The High-Yield East Bay: Where Bay Area Rental Arithmetic Actually Works
Eleven Bay Area cities clear 5% gross. All but two are inland Contra Costa or Solano County. The numbers, the reason, and the risks you are being paid to take.
On this page
Seventeen of the 92 Bay Area cities in this dataset clear 5% gross as of September 2026. Thirteen of the seventeen are in Contra Costa or Solano County — nine in Contra Costa alone. This is the part of the region where the income arithmetic comes closest to working, and the geography is too clean to be an accident.
| City | County | Asking rent / mo | Mid-tier value | Gross ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emeryville | Alameda | $3,104 | $429,369 | 8.68% |
| Suisun City | Solano | $2,683 | $530,234 | 6.07% |
| Oakley | Contra Costa | $3,294 | $653,563 | 6.05% |
| Dixon | Solano | $3,009 | $605,822 | 5.96% |
| Clayton | Contra Costa | $4,985 | $1,026,888 | 5.83% |
| Antioch | Contra Costa | $2,814 | $590,401 | 5.72% |
| American Canyon | Napa | $3,347 | $723,023 | 5.56% |
| Discovery Bay | Contra Costa | $3,570 | $775,031 | 5.53% |
| Windsor | Sonoma | $3,528 | $794,051 | 5.33% |
| Vacaville | Solano | $2,627 | $600,979 | 5.25% |
| Brentwood | Contra Costa | $3,420 | $782,072 | 5.25% |
| Hercules | Contra Costa | $3,209 | $735,539 | 5.24% |
| Pittsburg | Contra Costa | $2,429 | $558,908 | 5.22% |
| San Pablo | Contra Costa | $2,375 | $553,824 | 5.15% |
| East Palo Alto | San Mateo | $4,250 | $992,416 | 5.14% |
| Vallejo | Solano | $2,200 | $517,277 | 5.10% |
| Richmond | Contra Costa | $2,538 | $600,691 | 5.07% |
The four that are not Contra Costa or Solano are instructive exceptions. Emeryville and East Palo Alto are dense, condo- and apartment-heavy cities whose figures carry the index mix problem described on why published rental yields are wrong. American Canyon and Windsor are the outer edges of Napa and Sonoma — the same distance-from-jobs effect as inland Contra Costa, in a different direction.
The cities, netted out
Same assumptions as everywhere on this site: tax 1.1% of purchase price, insurance $2,200, vacancy 5% of rent, maintenance 10%, management 8%, no HOA.
| City | Gross | Costs as % of rent | Net yield | Cash-on-cash at 25% down, 7% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oakley | 6.05% | 46.8% | 3.22% | −10.2% |
| Antioch | 5.72% | 48.7% | 2.93% | −11.3% |
| Brentwood | 5.25% | 49.3% | 2.66% | −12.3% |
| Vallejo | 5.10% | 52.9% | 2.40% | −13.3% |
Compare the second column with the expensive cities: San Mateo spends 66.3% of its rent on costs and Palo Alto 99.3%. Oakley spends 46.8%. The inland cities are not just better on gross — they keep a much larger share of what they collect, because the property tax line is small relative to the rent.
Oakley's 3.22% net is 1.5 times Oakland's 2.18% — a bigger gap than the gross figures alone suggest, because the cost share differs too. Against Palo Alto's 0.01% the comparison stops being a ratio and becomes a difference in kind: this is the only part of the region where a cash buyer earns something recognisable as a yield.
Why the yield is higher here
Three reasons, in order of size.
1. Price falls faster than rent with distance. Oakley's rent, $3,294, is actually higher than Oakland's $2,758 — because inland stock is newer and larger, with more three- and four-bedroom houses. Its price, $653,563, is 8% below Oakland's $710,647. Higher rent on a lower price is the entire mechanism.
2. Owner-occupier demand is weaker relative to rental demand. The bottom-ten cities on this site are where people most want to live and are bidding accordingly; the top ten are where the price is set with less of that pressure. See the argument on Palo Alto rental yield.
3. Less rent regulation in practice. None of these four cities has a local rent stabilisation ordinance of the kind San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley have. The statewide Tenant Protection Act cap (5% plus CPI, maximum 10%, on property over 15 years old) still applies — but much of the inland housing stock is newer than 15 years and therefore exempt from even that, which is the opposite of the San Francisco situation.
What you are being paid to take
A 5-6% gross yield in a region whose median is 3.40% is compensation for something. Four things, specifically:
Mello-Roos. This is the big one, and it is concentrated in exactly these cities. Brentwood, Oakley and Discovery Bay are full of post-1990 subdivisions financed through Community Facilities Districts, whose charges sit on top of the 1% rate and are not based on assessed value. Moving Brentwood's tax rate from 1.1% to 1.7% takes its net yield from 2.66% to 2.06% — a fifth of the yield, gone on one line nobody checks. Full treatment on Mello-Roos and rental yield.
Price volatility. Inland Contra Costa and Solano were the epicentre of the 2007-2011 Bay Area price collapse, with peak-to-trough falls far deeper than the inner Bay. Antioch's mid-tier value today, $590,401, should be read against that history. A higher yield in a more volatile market is a risk premium doing its job.
Insurance and wildfire exposure. The $2,200 insurance assumption is least safe in the parts of Solano, Napa and eastern Contra Costa nearest the wildland interface. California's admitted market has withdrawn from some of these areas, and a FAIR Plan policy plus a difference-in-conditions wrapper can cost several times a standard landlord policy. On a 2.9% net yield, an extra $3,000 of insurance is a third of the income.
Tenant quality and turnover. Lower-priced rental markets generally run higher turnover and higher collection losses than the 5% vacancy and zero bad debt these tables assume. See vacancy and rental yield — one extra empty month costs Oakley $1,318, or 6% of its net yield.
The honest comparison
| Oakley | San Mateo | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $653,563 | $1,674,908 |
| Rent / mo | $3,294 | $3,968 |
| Gross | 6.05% | 2.84% |
| Net | 3.22% | 0.96% |
| Capital required | 1× | 2.6× |
Oakley produces $21,048 of net operating income for $653,563 of capital. San Mateo produces $16,040 for $1,674,908 — 2.6 times the capital for less income.
On income, it is not close. The case for San Mateo is appreciation, the Prop 13 ratchet in a faster-appreciating market, and a deeper owner-occupier market to sell into. The case for Oakley is that it pays you now. Those are different investments and the yield figure is only the first of several questions.
Related: Bay Area rental yield by city for the full table, and fractional rental ownership if the capital requirement is the binding constraint rather than the yield.