San Jose, California
San Jose Apartment Loans in 2026
About 38,000 rent-stabilized apartments, a soft-story retrofit law and a tiered transfer tax shape San Jose apartment loans before a lender ever opens the rent roll. We work those three items out first, then price the file with bridge and CMBS lenders, HUD, the agencies and banks before recommending one. Requests start at $1,500,000, can run to 80% LTV, and a well-leased stabilized building may price from 6.14%. Larger buildings belong under San Jose multifamily loans, Fresno, San Diego and the rest of California under California apartment loans, and the commercial mortgage rates page collects live pricing for every program.
Get a Free QuoteSan Jose in Fall 2026: Payrolls Up 1.6%, Rents Up 7.6%
Across the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro, year-over-year job growth widened from 1.3% in April 2026 to 1.7% in August and 1.6% in September, when preliminary BLS data counted 1,178,200 nonfarm jobs. Construction employment rose 7.4% and payrolls in education and health services 5.1%; information, professional and business services, and government dipped slightly.
HUD's analysis of the metro as of December 1, 2024 called apartment conditions slightly tight, with stabilized vacancy that stood at 4.4% for late 2024, down from 4.7%. Absorption of about 15,450 units over four years outran roughly 10,050 completions, and HUD's three-year forecast called for 12,050 new rental units, with 8,400 then under construction.
San Jose Rents Outrun the State
Per Apartment List's October 2026 report, San Jose's median rent was $3,154 after a 0.6% gain in September, and its 7.6% annual increase outran both California (2.5%) and the country (-0.4%). Its one-bedroom figure is $2,745 and its two-bedroom figure $3,257, while the national median for all sizes is $1,388. RentCafe, whose data covers buildings with 50 or more apartments, shows a $3,315 San Jose average as of its September 30, 2026 refresh, 5.26% above the $3,149 of a year earlier, and it counts renters in 44% of San Jose households.
HUD's December 2024 table of major metro employers counts 21,590 people at the County of Santa Clara, 18,500 at Cisco Systems and 8,134 at the City of San Jose; the state's 2024 list of major county employers places Adobe, eBay, NetApp and Super Micro Computer in San Jose. Google's Downtown West, approved unanimously on May 25, 2021 for up to 7.3 million square feet of offices and 4,000 homes on about 80 acres near Diridon Station, slowed in 2023 as Google said it was assessing how to move forward. Lenders size a San Jose apartment loan on rents collected today, not on projects still to come.
San Jose Apartment Loan Rates
Rates updated as of October 29, 2026
Read the table as best-case opening figures for stabilized property. On a pre-1990 wood-frame San Jose building, expect the lender to ask about soft-story compliance before it commits.
| Loan Type | Rate* | Max LTV |
|---|---|---|
| 5 Year Fixed | 6.54% | Up to 80% |
| 7 Year Fixed | 6.57% | Up to 80% |
| 10 Year Fixed | 6.61% | Up to 80% |
- Cash-out refinances are acceptable
- Interest-only and non-recourse options
- Minimum 1.25x debt-service-coverage ratio
See San Jose Multifamily Rates Over $6 Million, Starting at 6.14%
Rates last updated October 29, 2026. Rates and maximum LTV shown represent our best-case pricing scenarios. Actual rates, LTV, and loan terms are subject to underwriting approval and may vary.
Neighborhood Rents, Transit Stops and Historic Districts in San Jose
In RentCafe's September 2026 table of 13 San Jose neighborhoods, North San Jose ranks first at $3,749 and Edenvale last at $2,635, with Japantown $3,413, Downtown $3,412 and Willow Glen $3,127 between them. HUD measured downtown's stabilized apartment vacancy at 5.1% in late 2024, down from 7.0% a year earlier. Planned BART stations include 28th Street/Little Portugal, Downtown San Jose and Diridon. Naglee Park, once General Henry M. Naglee's 140-acre estate, and Hanchett and Hester Park, part of a district annexed in 1925, are City conservation areas.
Our San Jose apartment loans reach neighborhoods across the city, including:
- Downtown
- North San Jose
- Japantown
- Willow Glen
- Rose Garden
- Naglee Park
- Shasta Hanchett Park
- Little Portugal
- Berryessa
- North Valley
- Alviso
- Evergreen
- Silver Creek
- Communications Hill
- Blossom Valley
- Santa Teresa
- Edenvale
Matching a San Jose Building to the Right Program
A San Jose request is priced across each program below before we recommend one. This is where each opens:
| Program | Typical rate* | Max leverage | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fannie Mae Small Loan | 6.54% | Up to 80% | Non-recourse, fixed to 30 yrs |
| Freddie Mac SBL | 6.60% | Up to 80% | $2M to $10M small balance |
| FHA / HUD | 6.74% | Up to 85% | Highest leverage, longest term |
| Bank / portfolio | 6.50% | Up to 75% | Flexible, value-add |
| Bridge | 9.00% | Up to 80% LTC | Reposition, lease-up |
Most lenders set the coverage floor at 1.25x, and under San Jose's rent ordinance a covered unit's rent can rise just once in any 12 months, by no more than 5%. For larger balances, the programs are laid out on San Jose multifamily loans.
Rates last updated October 29, 2026. Rates and maximum LTV shown represent our best-case pricing scenarios. Actual rates, LTV, and loan terms are subject to underwriting approval and may vary.
Before You Borrow: San Jose's Rent Ordinance, Retrofit Deadlines and Measure E
Rent stabilization before 1979. Under Municipal Code chapter 17.23, apartments in buildings of three or more units built and occupied before September 7, 1979 may take one increase of up to 5% in any 12-month period, and owners must update each unit's occupancy information in the Rent Registry every year. The Tenant Protection Ordinance, whose notice must be given to tenants or posted in a common area in every apartment building of three or more units, requires one of 13 just causes to end a tenancy, and the Ellis Act Ordinance lets rent-stabilized units leave the market only with notice and financial benefits for displaced tenants.
Soft-story deadlines. Ordinance No. 31123, effective April 1, 2025, reaches buildings of two or more stories with three or more units, constructed or permitted before January 1, 1990, that have a wood-frame target story. Screening was due October 1, 2026, and retrofits must be finished by April 1, 2030 for five-plus-unit buildings built before 1978, April 1, 2031 for those from 1978 through 1989 and April 1, 2032 for the rest. The City estimates up to 3,500 such buildings, up to 1,700 of them rent-stabilized.
Three layers of transfer tax. The county's documentary transfer tax is $1.10 per $1,000, a seller cost by custom, and San Jose's own conveyance tax is $3.30 per $1,000, which buyer and seller customarily share, as Chicago Title's 2026 guide for California lists them. Measure E, approved by voters on March 3, 2020, then takes 0.75% of the full price on sales above $2.3 million through $5 million, 1% on sales over $5 million through $10 million and 1.5% on anything larger, with the threshold reset by a consumer price index every five years.
What a purchase does to the tax bill. A change in ownership brings a reappraisal and a supplemental bill for the difference in value, prorated over the months left in the fiscal year. For 2025-26 the rate starts at the 1% maximum levy, plus 0.01970% for the City's general obligation bonds and school and district bonds that vary by tax rate area. On the 2026 roll, San Jose's assessed value grew 4.46%.
Flood and earthquake exposure. The Coyote Creek flood that began February 21, 2017 hit Rock Springs and the neighborhood around William Street Park, and an evacuation order covered about 14,000 people. Flood insurance is mandatory for a building in FEMA's high-risk territory, the zones lettered A or V, when a federally regulated lender makes the loan or the mortgage is government-backed, and the NFIP's building limit is $500,000 for a structure with five or more units. USGS puts the odds of at least one magnitude 6.7 or larger quake in the San Francisco Bay region before 2043 at 72%.
Financing Options in San Jose
Rent-stabilized or not, every San Jose property lands on one of these pages:
Comparing San Jose with Fresno or San Diego? See California apartment loans for every market we serve in the state.
A San Jose Refinance With a Retrofit Deadline Ahead
For older wood-frame buildings, the soft-story schedule now sits inside the refinance timeline. With construction due between April 1, 2030 and April 1, 2032, a lender will want the screening result, the engineer's scope and a cost estimate, and may hold back proceeds or require reserves until the work is signed off. We put the retrofit cost in the budget and, on a rent-stabilized building, show any pass-through the City has approved.
The tax line is the other variable. Countywide, decline-in-value cases nearly tripled on the 2026 roll, to 24,727; if your building's market value has slipped below its assessment, a Prop 8 review before the appraisal may lower the tax bill the lender underwrites.
San Jose Apartment Building Loans Under the ARO and Outside It
County Assessor data cited by the City puts roughly 156,000 of San Jose's 336,000 residential units in buildings of three or more. We finance:
- Pre-1979 rent-stabilized buildings of three or more units
- Soft-story wood-frame buildings, retrofitted or on the schedule
- Post-1979 buildings outside the city ordinance
- Garden-style apartment complexes
- Elevator-served mid-rise buildings
- Properties near the planned BART stations
Multifamily Terms for San Jose's Bigger Rent Rolls
Agency debt from Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae stretches to 80% of value, runs for terms up to 30 years and leaves the borrower personally liable only under the usual carve-outs. CMBS adds a separate non-recourse execution, while HUD's FHA programs amortize longest: the FHA Risk Share term sheet from Fannie Mae permits full amortization over as many as 40 years. With ARO units in a San Jose building, expect each lender to review the Rent Registry history and soft-story status before quoting.
Larger-balance detail lives on San Jose multifamily loans; each agency has its own explainer, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
San Jose Multifamily Loan Rates
For larger balances, over $6 million
When the San Jose Property Isn't Residential
For the non-apartment side of a Santa Clara County portfolio, these are the loans we place:
Nearby Apartment Loan Markets
More California cities, the full state list and other states:
Los Angeles · Sacramento · Lancaster · Stockton · Long Beach · Oakland · Pasadena · Riverside · San Bernardino · San Diego · San Francisco · Concord · Fresno · All California · Other U.S. cities
Recent Apartment Loan Closings
These closings come from other states, and every one went to multiple lenders for bids, the same treatment a San Jose file gets.
What Our Clients Say
“I am a veterinarian who purchased an existing practice. I was surprised to find a company that offered 100% financing at a good rate, with great terms and rates for medical office financing.”
Carol K. · Chicago, IL“I spoke to several commercial lenders before finding Select Commercial. They got me a lower rate and their service was exceptional. If you need a multifamily loan, you need to talk to Stephen.”
Nathan B. · Philadelphia, PA“Select Commercial was very helpful with my multifamily mortgage. Stephen went over several options and we came up with the best lender to meet my needs. I got the funds and also lowered my payments.”
Gary M. · Portland, OR“Select Commercial offered 100% financing for my medical practice when my bank would have required 20% down. They delivered something my bank could not, and handled everything professionally.”
John C. · Boston, MAGet Your San Jose Apartment Loan Quote
Send the rent roll with ARO units marked, the latest Rent Registry and Residential Occupancy Permit records, trailing operating statements and any soft-story screening report; our reply lists the written terms each interested lender offers on your San Jose property.
- No application or processing fees
- Written answers within 48 hours
- For 5+ unit and commercial properties, $1.5M and up