West Portal in 2026: A 1921 Home on Ulloa Street and Why This Neighborhood Keeps Winning

A new listing worth a look

1135 Ulloa Street came on the market this weekend at $2,695,000, listed by Todd Wiley and Kim Wiley of Compass (MLS #426174814, Redfin listing viewed Nov 8, 2026). It is a 1921 home with four bedrooms, two full and two half baths, 2,526 square feet on a 4,499-square-foot lot, period details and hardwood floors, an upgraded kitchen and baths, views of Mount Davidson, and four parking spaces, which in this part of town is close to a brag. It sits steps from West Portal Avenue and the Muni Metro station at the western mouth of the Twin Peaks Tunnel. The Wileys held it open Tuesday, November 10, from 1 to 3 PM. I am not the listing agent, but the house is a good excuse to talk about West Portal, because the neighborhood explains the house better than the house explains the neighborhood.

A village built by a tunnel

West Portal exists because of the Twin Peaks Tunnel, which opened in 1918 and suddenly put the sandy west side of the city within a streetcar ride of downtown. Developers followed the tracks, and through the 1920s the blocks around the tunnel's western portal filled in with the houses that define the neighborhood today: Spanish and Mediterranean revival, storybook Tudors, and solid stucco homes on modest lots, built for one family that planned to stay. A 1921 house like the one on Ulloa is one of the early ones, built when the streetcar suburb was still a new idea.

That origin is why the neighborhood feels the way it does. It was laid out around a transit stop, so the commercial strip came first and the houses wrapped around it. A century later the pattern still holds.

The avenue

West Portal Avenue runs a few blocks from the station and functions like a small-town main street. There is a hardware store, a bookshop, a movie theater, bakeries and coffee shops, a grocery, and a lineup of restaurants that a neighborhood this size has no business supporting, yet does. People walk here. Kids ride bikes to the library. The person behind the counter knows your order, and it is one of the few places in San Francisco where that is not a cliché. Buyers from the Marina or Noe Valley often expect West Portal to feel sleepy and find that it feels lived in instead.

Schools and families

West Portal is one of the neighborhoods San Francisco families gravitate toward, and schools are a big part of why. There is a public elementary school in the neighborhood itself, several parochial and independent options within a short drive, and the broader west side has long been a draw for families working through the district's enrollment process. I will not quote you a rating, because ratings move and every family weighs them differently, but school proximity shows up in what people are willing to pay here, year after year.

The commute, both directions

This is the part that keeps West Portal winning. Muni Metro trains run from West Portal Station through the Twin Peaks Tunnel straight to downtown, so a Financial District commute does not involve a car at all. For the Peninsula, Interstate 280 is minutes away, a drive that skips most of the city's surface traffic. Very few San Francisco neighborhoods give you a reasonable commute in both directions. West Portal does, and when one half of a household works downtown and the other works in Menlo Park, that often settles the decision.

What $2.695 million buys here

The San Francisco median sale price in September 2026 was $1,579,248, up 14.9 percent from a year earlier (Redfin market data, viewed Nov 8, 2026). The Ulloa listing is about 1.7 times that figure. What you get for the difference is a detached single-family home with four bedrooms and 2,526 square feet, parking for four cars, a view of Mount Davidson, and a walk to the train. In much of the city, the median buys a condo or a smaller house where you drive to everything. Here it buys a house that has stood for 105 years and will be wanted by the next family too.

I do not know what 1135 Ulloa will sell for, and I am not going to guess. The right way to price any home is by what comparable West Portal homes have actually closed at, not by what any of us hopes. What I can say is that the ingredients that let a home hold its value over decades, transit, a real commercial district, schools, and a housing stock people love, are all present on this block. That is why West Portal keeps showing up on buyers' short lists through every kind of market.

For showings and details, contact listing agents Todd Wiley and Kim Wiley of Compass. If you want to talk about how West Portal compares with the rest of the west side, or anywhere else in the city, start with my San Francisco neighborhoods guide and reach out.

Sources: Redfin listing for 1135 Ulloa St, MLS #426174814, viewed Nov 8, 2026 (price, home details, open house, listing agents); Redfin market data for San Francisco, viewed Nov 8, 2026 (September 2026 median sale price); Twin Peaks Tunnel opening year (1918) stated as general history.