Be careful on the purchase, talk to the local building inspector or building official, give them a visit at city hall before you purchase, you might not be permitted to just rehab this like your regular rehab, you  might be forced to install a new hvac/water/power/gas supply lines (this might cost up to 50k) and have the building quake proof.

Sincerely, Josh yup all this stuff blows over I mean look what happened to SF Bay Area after the big Loma Preita quake knocked down freeways knocked out the bay bridge for a long time.. real estate did stumble badly for a few years but then came roaring back. 

@Keith T Williams try Steve Wrought.

I refuse gas surface to my home too, in my case cause of leak/fire/explosion risk worries esp from quakes, or growing fireworks epidemic.Working on getting off of muni water ASAP - as soon as find a property with spring/well to move to!

. - We have some decent Chicago wrought iron subs. 

But generally your correct the 09 to 2012 buying seasons were some of the best in history given whats the up and down cycles of Real Estate... but that scenario played out in the perfect storm of financial crisis's .. counting on another one of those happening is probably not the best idea.Earthquake of a major variety in my experience living in the bay area casued values to halt or plummet.. 1987 quake for instance.. put the bay area into a recessionary mode for 5 to 7 years .But that's a long time ago.come to the J martin event end of the month there will be a lot of very experienced investors there.

Although we do pay a bit more with quake insurance in Ca.  

Investing with family & Friends is wrought with horror Stories.

@Steve Olafson   if one was in the Bay Area during the 89 quake and the war.. we had a mini melt down in RE prices.. that was basically regionalized.. many don't remember or knew of it.But BAy area prices even on the peninsula  and SF dropped 50%... far worse crash than the 07 to 09 slow down the bay area experienced...

The block is set close to the street with a wrought-iron gate leading up a short path to a set of glass doors.