The spacious two-bed apartment in Sunnyside had the makings of a steal. At $3,500 per month, the unit — with a private deck, sweeping city views, and in-unit laundry — was a reasonable deal in a market where prices are soaring and housing is in short supply.
There was just one catch regarding the open house: “Only MAGA voters and Israel supporters are invited,” the Zillow listing said.
The listing went live Aug. 5 and was deactivated Sunday, although it’s unclear if a tenant snatched up the unit. The Standard visited the property Monday and found no obvious signs of an imminent move-in.
Property records show the building is owned by Alexander Baran, 48, a quality assurance director who appears to live in another unit there. He declined to comment during our visit.
“Get the fuck away from here,” Baran said from the doorway. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Property records show Baran purchased the two-unit property in 2004.
The listing drew the ridicule of commenters on Reddit.
“Leave it to MAGA to just go straight blatant housing discrimination,” one commenter said.
But attorneys say no applicable civil rights laws apply.
“Political affiliation, unfortunately, is not a protected characteristic,” said Joseph Tobener, a San Francisco tenant rights attorney.
The Unruh Civil Rights Act and Fair Employment Housing Act protect against discrimination on the basis of characteristics like gender, race, and sexual orientation.
“There also might be some First Amendment questions here — in terms of the landlord having protections,” Tobener said.
Election data shows that in November, roughly 1 in 7 Sunnyside voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump. That’s more red than the Castro and Haight-Ashbury — which went nearly all in on Kamala Harris — but solidly blue compared to their neighbors in southern neighborhoods like the Excelsior and Visitacion Valley, where nearly half the voters in some precincts voted for Trump.
David Blosser, director of leasing at RentSFNow, said the San Francisco rental market is at its hottest in years.
“June was really the pivotal moment where the market shifted,” Blosser said. “Suddenly we were having back-to-back applicants for units across our portfolio, and really we hadn’t seen that since before the pandemic.”
Blosser said many tenants are techies coming to the city for the AI boom. In trendy neighborhoods like Nob Hill, Blosser said he has signed tenants within two days of listing rentals.
In February, Baran and his ex-wife sued BART after their 19-year-old son died “surfing” a train near the Balboa Park Station, alleging a lack of safety mechanisms.