The questions to settle before the offer
Most of what a buyer worries about in San Francisco is already written down by the city. Not the condition of the roof — that is an inspector's job and no record replaces it — but the obligations attached to the building, the work that was and was not permitted, and what it will actually cost to hold.
The tax bill will not be the seller's tax bill
Under Proposition 13 an assessment is the purchase price, adjusted by at most about two per cent a year, until the property next changes hands. A house bought in 1998 may be assessed at a figure that has nothing to do with what it is worth now — and the report says how many years it has been anchored.
Yours will be based on what you pay. A long anchor is a signal that the current tax line on any listing sheet is not a number you will inherit. The report flags a long-anchored assessment in what will come up for exactly this reason.
Rent control reaches buildings, not just tenants
A building with a certificate of occupancy before 13 June 1979 is presumed to be under the Rent Ordinance's price controls. The report says likely and gives the reason, because the roll's year built is evidence rather than a determination.
This matters to a buyer even of an empty building: it shapes what you can do later, what a lender thinks, and what happens if there is a tenant in place at close. It is also the single fact most often assumed rather than checked.
The retrofit obligation transfers with the building
Wood-frame buildings of five or more units, three or more storeys, permitted before 1978, fall under San Francisco's Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit Program. The report gives the compliance tier and the exact status the city publishes.
- Work Complete, CFC Issued — done, and the certificate is issued.
- Non-Compliant — outstanding. On a building under contract this is a negotiation, a lender conversation, and sometimes a deal.
- Not listed — the program does not reach this building. That is the absence of one obligation, not a statement about the structure.
Permits: what was done, and what was done quietly
The report gives the parcel's permit history — how many, going back how far, how much declared work, and how many are still open. Two things are worth reading closely.
Open permits are inherited
A permit filed and never recorded as finalled is an obligation that comes with the building. The report separates them out and names them. Ask what happened; sometimes the answer is that the work finished and the paperwork did not, which is fixable, and sometimes it is not.
The gap between the permits and the house
Work done without a permit does not appear here at all — that is the nature of the record. So the useful reading is comparative: if the listing describes a renovated kitchen, an added bath and a finished basement, and the permit history shows none of it, that gap is the thing to ask about. Unpermitted work can affect insurance, financing, and what you are allowed to keep.
What is approved to rise next door
The development pipeline section lists projects filed nearby and the net new homes they would add. A view, a light well, or a quiet side street is a feature of a building's surroundings, and its surroundings are somebody else's project pipeline.
The ground, quoted rather than characterized
The report names the mapped zones the parcel sits in — liquefaction, landslide, flood, sea level rise, the Maher ordinance area — and gives the published earthquake scenario values ABAG and the USGS assign the parcel, on their own scale, with their own legend beside them.
It does not rate the risk, and it is not the statutory Natural Hazard Disclosure. A seller still has to provide one. What the report does is let you read the same maps three weeks before the disclosure package arrives.
Before it can close
San Francisco attaches specific requirements to a sale: the Report of Residential Building Record (the 3R), energy and water conservation compliance, tenant and Rent Board disclosures where they apply. The report names which reach this property and who settles each. It does not replace any of them — order the 3R regardless — but knowing the contents early is the difference between a smooth close and a surprise.
What no record can do
Get an inspection. The city's files describe paperwork and obligations; they do not describe a foundation, a roof, or the smell in the basement. A report is the questions to bring to an inspector, not a substitute for one.