San Francisco Luxury Real Estate Market, 2026
San Francisco houses got a lot more expensive in 2026, and the top of the market moved with everything else. In September the San Francisco MLS put the median single-family sale at $2,069,000, up 19.3% from September 2025. Condos rose 19.6% to $1,325,000. C.A.R., counting a little differently, had the single-family median at $2,054,000, up 17.4% from a year earlier and 9.5% from August.
I'm Michael Williams with Golden Gate Luxury (Turbohome Inc, DRE #01780513). I've sold real estate for 17 years and closed more than $250M, and I keep this page to published numbers with the source next to each one. Where I give an opinion, I say it's mine.
Speed and overbids. MLSListings' September 2026 county summary showed 189 single-family sales in San Francisco at a $2,050,000 median, with the median house selling in 12 days at 131% of its list price. Inventory was 232 houses, down 17% from a year before. C.A.R. had 1.6 months of unsold inventory, down from 2.0 a year earlier. Redfin's all-homes number for the three months through September was softer at $1,579,248, still up 14.9%, with homes selling in 17 days versus 26 a year earlier.
Those are citywide figures. The luxury tier is thinner and moves on its own schedule. I don't have a clean September 2026 SFAR pull for $3 million and $5 million sales ready to cite here, so I'm not inventing one. When I have that pull I'll add it.
A word on the 131%. That figure doesn't mean buyers overpaid by a third. San Francisco agents often list a house below where they expect it to sell to bring in multiple offers by a set date, so the list price works more like an opening bid than a valuation. My sense is that the pattern weakens at the very top, where houses tend to be priced closer to where the seller expects to land and then get negotiated. Either way, treat a citywide overbid average as mostly a story about the middle of the market.
Why the jump. Nobody publishes one clean answer, and I'd be suspicious of anyone who claims to have it. The usual suspects are mortgage rates, tech and stock wealth, and thin supply, and the inventory numbers above back up the supply part. I'm not going to assign percentages to the rest without a source.
Marin, for comparison, was tighter on supply and calmer on price. MLSListings showed a $1,725,000 Marin single-family median in September on 190 sales, 13 days on market, 104% of list, and 337 houses for sale, down 30% from a year earlier. For the third quarter, BAREIS data compiled by Imagine Marin put the open-market median at $1.7 million, up 5.9%. That gap with the city is the reason I've been showing more San Francisco buyers around Sausalito and Mill Valley, which I wrote about in my post on San Francisco prices and Marin buyers.
Looking ahead. C.A.R.'s 2027 California Housing Market Forecast, released in October 2026, calls for statewide prices up 1.4% and sales up 3.7% next year. That's a statewide number. San Francisco has run far ahead of the state this year, and C.A.R. doesn't publish a city-level luxury forecast that I'm aware of, so I wouldn't read 1.4% onto a Pacific Heights house.
My read, and this part is opinion. When a city's median jumps almost 20% in a year on low inventory, the next year usually looks less dramatic, even if prices keep rising. If you're selling a well-kept house in a strong neighborhood, the fall and early winter of 2026 are a good window, and the comps from this summer are on your side. If you're buying at the top end, the place to find a deal is the houses that have sat 30 days or more, because those sellers will talk. Below that, expect to compete.
None of this tells you what your own house is worth. A Sea Cliff house with a view and a Sunset house with a new kitchen can both be luxury purchases and move in opposite directions in the same month. For a specific house I pull six to twelve months of closed sales for that pocket of the city and adjust for lot, condition, view and parking.
I update the SF numbers monthly as the new reports come out. If you want comps on a specific house, call me at 650.269.8410 or email Michael@GoldenGateLuxury.com.
Michael Williams, Golden Gate Luxury | Turbohome Inc | CA DRE #01780513. General information only, not financial or investment advice. Sources: San Francisco MLS via SFAR InfoSparks (September 2026, by property type); C.A.R. September 2026 home sales and price report, released Oct. 19, 2026; MLSListings Inc. County Market Reports, single family, September 2026; Redfin San Francisco housing market data (three months ending September 2026); BAREIS MLS Q3 2026 data compiled by Imagine Marin; C.A.R. 2027 California Housing Market Forecast, October 2026. Golden Gate Luxury is not affiliated with Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty.