About the directory
Public records, with their context.
SF Foreclosure Watch is an independent, free directory for researching property filings in the City and County of San Francisco. You can browse addresses, parcel numbers, document history, and linked permit records without creating an account.
What is available today
The initial source is an uploaded Airtable export containing 712 properties, 798 recorder documents, and 6,803 linked permit rows. Foreclosure document dates extend through Jul 14, 2026. The first import was scraped in June 2026. This site currently presents a historical snapshot, with no independently verified live auction calendar.
Directory totals count properties. Several documents or permits can relate to one property. The main directory focuses on default notices, trustee sale notices, recorded sale deeds, and tax-sale activity. Resolved cases can still appear when researching older auction notices.
Sources
- San Francisco Assessor-Recorder document search: filing numbers, recorded dates, document types, trustee references, and amounts extracted from notices.
- DataSF assessor enrichment included in the supplied export: property class, neighborhood, size, year built, and assessed value.
- DataSF Building Permits: permit descriptions, filing dates, and recorded status.
- SF Treasurer & Tax Collector: official tax-sale publications and auction results. The directory links to this source; automated tax-auction collection is not connected yet.
How to read the categories
Pre-foreclosure
A recorded notice of default is an early event in a foreclosure process. It does not establish that the property is currently for sale or that a foreclosure will be completed.
Foreclosure and auction notices
A notice of trustee sale is a recorded auction notice. The originally stated sale date can change. Dates extracted from notes are labeled as unverified. A recorded trustee deed is presented as a completed filing, without assuming the lender was the purchaser or that the property is now listed for sale.
Tax-sale records
Recorded tax deeds describe past transfers. Notices of the Tax Collector’s power to sell identify another recorded stage. Neither, by itself, confirms an upcoming tax auction. San Francisco’s official auction page publishes notices and results.
Important data limits
The earlier scraper grouped filings by parcel and used the latest filing as a property label. A parcel can have several loans or cases. A release for one loan does not establish that every case affecting the property was resolved. We therefore display the recorded filing history and its source dates rather than treating that label as a verified current status.
OCR can misread document fields. Some addresses, parcel references, and property characteristics require correction. Ambiguous parcel references are held out of the public directory until reviewed. The export does not constitute a complete title search. Debt amounts are recorded amounts, and assessed value is a tax assessment rather than a market-value estimate. We do not publish the earlier calculated equity scores or filing-date-based auction countdowns.
Photo credit
San Francisco skyline: Ryan Schwark, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0.
