Tony and Jan Massara in San Francisco, where they hoped to take advantage of a softening rental market. “The goal was, for once in our lives, let’s have some freedom,” Mr. Massara said. Jason Henry for The New York Times

After their only child left their suburban Sacramento-area home for college in the Bay Area, Jan and Tony Massara knew what they wanted: a true city living experience.

They knew which city, too.

“There is a spirit, a community, a desire to participate in San Francisco,” said Ms. Massara, 64. “You don’t just observe or live here — you have to be a part of it.”

So in 2017, the couple, nearly lifelong suburbanites who grew up within a mile of each other in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, gave away almost everything in their four-bedroom home in Granite Bay and rented a two-bedroom apartment in the Inner Sunset district of San Francisco.

It was a drastic life change hastened in part by Mr. Massara’s multiple battles with cancer, which he said are now largely behind him. “It definitely made us think about the future in very different ways,” Ms. Massara said.

The couple, married 41 years after meeting when both lived in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, took to San Francisco immediately. But they were in no hurry to buy, with enough financial reserves from Mr. Massara’s career as a bond salesman and Ms. Massara’s work as a corporate underwriting director to rent indefinitely.