Portfolio Loans in San Mateo

Five or more. That is the threshold for rolling properties into a single blanket or portfolio loan with one consolidated payment, starting at a $500,000 loan amount. On the Peninsula that floor is easy to clear: average loan size across San Mateo County ran about $1,086,000 in 2023, the highest average loan size of any county on this site, so five doors can mean $5,430,000 or more in aggregate financing (5 x 1,086,000 = 5,430,000). Below five properties, financing each one individually is usually the cleaner path. Subject to underwriting.

No. Individual properties can be released. A blanket loan holds the portfolio together for a single payment, but one door can come out at a sale without unwinding the rest, and the exit cost is not the same at every address in this county. A $1,893,533 trade, Redwood City's mid-tier value, costs about $2,083 in transfer tax there; the identical price inside City of San Mateo limits costs about $11,551 once the city's Measure CC tax, 0.5% of the whole price below $10 million, is added on top of the county rate, roughly five and a half times as much for crossing a city line. Release the door that carries that exposure and leave the rest of the book financed. Subject to underwriting.

Yes, and it changes your California tax bill, not just your liability exposure. Every LLC doing business in California, including an out-of-state LLC that owns a California rental, owes an annual $800 tax plus a gross receipts fee that steps up with total income: $900 at $250,000 to under $500,000, $2,500 at $500,000 to under $1,000,000, $6,000 at $1,000,000 to under $5,000,000, and $11,790 at $5,000,000 or more. That fee is keyed to gross receipts, not profit, which changes where a book lands: at the county's July 2026 city rent range of roughly $3,300 to $4,350 a month per door, five doors gross about $198,000 to $261,000 a year before expenses, so a five-door entity lands either under the $250,000 threshold entirely or just inside the $900 tier, while a larger book, or the sale of a single Peninsula property at seven figures, pushes the same entity up several tiers in one year. Splitting the same doors across several LLCs multiplies the flat $800 tax by however many entities you use. A blanket loan does not require one borrowing entity, but the entity structure is worth pricing before you close. Talk to your CPA.

No, and the spread comes from the tax rate area, not the county line. One county assessor, treasurer, and recorder handle every parcel in this footprint, but composite property tax rates vary by tax rate area within each city: South San Francisco runs from about 1.0718% to 1.1350%, Redwood City and Menlo Park sit close to 1.10%, and Foster City runs the highest of the cities we serve, up to about 1.1532%, largely because every Foster City tax rate area carries a city GO bond line the others do not. Each door is also reassessed to its own purchase price, so two otherwise identical properties bought years apart can carry very different bills inside the same city. Appeal windows differ too: a regular annual assessment can be appealed July 2 through November 30, but a supplemental assessment, the one that follows a purchase, gives only 60 days from the mailing date. Track each door's own appeal clock; missing the 60-day supplemental window on one purchase does not extend to the rest of the book.

Mostly by whether a door sits in Foster City, and it shows up on the tax bill, not just the policy. Foster City's levee reached final completion in February 2024, which keeps property inside the accredited levee out of a mandatory flood-insurance purchase zone, but every parcel there still carries a Foster City GO bond line, roughly 0.0285% of assessed value. The city runs a levee bond oversight committee, so that line is very likely the levee's, though we have not read the bond documents to confirm it. A door in Burlingame, Redwood City, or the other five cities in this footprint carries no such line. Wildfire is not the headline peril in these bayside cities the way it is in the coastal range and unincorporated parcels elsewhere in the county, and county-specific FAIR Plan or wildfire-designation data was not available to publish here. Earthquake exposure is real everywhere in this county and belongs in your underwriting file door by door; do not assume San Francisco's soft-story retrofit rules extend to any Peninsula city in this portfolio.

No, and that is why a release provision matters more here than in a single-city book. East Palo Alto is the only city in this footprint with a rent stabilization ordinance: an elected board sets the annual increase and administers eviction protections. The City of San Mateo instead requires just cause after 11 months of continuous occupancy, one month earlier than the statewide AB 1482 threshold, plus relocation assistance on a no-fault termination, and that ordinance sunsets in 2030 unless renewed. Redwood City has a separate tenant protection ordinance in effect since January 1, 2026 and a rent stabilization measure on the November 3, 2026 ballot that would cap increases and roll rents back to an October 2025 baseline if voters approve it. Menlo Park runs on the statewide AB 1482 formula plus its own tenant relocation ordinance. For Burlingame, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Foster City, and Millbrae we found no local ordinance to cite either way, so treat AB 1482 as the baseline and confirm each door. A blanket loan does not change which rule applies to which door; a release provision lets you sell the door whose city just changed its rules without touching the rest of the loan.

A portfolio or blanket loan rolls several rental properties into one loan with a single monthly payment, instead of a separate mortgage on each property. It simplifies your financing, frees up capital, and lets you scale a rental portfolio without managing a stack of individual loans.

These structures usually make sense at around five or more properties, though we can look at smaller groups. The portfolio can be a mix of single-family rentals, small multifamily, and other income property.

Yes. Most blanket loans include a release provision, so you can sell an individual property and pay down the loan by that property's allocated amount while the rest stays in place. We set the release terms up front.

We underwrite the combined cash flow and overall leverage of the portfolio, similar to a DSCR loan but across the whole group. Pricing depends on the asset mix, the leverage, and your experience, and loan amounts typically start around $500K.

Usually not. Like our DSCR program, a blanket rental loan qualifies on the portfolio's cash flow rather than your personal income, so tax returns are generally not required. We will want to see the rent roll and operating history.

Yes. A common use of a blanket loan is to consolidate existing mortgages and pull cash out of the combined equity, giving you capital to acquire more property. Cash-out leverage is set against the portfolio's value and cash flow.