I currently live in the Outer Mission and previously lived in Excelsior, and I second all this. Basically, these are the last places in SF that are: 1. Relat

I currently live in the Outer Mission and previously lived in Excelsior, and I second all this. Basically, these are the last places in SF that are: 1. Relatively affordable. 2. Relatively close to BART. I live a five minute walk from Balboa Park BART and my mortgage is $3,000 a month for a 2BR1BA house with garage that I bought two years ago. Previously I lived a 10 minute walk from Glenn Park BART and my rent was $2,000 a month for a 2BR1BA house with garage (albeit now a few years old, so I'm sure the rent is higher now). The area is pretty safe. It's not like a rural small town or like what I kind of assume Pac Heights is like, but it's probably safer than Inner Mission or SOMA, and both I and my wife (a small woman) feel safe wandering around singly after dark. So why is it relatively cheap? Well, first, inertia from a point when it was less safe -- you can see some of the progression of the neighborhood by looking at the houses. Recently remodeled ones do not have metal security gates on their doors or bars on their windows, but ones that haven't been touched in 15 or 20 years definitely do. But also, it's just not a very hip neighborhood and doesn't have the density of bars/coffee shops/bicycle stores that other neighborhoods do. It's a little farther from the nightlife centers of the city. Ultimately, I think these areas are rapidly gentrifying as well, but they're behind the curve of the rest of the city.