TL;DR: SF has just 159 single family homes on the market — half of normal. Prices are up 20–40% across key neighborhoods driven by AI wealth, tech liquidity, and historically low inventory. The opportunity is in knowing which neighborhoods are next. Here’s the full breakdown.
San Francisco’s market is moving faster than anything I’ve seen in my 16-year career — and the gap between neighborhoods that are surging and the ones that still have room to run is creating real opportunity for buyers who know where to look. In this post I’ll tell you down exactly what’s happening on the ground right now: where prices are moving, why, and which neighborhoods still offer a window before it closes. I’ve also put together a video that walks you through the wave strategy in detail, with a live map. Watch it below.
Right now there are only 159 single family homes on the market citywide — half of what we’d normally see this time of year. Why? People who work in tech don’t want to leave San Francisco right now. And some sellers are waiting to see if they can get even higher prices, which, given current demand, is a reasonable bet.
Moving into spring, soaring buyer demand against an extremely inadequate supply of homes continues to drive ferocious competition, faster sales, more overbidding, and rapidly rising prices. Luxury home sales rose over 200% year over year to hit their highest month-of-February count ever. Unlike 2025, when the calendar-year price high came in autumn due to the AI-driven market boom, spring 2026 is already showing up with force.
My team has already ratified over $70 million in sales and 24 transactions as of early March. We’re putting new deals into escrow almost every week. When I say prices are moving quickly, I am not saying that casually. It is happening in real time.
The biggest driver is liquidity. In October 2025, OpenAI allowed roughly $10 billion of stock to trade on the secondary market, sending a wave of AI-wealth buyers into San Francisco real estate. Combined with years of tech stock gains and significant generational wealth transfers — parents helping millennials buy homes — there are simply more qualified buyers in this market than we’ve seen in years. Many are accelerating their searches out of genuine fear of being priced out. With eight additional IPOs rumored, including Anthropic, that pressure is not likely to ease soon.
These are not last quarter’s comps, these are based on pending sales:
| Neighborhood | Price Change |
|---|---|
| Noe Valley + Eureka Valley | ~30–40% increase |
| Inner Richmond + Inner Sunset | ~30–35% increase |
| Pacific Heights | ~25–30% increase |
| Lake Street corridor | ~22% increase |
| Cole Valley | Expected to follow the same trend |
To put that in concrete terms: a home in the Inner Sunset listed at $2.295M received 34 offers and is closing at $4.2 million — roughly $2 million over list. A home in the Inner Richmond listed at $3M received 14 offers and is in contract at $4.995M. Golden Gate Heights is trading at $1,266/sq ft, with nearby comps already at $1,355/sq ft.
The SF real estate market moves like a wave and getting ahead of it is the single most important thing a buyer can do right now. Prices rise first in the most in-demand neighborhoods, then that wave builds outward into adjacent, less expensive areas. The window to buy ahead of the wave is open but it won’t stay open long.
If you’re looking in the Inner Sunset and can’t pay $4.2 million for a Marina-style home, move to the Central or Outer Sunset now before that wave arrives. As Pacific Heights prices climb, buyers who pivot to Jordan Park, Lake Street, or the Inner Richmond will be ahead of the curve. As Noe Valley hits new highs, Cole Valley and the neighborhoods around it are next.
Which neighborhoods are still ahead of the wave in 2026?
Why do SF prices spread neighborhood to neighborhood? Because buyers priced out of one neighborhood don’t leave the city they pivot to the next one. That pivot is predictable. If you can identify where buyers will land before they do, you can win.
I know it’s brutal out there. But our team is putting buyers into contract multiple times a week — in under two offers for the vast majority of our clients. If you’re on your seventh or tenth offer with someone else, there is a better way.
How do you compete when there are 20+ offers on every home? The answer is not to outbid blindly — it’s to work with a team that knows the pendings, understands price-per-square-foot across adjacent neighborhoods, and can move fast when a preemptive opportunity appears. Preemptive offers, made before a home even hits offer date, are increasingly the move in this market. They require dropping everything on short notice, which is exactly why they work: most buyers can’t do it.
The most important thing you can do right now is understand your real budget not the list price, but where homes are actually closing. Sitting on a price point and hoping things come down is not a winning move. The data isn’t showing that. Buyers in the market today are betting that even with a future correction, waiting likely won’t get them a better deal than they can get right now. If you can buy and plan to hold for 5–7 years, this is a serious conversation worth having.
Should you wait for the SF market to cool before buying? Markets are cyclical — they go until they don’t, and then they go in a different direction. But buyers waiting for a correction are also competing against IPO liquidity, generational wealth, and the lowest inventory in years. Modify your search sooner rather than later because as more data comes in and buyers gain confidence in the numbers, competition is only going to increase.
If you have a single family home, conditions right now are genuinely exceptional. Inventory is half of what it normally is, buyer demand is at levels I’ve never seen, and houses are seeing stronger market conditions than at almost any point in recent memory — with the condo market also rebounding dramatically, up 25–30% in neighborhoods like Pacific Heights.
A hot market is a hot market. If you’re thinking about waiting for even more upside, I’d gently push back on that strategy. The window is open right now. Seize it.
The upcoming months are typically the most active of the year, and the macro picture remains favorable for SF real estate. The wild card is what sustained effects broader economic uncertainty — inflation, interest rates, financial markets — may have on consumer confidence. Barring an extreme decline in economic conditions, a significant negative impact on the city’s housing market appears unlikely, particularly with additional IPOs on the horizon.
Whether you’re a buyer trying to figure out where to look, a seller wondering if now is the right time, or just trying to understand what’s actually happening out there please reach out. We’re happy to jump on a call and walk you through what we’re seeing in real time.
