SF + Peninsula Market Update — Fall 2026

Median Prices are up 15.8% from last year across all property types.... Houses up almost 25% Year Over Year and Condos have rebounded moving up 12%. High rents are driving people to buy despite the high interest rate environment because...

Sellers just aren't selling. Either they have a great interest rate (many in the 2-3% range!), they are staying put, or renting out their homes to take advantage of the high rents and becoming real estate investors. There is only 1.5 Months of Inventory in San Francisco now across all categories of real estate.

In the first half of 2026, 144 San Francisco homes sold for at least $1 million over asking. The same figure for the first half of 2025 was 8.

For 2024 it was 6. In June alone there were 44. San Francisco single-family homes sold at an average of about 25% over asking in May, against roughly 10% a year earlier.

The record now belongs to 2512 Union Street in Cow Hollow: asking $8 million, sold for nearly $16 million. That is the largest overbid the city has recorded this century. Sea Cliff medians are up about 25% year over year, and Pacific and Presidio Heights are trading around $5,000 per square foot.

Agents in the piece point to buyers moving ahead of IPO lockup expirations at OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks and SpaceX.

The median San Francisco home closed at 110.1% of list price. Sale-to-list for all 90 neighborhoods, and why the west side overbids and the condo core does not.

Hottest Neighborhoods?

• Outer Sunset (44% over asking)

• Sherwood Forest (40% over asking)

• Central Sunset (37% over asking)

and most of the Southern and West neighborhoods...

U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage rates have risen to 7%, increasing borrowing costs and adding pressure to a housing market already affected by persistent inflation. The climb may further strain consumers and home affordability.

For all of San Mateo County, the Median prices for Single Family Houses CLIMBED to 1.88M (+4.9% year-over-year and condos +5.6%)...

Average Days on Market is a very low 12 days (less than 2 months worth of inventory)... but what else is new? The market has been strong for years.

Median Sales Price for Hillsborough up 20.3% to $6.150M as of end of August 2026

Median prices calculated with a rolling 6 month window.

The national trend of historic low inventory has also affected the Hillsborough market as well with inventory down to just 1.2 months. The way to think of this number is if there are no new homes coming to market, at this rate, Hillsborough will sell out of homes in 1.2 months)

In the San Carlos/Belmont/Redwood City areas, the Median Price is $2.356M vs $2.077M last year, up 13% from last year. Homes are Selling for on Average 104.2% over Asking vs last year at this time 99.5%.

Average Days on Market is 25 Days. There is 1.9 Months of Inventory which is over 10% lower than last year (2.2 Months).

Condo Avg Sales Price is $820k, down $30k from last year.

3BR | 2BA 1944 sf on a 20k sf lot in the South of El Monte neighborhood in Los Altos

Asking $4.395M - sold for $4.9123M at $2526 psf

I represented the buyers - there were 3 offers total on this home and it was "close".

Menlo Park Median sales prices also strong at end of August was $3.2M up 5.8% over last year on a 6 month rolling basis. Houses up 10% while Condo prices are up 25% but Townhomes down 7.9%

Mark Choey (CAL BRE #01701189) of Christie’s Int’l Real Estate can be reached at (415) 481-1789, mark@choey.com, or www.markchoey.com. Market activity data reflects three months per data point, is current as of September 14, 2026, and comes from the San Francisco MLS. InfoSparks © 2026 ShowingTime Plus, LLC.

The first-half report: San Francisco houses on another level, the Peninsula strong across the board, and the overbidding data by district. Useful as the baseline this update is measured against.

What moves real estate in San Francisco and the Bay Area. A handpicked 2026 outlook across mortgage rates, consumer sentiment, local job growth, cost of housing and rents, and zoning.