacramento (state capital) |
|---|---|---|
| Population, July 1, 2025 (Census Vintage 2025) | 101,261 | 536,449 |
| Median household income (ACS 2024 1-year, B19013) | $117,911 | $91,387 |
| Households earning under $50,000 | 13.8% | 25.8% |
| Households earning $50,000 to $99,999 | 30.2% | 27.8% |
| Households earning $100,000 to $199,999 | 34.8% | 31.1% |
| Households earning $200,000 or more | 21.2% | 15.2% |
| Median gross rent (ACS 2024 1-year, B25064) | $2,618 a month | $1,846 a month |
| Median earnings, workers 16+ (ACS 2024 1-year, B20017) | $52,093 | $51,093 |
| Typical home value (Zillow ZHVI, September 2026) | $1,119,784 | $470,552 |
One more comparison from the table for Daly City: a year of rent at the median gross rent in Daly City ($2,618 a month) comes to 2.81% of the typical home value in Daly City. That is not a return figure for a Daly City property — taxes, insurance, maintenance, and vacancies in Daly City all come out of it — but it gives a first sense of how rents in Daly City relate to values in Daly City before you underwrite any specific property in Daly City.
Buyer help and loans in Daly City
Before you shop for a property in Daly City, shop for the loan for a Daly City purchase. The Loan Types page lays out FHA, VA, USDA, conventional, HomeReady, and Home Possible with minimum down payments and who each serves in Daly City. Two facts matter most for a fourplex buyer in Daly City: FHA covers 1-4 unit properties in Daly City at 3.5% down when you live in one unit in Daly City, and conventional covers owner-occupied 2-4 unit properties in Daly City at 5% down.
In Daly City, a buyer-occupant in Daly City is choosing mainly among FHA at 3.5% down in Daly City, conventional at 5% down in Daly City, VA with typically no down payment for eligible veterans in Daly City, and the two income-capped GSE programs for Daly City, HomeReady and Home Possible, at 5% down in Daly City.
Two programs to rule out for any Daly City fourplex: USDA, which is single-family only in Daly City, and CalHFA MyHome, which requires a one-unit residence in Daly City. Check any city or county assistance program for Daly City the same way — many carry the same one-unit limit for Daly City — before counting on it for a Daly City purchase.
Note what the low-down-payment programs for Daly City do not do: they do not waive condition standards for a Daly City property, and a fourplex in Daly City with deferred maintenance can fail an appraisal regardless of the loan type for Daly City. FHA, VA, and conventional lenders for Daly City all require the property in Daly City to meet their standards, so a buyer in Daly City should budget for the inspection findings in Daly City, not just the down payment for Daly City. The Loan Types page lists each program's minimum down payment and who it is for in Daly City.
Start with the Loan Types page for the full comparison for a Daly City purchase, then confirm your situation with a lender.
Living in Daly City
Above: Daly City BART station, the city's major transit hub, seen from the south. Note: transit-hub subject rather than a downtown streetscape. in Daly City. For a buyer in Daly City, the photo is a reminder that a fourplex in Daly City is not just a spreadsheet — it sits in a real neighborhood in Daly City, where about 101,261 people in Daly City live, work, and rent.
For an owner-occupant in Daly City, Daly City offers the usual house-hack trade in Daly City: less privacy than a single-family home in Daly City, in exchange for rental income in Daly City that offsets the mortgage in Daly City. The numbers to keep in mind for Daly City are the median gross rent in Daly City of $2,618 a month and the 26.6% of median household income in Daly City that a year of such rent in Daly City represents. Tenants in Daly City who feel the rent in Daly City is fair for the place in Daly City and the area in Daly City renew; that stability in Daly City is worth more than squeezing the last dollar out of a unit in Daly City.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates (tables B19001, B19013, B25064, B20017); Census Vintage 2025 population estimates, July 1, 2025; Zillow Research ZHVI, September 2026. Typical home value is the Zillow ZHVI modeled typical value, not a median sale price.