POTM Blog
Pulse On Today’s Market - San Francisco Residential Real Estate
Paulo's data-backed notes on the San Francisco market: buyer strategy, seller timing, neighborhoods, condos and TICs, cash buyers, and the AI-era economy. New POTM Blog issues drop weekly, built on the same governed MLS data as Paulo's Pulse, my research lab. No hype, no fear.
Latest · In Numbers · September 2026 · October 4, 2026
September 2026 in numbers: the biggest overbid in ten Septembers
September is when the fall listings arrive and the market is supposed to loosen a little. The listings arrived, a third short of last year. The bidding did not loosen. Here is what closed, what it sold for, how fast it went, and the one thing these numbers cannot tell you yet.
Quick read: The median San Francisco home that closed in September 2026 sold at 113.5% of asking in 12 days, against 100.9% and 16 days a year ago. Single-family houses closed at a median 128.8% of asking, 12 points above any September in the ten years we track; 82% of houses cleared asking by 10% or more and 4% sold under it. Condos sold at 105.3% in 13 days, their first September over asking since 2021. Under $1 million is still the only price band selling at asking. 653 houses and condos were for sale at month end, up from 492 in August and still 32% fewer than last September. The contracts behind these closings were mostly written before the September 16 rate hike; October closings carry the first answer to it.
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In Numbers · September 2026 · October 4, 2026
September 2026 in numbers: the biggest overbid in ten Septembers
Quick read: The median San Francisco home that closed in September 2026 sold at 113.5% of asking in 12 days, against 100.9% and 16 days a year ago. Single-family houses closed at a median 128.8% of asking, 12 points above any September in the ten years we track; 82% of houses cleared asking by 10% or more and 4% sold under it. Condos sold at 105.3% in 13 days, their first September over asking since 2021. Under $1 million is still the only price band selling at asking. 653 houses and condos were for sale at month end, up from 492 in August and still 32% fewer than last September. The contracts behind these closings were mostly written before the September 16 rate hike; October closings carry the first answer to it.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #25 · October 1, 2026
The Buyer Who Leaves First
Quick read: What does a Fed rate hike do to the San Francisco housing market? In 2022, the last time the 30-year mortgage went from under 4% to nearly 7%, houses went from selling 18% over asking to at asking within a year, and financed condo sales fell by more than half while cash condo sales fell by a quarter. The cost landed on one buyer above all: the person financing a house between $1 million and $3 million, a jumbo loan in San Francisco. So far in 2026 the same thing has not happened. The rate rose from 6.1% in January to 7.6% on the daily index by the end of September and the market got stronger, because a third of buyers now pay cash and there are fewer homes for sale than in any year of the past decade. The first contracts written after the September 16 hike will show up in October closings.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #24 · September 22, 2026
The Second Season
Quick read: What should buyers and sellers expect from the San Francisco fall market? Over the last ten years, fall ran in three phases. The number of houses for sale peaked in September or October every year, a median 37% above August, then fell to 38% to 54% of that peak by the end of December. Houses listed in the fall sold at a median 108% to 110% of asking, 1.5 to 3.4 points below spring listings, and the year mattered far more than the month. December's weaker numbers are mostly older listings finally selling: houses that sold within two weeks and closed in December got 115.7% of asking, the same as October. The clock says more than the calendar: a fall house that sat past three weeks sold at a median of asking. This fall starts with the thinnest shelf in ten years, early-September houses at 128.6% of asking, and a 30-year mortgage rate of 6.95%, the highest in a year.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #23 · September 15, 2026
Empty Shelves
Quick read: Why are San Francisco homes selling so fast in 2026? Because the shelf is empty. From January through August the city averaged 186 single-family houses for sale, 37% fewer than the 294 of 2025, while new contracts rose 6%; condos averaged 434 against 665 as contracts rose 20%. A decade of spring data suggests a shelf this thin should push houses to about 126% of asking. They sold at 123%, so the bidding looks like scarcity, not a frenzy. The fall listing wave is arriving, 116 houses on September 6 and 201 on September 14, but even a normal September would finish below every September of the past ten years. And the median house price is up 21%, of which about 14 points is the same house costing more and the rest is larger houses selling.
Read the issue ›In Numbers · August 2026 · September 7, 2026
August 2026 in numbers: the fastest August in ten years
Quick read: The median San Francisco home that closed in August 2026 went into contract in 14 days, against 29 a year ago, and 54% of sales were in contract within two weeks. Houses set ten-year August highs on every competition number (119% of asking, 68% of sales clearing asking by 10% or more, 9% under asking). Condos went from 48 days on market to 14. Under $1 million is the only price band still selling at asking. 548 homes for sale at month end, down 39% on the year, with new listings up 9%: everything that lists sells.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #22 · September 2, 2026
What a Bedroom Costs
Quick read: How much does an extra bedroom cost in San Francisco? Over the last 12 months the median two-bedroom house sold for $1,400,000, the median three-bedroom for $1,869,000 and the median four-bedroom for $2,700,000: the third bedroom costs about $469,000 and the fourth about $831,000. Condos climb a similar ladder, $730,000 for one bedroom, $1,350,000 for two, $1,900,000 for three. But hold the square footage fixed and most of that money disappears. Two, three and four bedroom houses all sell for about $1,130 per square foot, and at the same size a fourth bedroom sells for less than a third, not more. The one bedroom that pays for itself at a fixed size is the second bedroom in a condo. You are buying square feet and a floor plan. The bedroom count is the label.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #21 · August 30, 2026
The TIC Turn
Quick read: San Francisco's least understood way to own a home just had its best six months in years. Tenancy in common sales, the fractional-ownership flats most buyers skip past, closed at a median +5.8% over asking in the last six months, in a median 16 days. A year ago the same market closed at asking in 37 days. The share of TIC sales clearing asking by 10% or more nearly tripled, from 13.6% to 39.8%, and now runs ahead of condos at 29.6%. Ten years of data say this is not a normal spring: no year since 2016 posted a median market time under 29 days, and 2026 is running at 18. The product did not change: it is still the 1909-vintage flat with $450 median dues, selling at a 10% per square foot discount to condos. What changed is that buyers stopped skipping past it.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #20 · August 25, 2026
The HOA Line
Quick read: San Francisco condos look flat on average: +1.3% over asking in the last six months while houses ran +22.5%. Split the same condos by monthly HOA dues and the average falls apart. Under $500 a month, 59.9% of sales cleared asking by double digits, in a median 13 days. Over $1,000 a month, 11.1% did, and the most common outcome was still closing below asking, 39.9% of sales. The share roughly halves at each step of the dues ladder, and the pattern survives any way of drawing the brackets. The dues set the odds. The home decides the outcome.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #19 · August 18, 2026
What Cash Actually Buys
Quick read: National research says an all-cash buyer pays about 10 percent less for the same home than a mortgage buyer. San Francisco splits that answer in two. In condo country, cash does buy a discount, a modest one: in every price band under $3M the typical cash condo closed 1 to 7 points below the financed field, and a full week faster, 15 median days against 22. In house country the same money does the opposite: from $1.5M up, the typical cash house closed above the financed field in every band, 132.2 percent of asking against 125.8 in the $1.5M to $2M band. Cash there does not buy a discount. It buys the win, and it pays for it.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #18 · August 13, 2026
Cash Doesn't Chase
Quick read: Over the last 12 months, 30.9 percent of San Francisco house sales with reported financing were bought in cash, up from 24.9 percent the year before. But the cash is not where the bidding wars are. The five neighborhoods where cash is most common, led by the Financial District at 66.7 percent, all sold within about two and a half points of asking. The neighborhoods where buyers overbid hardest, the Outer Sunset at 30.4 percent over asking, Parkside at 27.4, run on mortgages: roughly three in four sales there carry a loan. The city's loudest bidding wars are fought mostly with borrowed money. Cash buys quietly, at the top of the price ladder, and it pays list.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #17 · August 9, 2026
The Overbid Map Is Not the Heat Map
Quick read: So far in 2026, 160 San Francisco homes closed at least a million dollars above asking, across 46 neighborhoods, for $231 million above list in total. That roster looks like a map of where competition is hottest. It is not. District 2, the Sunset and Parkside, has the highest typical overbid in the city at 32.7 percent and produced 11 of the 160. District 7, Pacific Heights and the Marina, is near the bottom of the city at 6.7 percent and produced 26. A million-dollar gap is mostly a fact about the price of the house, and at the extreme it is a fact about the list price rather than the market.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #16 · August 6, 2026
A Window Is a Memory
Quick read: On one afternoon, from one governed dataset, Bernal Heights houses sold at 135, 133, 131 and 123 percent of asking. The only thing that changed was how far back the window reached. That is not a flaw. Where the windows disagree, the market is moving, and citywide they disagree for houses and agree for condos. In 21 of the 23 neighborhoods with reliable reads in both, the 90-day figure runs hotter than the 12-month one. And short windows are not automatically noise: 30 of 90 subdistricts carry enough sales for a trustworthy 30-day read, and eleven of those are running five or more points away from their own annual number.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #15 · August 2, 2026
The Last Building You Can Live In
Quick read: An owner can occupy any small multifamily building, but a duplex is the last one where the unit you keep is still house-sized: a median 1,462 square feet per unit, against 1,218 in a triplex and 916 in a fourplex. This spring San Francisco buyers paid for that. Duplexes sold a median 11.7% over asking between March and late July, their highest in the eleven springs on record, after three straight springs at asking. Four-unit buildings, the ones an investor has to underwrite, still closed slightly under asking.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #14 · July 29, 2026
The Drought
Quick read: The whole city is a bidding war for one almost boring reason: there is nearly nothing to buy. San Francisco houses fell to 0.7 months of supply in June, about three weeks of homes on the market and the lowest reading for any June in at least twenty years. Condos, townhomes, and TICs all dropped to near record lows too, active listings are down about 40% in a year, and it is not interest rates.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #13 · July 25, 2026
The Pressure Valve
Quick read: The house frenzy is leaking into whatever lives like a house: condos in the house districts sold a median 14.6% over asking this spring, a ten-year high, TICs posted their strongest spring since 2018, and the downtown towers are back at asking for the first time since 2022, selling twice as fast as last year.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #12 · July 21, 2026
Why San Francisco Homes Sell So Far Over Asking
Quick read: You keep seeing it: sold for hundreds of thousands over asking, a million over asking.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #11 · July 17, 2026
After the Overbid
Quick read: The overbid story now runs one tier below the trophy core: Sunset and Parkside houses cleared 146.8% of list on a strong sample, while spillover stays observed, not proven.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #10 · July 14, 2026
A Million Over Asking
Quick read: The $1M-over-asking wave is real, but it is a trophy-house story in three districts, powered by cash and inflated by pricing.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #09 · July 11, 2026
The Mid-Year Mark
Quick read: At the 2026 halfway mark, houses posted their most competitive first half on record while condos stayed in the patient lane.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #08 · July 5, 2026
The Luxury Exception
Quick read: Over a full year the $5M+ top looks calm; in the last 90 days it heated up, and cash did the winning.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #07 · June 30, 2026
The Two-Speed Market
Quick read: Houses cleared about 124% of list over the last 90 days while condos held near 101%. Two markets, one city.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #06 · June 25, 2026
The Missing Middle
Quick read: The fiercest bidding wars are in the $1.5M to $3M middle, not at the bottom or the top of the price ladder.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #05 · June 21, 2026
Who's Paying Cash
Quick read: About a third of San Francisco homes sold for cash over the last year, and the share climbs with price.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #04 · June 17, 2026
The Spring Acceleration
Quick read: Houses sped into summer at about 123% of list with a median up roughly 26% in a year; condos held near 100%.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #03 · June 13, 2026
Where the Overbids Are
Quick read: Citywide, homes sold at about 103.6% of list, but that average hides a 33-point spread between neighborhoods.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #02 · June 10, 2026
The Condo Turn
Quick read: Compass's June report headlines another single-family record; the quieter story is the condo turn underneath it.
Read the issue ›POTM Blog Issue #01 · June 7, 2026
The AI-Era Spring Market
Quick read: One of the strongest springs in years, with the heat concentrated in houses and the cash-heavy luxury tier.
Read the issue ›Go deeper
To explore supply, competition, and prices by neighborhood, district, and property type, open Paulo's Pulse, the research lab behind every issue (en español: Pulso de Paulo). Practical how-to guides live on the Tools & Resources page.
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