August Market Update

Bay Area

Quick Take

• July medians stayed ahead of last year across nearly the entire region, with San Francisco at $2,050,000 (a 24.87% annual gain) and San Mateo County topping the region at $2,123,000 (up 10.57%), even as most counties slipped from their spring highs.

• Supply is what defines this summer.  The Bay Area's four subregions held just over 7,300 single-family listings, with year-over-year declines running from 22% in Silicon Valley to 42% in San Francisco.

• Speed remains the norm, with seven of the ten counties averaging 20 days or fewer to sell a single-family home.

• Months of supply sits under three in almost every single-family market, and the condo segment is closing that gap quickly.

Prices cooled from spring, but the annual ledger still favors sellers

The Bay Area repeated a familiar summer pattern in July, with medians drifting down from their May and June peaks while holding well above year-ago marks.  San Francisco produced the strongest annual comparison in the region, finishing at a single-family median of $2,050,000.  That was 4.65% below June's $2,150,000, yet a striking 24.87% above the $1,641,750 recorded last July.  San Mateo County claimed the region's top median at $2,123,000, a 10.57% annual advance, and Marin County climbed 5.26% to $1,750,000.

The rest of the region moved in smaller increments.  Santa Clara County barely budged at $1,900,000, a 1.06% annual gain that also marked a third consecutive monthly decline from May's $2,050,000.  Alameda County registered $1,270,000 and Contra Costa County $865,000, up 1.60% and 0.93% year over year after both peaked in May.  Solano County delivered the best month-over-month result in the region, rising 3.59% to $606,000.  Santa Cruz, Sonoma, and Napa Counties were the only three to finish under last July, and none by more than 3.1%.

Condos told two very different stories depending on the county.  San Francisco condos gained 4.17% from June to reach $1,250,000, good for an 8.93% annual increase, while Marin County condos hit $707,500 on an 8.85% gain and San Mateo County condos rose 8.88% to $840,000.  Pushing the opposite way, Sonoma County condos gave back 18.84% and Santa Cruz County condos fell 20.13%.  Both of those segments trade in low enough volume that a single month should not be read as a trend.

Listing shortages have spread to every subregion

There is no pocket of abundant supply left in the Bay Area.  Silicon Valley ended July with 1,849 single-family homes available, a 22.18% annual drop and 5.28% below June.  The East Bay finished at 2,659 listings, down 24.70% from a year ago.  The North Bay contracted hardest, sliding to 2,645 units for a 34.04% annual decline and a 17.96% drop from June, the thinnest July figure in that region's two-year record.  San Francisco carried a mere 154 single-family listings, 42.11% fewer than the 266 available last July.

Crucially, this is not a case of buyers disappearing.  Closed single-family sales totaled roughly 3,750 across the four subregions in July, and each one matched or modestly exceeded its July 2024 volume.  The constraint is on the supply side.  New single-family listings dropped 4.59% in Silicon Valley, 4.26% in the East Bay, and 24.98% in the North Bay.  San Francisco was the lone exception, posting a 13.5% increase in new listings.

Condo inventory is shrinking too, though for a different reason.  Available units fell 12.84% in Silicon Valley, 7.78% in the East Bay, 21.52% in the North Bay, and 43.16% in San Francisco, while closed condo sales climbed in all four regions.  San Francisco condo closings jumped 39.2% and Silicon Valley's rose 23.44%.  In the attached segment, buyer absorption is doing most of the work of drawing inventory down.

From under two weeks near the job centers to six weeks at the edges

Marketing times fan out neatly from the region's employment hubs.  Single-family homes in San Francisco averaged 13 days on market, with San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties both at 14 days, Alameda at 15, and Contra Costa at 16.  Marin County made the biggest leap forward, cutting its average to 20 days, 41.18% faster than the 34 days it needed last July.  Timelines lengthen from there: 25 days in Santa Cruz County, 31 in Solano, 35 in Sonoma, and 43 in Napa, the slowest single-family market in the region.

Attached housing shows far more spread.  San Francisco condos averaged 20 days, a 53.49% improvement from 43 days last July, and Alameda County condos sped up 29.03% to 22 days, their quickest pace in more than two years.  On the slower end, San Mateo County condos stretched to 42 days, Marin to 55, Solano to 63, and Santa Cruz County to 70 days, close to triple last July's 27.  Napa County's 17-day condo average is the region's biggest anomaly and reflects a very small number of closings.  For sellers, the takeaway is that condo timelines are governed by local conditions to a far greater degree than single-family timelines, so pricing should be built around neighborhood pace rather than a regional average.

Leverage still sits with sellers nearly everywhere

When determining whether a market is a buyers’ market or a sellers’ market, we look to the Months of Supply Inventory (MSI) metric.  The state of California has historically averaged around three months of MSI, so any area with at or around three months of MSI is considered a balanced market.  Any market that has lower than three months of MSI is considered a seller’s market, whereas markets with more than three months of MSI are considered buyers’ markets.

By that yardstick, virtually every single-family market in the Bay Area qualifies as a seller's market.  San Francisco is the tightest at 0.8 months of supply, a 42.86% annual reduction, trailed by San Mateo at 1.2 months, Santa Clara at 1.6, Marin at 1.7, Alameda at 1.9, Contra Costa at 2.4, and Solano at 2.8.  Sonoma County at 3.2 months and Santa Cruz County at 3.4 months hover right at balance, each having compressed considerably from last July.  Napa County stands alone as a genuine single-family buyers' market at 6.1 months, and even that figure is 33.70% below the 9.2 months posted a year ago.

Condo buyers retain more room to negotiate, but that advantage is fading month by month.  San Francisco condos have fallen from 3.6 months of supply last July to 1.7 months today, and San Mateo County condos now sit at 2.9 months.  Marin County condos, at 3.1 months, are essentially balanced after registering near 5.9 months a year ago.  The best remaining leverage for condo buyers is in Alameda County at 4.4 months, Solano at 4.6, Napa at 6.7, and the 4.0 to 4.2 month band covering Sonoma, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Contra Costa Counties.  As fall approaches, the regional read is straightforward: single-family sellers can negotiate with confidence, and condo buyers should move on the advantage they still hold, because it has narrowed steadily all summer.