$3.5M Acquisition Loan on a 39-Unit Lower Nob Hill Apartment Building

The lender on 860 Bush Street is headquartered 3,100 miles away. Hingham Institution for Savings, a Massachusetts savings bank, recorded a $3,542,500 deed of trust on the Lower Nob Hill building on May 8, 2026, the same day the instrument was executed. County records show the building sold on May 6 for $5,465,000, from an individual owner of record to buyer 860 Bush Street LLC, and the closed sale is corroborated by brokerage records.

The building is a 1913 six story walk of studios: county records list 39 units and 16,850 square feet on a tenth of an acre; a prior listing described 38 studio units of 300 to 400 square feet. Rental data services flag the 1913 vintage as likely subject to San Francisco rent control, a claim reported as published. Management is listed as Montgomery Capital Partners.

Hingham's presence here is deliberate, not incidental. The bank's published commercial real estate program covers Boston, Washington DC, and the San Francisco Bay Area, where it opened an office in 2021 with a stated focus on stabilized, small to mid sized multifamily and mixed use buildings, five, seven, and ten year fixed structures, amortization up to 35 years, and no construction lending in San Francisco. Those are program terms from the lender's own pages, not terms of this loan. This is its first closing tracked on LoanList.

The debt history shows the building carried more leverage in the past than it does today: JPMorgan Chase recorded $5,000,000 in 2017, Washington Mutual recorded $2,475,000 in 2002 and $2,375,000 in 2007, and the chain runs back through Home Savings of America to a pair of 1987 savings and loan instruments. The new $3,542,500 loan sits well below the 2017 level.

Within San Francisco's tracked record the loan ranks 16th of 26, in the city's most crowded lane: sub $4,000,000 multifamily. Nearby tracked closings include $3,525,000 from First Bridge Funding and $3,600,000 from J.P. Morgan in March, $3,168,000 from Conventus in April, and $4,000,000 and $3,000,000 from J.P. Morgan in May.

For buyers of small San Francisco apartment buildings, the roster in that band is the point: money center banks, private lenders, and now an East Coast savings bank are all competing for the same stabilized walk ups. An owner or buyer financing a building like this one has more balance sheets to call than the local short list suggests.