A San Francisco renter has been offered $35,000 to walk away from her apartment, but the eye popping check has not been enough to make her say yes.
Serabeth Mullaney is facing a very San Francisco dilemma.
Her landlord wants the apartment back and is willing to pay five figures to get it, but Mullaney says the nightmare of finding another place could make the deal a bad bargain for her.
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TikToker Serabeth Mullaney talks about life in San Francisco. TikTok/@synapticglories
TikToker Serabeth Mullaney talks about life in San Francisco. TikTok/@synapticglories
TikToker Serabeth Mullaney talks about life in SF. TikTok/@synapticglories
She has been documenting the situation on TikTok, where she explained what is keeping her from accepting the offer.
“The one thing I think that is stopping me from accepting it is the apartment hunt,” Mullaney said.
Mullaney described the prospect of finding a new home in the city as a “nightmare,” and said there is another string attached to the deal because her landlord is also asking her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Tenant buyouts are a familiar feature of San Francisco’s heavily regulated rental market, where strict protections can prevent landlords from simply raising rents dramatically on existing tenants.
An aerial view shows Lombard Street in San Francisco, California, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025. Getty Images
Paying a renter to leave can give a landlord a way to regain the unit and then charge a price that better reflects current market rates.
For Mullaney, however, the problem is what happens after she takes the money.
The average one bedroom apartment in San Francisco now costs $4,500, according to Zillow, while fierce competition has created a particularly painful trend for renters as bidding wars break out over available apartments.
A scenic view of downtown San Francisco is seen on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, in San Francisco, California. Getty Images
Homes are pictured in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, September 3, 2026. The National Association of Realtors is scheduled to release existing homes sales figures on September 10. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Mullaney has kept her exact location private, although San Francisco Rent Board data shows that many of the city’s high value tenant buyouts have occurred in historically rent controlled, high demand neighborhoods such as the Mission, Castro, Haight Ashbury and Pacific Heights.
Her $35,000 offer might sound like a fortune, but it is actually right around San Francisco’s historical median for tenant buyouts, meaning some renters have walked away with vastly larger sums.
The biggest recorded buyout in the city went to a couple in their 60s who received a staggering $475,000 to leave their seven bedroom rent controlled apartment in Presidio Heights.
They had lived there for 30 years while paying $12,500 a month for the sprawling luxury flat, which came with sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. Getty Images
That history puts Mullaney’s offer into perspective, particularly as she weighs the possibility of giving up an apartment in a city where replacing it could prove painfully difficult.
Real estate lawyers have described buyouts in the $35,000 to $50,000 range as “chump change” for landlords.
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