San Mateo County Real Estate Market Update: Q2 2026

San Mateo County home prices rose 7.5% year over year in Q2 2026, as the housing market accelerated through spring rather than cooling into summer. Single-family homes closed June with a median price of $2,150,000, a noticeably faster pace than the 3% growth the county was posting back in March. Condos were an even sharper story: prices rose roughly 12% year over year, a reversal from where they stood earlier in the year when condo values were still trailing the prior twelve months.

The Headline Numbers:

• Single-family median price: $2,150,000 (+7.5% YoY)

• Condo median price: $780,000 (+12% YoY)

• Active listings: 684, down from roughly 821 in March

• Average sale-to-list ratio: 103.9%, meaning the typical home sold about 4% over asking

Inventory tightened at the same time demand held up. Homes are still selling for close to 4% above their final asking price on average, even as the pool of available listings shrank. Taken together, the numbers point to a market that got hotter through the second quarter, not one settling into a quieter summer.

The AI Boom Is Reshaping the Top of the Market

Nowhere is that heat more visible than San Francisco's luxury tier. In June alone, 44 homes in the city sold for at least a million dollars over their asking price, representing more than $60 million in combined premiums over ask. That is a level of activity that barely existed as recently as late 2025, when the same measure sat close to zero most months.

The money isn't spreading evenly across the city either. It's concentrated in a handful of neighborhoods, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights and the surrounding westside pockets among them, where AI-driven wealth appears to be landing hardest and fastest.

It's tempting to read that as proof the whole Bay Area is overheating, but that's not quite the right takeaway. The more accurate story is that a very specific kind of wealth, tied closely to AI company valuations and liquidity events, is pulling hard on one particular corner of the market while leaving much of the rest largely untouched.

Why it Matters for San Mateo County:

• Hillsborough's median sale price climbed 18% year over year to $6,000,000, on 141 closed sales, up 26% from the year before

• Atherton posted similarly strong gains, up 21% year over year

• Both towns, already the county's most expensive, are pulling further ahead rather than showing any softness

Single-Family vs. Condo: A Tale of Two Markets

At the county level, single-family homes carry a median price per square foot of $1,237 against $732 for condos. Days on market tell an interesting story too:

• Single-family days on market: 22 (up just 3 days from March)

• Condo days on market: 50 (up 21 days, roughly doubling from 29)

Normally, slower sales and rising prices don't move together, slower typically means sellers are conceding ground. Here it looks more like condo sellers are holding firm on price and simply waiting longer for the right buyer, rather than being forced to cut. It's a segment worth watching rather than a trend to declare outright, since San Mateo County only sees somewhere between 60 and 90 condo closings a month countywide, thin enough that a handful of unusual sales can swing the average noticeably. October 2025 is a good example: condo days on market spiked to 127 that month before settling back down within a few months, nearly triple where it sits today.

San Mateo County in the wider Bay Area:

• San Francisco: +25% YoY (the AI wealth effect at work)

• San Mateo County: +8% YoY

• Santa Clara County: -9% YoY (ground zero for this year's tech layoffs)

• Napa: -17% YoY

San Mateo County sits calmly in the middle of a market that's sharply split at the edges, bordered by a boom on one side and a slowdown on the other, both in their own way tied back to the same tech industry.

Inventory Is Tightening, Not Loosening

Active listings fell to 684 in June from roughly 821 in March, an 18% drop, and that decline is happening against the seasonal grain. April through October is typically when the county's inventory builds toward its yearly peak, so a drop during that window is a real signal rather than a routine seasonal dip.

• Months of supply: 1.5, down only slightly from 1.6

• Absorption rate: 66%

• Price reductions in June: 107 listings

Months of supply holding nearly flat tells you the drop in available homes was matched almost exactly by demand. Buyers simply had fewer homes to choose from in June than they did in March, not necessarily less competition for the ones that were available.

That competition shows up clearly in pricing behavior too. The average home sold for 103.9% of its final list price in June. At the same time, 107 listings still needed a price reduction that month. Both things are true in the same market simultaneously: homes that are priced right are drawing real competition, while homes that aren't are still getting corrected. It's a market rewarding accurate pricing more than it's rewarding aggressive pricing.

City Spotlight: Hillsborough and Burlingame

Hillsborough posted the county's strongest single-family appreciation this period:

• Median sale price: $6,000,000 (+18% YoY)

• Closed sales: 141 (+26% YoY)

• Price per square foot: $1,530

That combination matters. It's not just price climbing on thin volume, transaction count grew meaningfully too, which is a stronger signal of genuine demand than a price spike alone would be. At $1,530 per square foot, Hillsborough also carries one of the highest per-foot premiums in the county, reinforcing that buyers here are paying up for scarcity as much as square footage.

Burlingame held a steadier, less dramatic pace:

• Median sale price: $3,050,000 (+3% YoY)

• Closed sales: 201 (+19% YoY)

• Price per square foot: $1,524

• Condo median price: $1,011,500 (+3% YoY), on 38 closed sales (+124% YoY)

The story here is really about volume, not price. Sales climbed nearly a fifth even as prices grew modestly, suggesting more transactions are clearing at established price levels rather than the market re-rating sharply upward. Burlingame's condo jump looks dramatic on paper, but it comes from a small base of just 38 closings, so it's more accurate to describe it as condo activity picking up substantially than to lead with the raw percentage, which could otherwise read as bigger than the underlying volume supports.

The Bigger Picture: Jobs, Rates and Migration

The Employment Stats

• National job growth has technically turned a corner, posting four straight months of gains after a rough 2025 that saw as many as 140,000 jobs lost in a single month

• The Bay Area's own job growth has averaged a modestly positive 750 jobs added per month over the past year, even as the two most recent months on record turned negative again

• Roughly 58,000 Bay Area tech jobs have been cut this year, concentrated heavily in Santa Clara County

Layer those together and you get a labor market that's genuinely split down the middle: AI-fueled hiring and wealth creation in one lane, real ongoing job losses in traditional tech in the other.

Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates haven't moved much in the bigger picture. June's 6.58% sits comfortably within the same 6.5% to 7.25% band the market has lived in for three years now. What's changed is the inflation picture underneath those rates: both CPI and PCE reaccelerated sharply since March, which is exactly why rates haven't had room to ease even as parts of the broader economy show real signs of cooling.

That rate environment is quietly reshaping supply too. Nearly half of all outstanding mortgages in the country, just under 50%, still carry a rate below 4%, with roughly one in five below 3% altogether. Homeowners sitting on a rate that cheap have very little financial incentive to sell and take on a new mortgage in the high 6% range. Call it the golden handcuffs effect: it's arguably a bigger long-term constraint on housing supply than anything happening on the demand side, and it helps explain why inventory can keep shrinking even in months when buyer enthusiasm is only lukewarm.

Migration

2025 marked the first year in a long stretch that the Bay Area saw net inbound migration rather than net outflow.

• Largest source of new arrivals: Seattle

• Also notable inbound: Manhattan, Phoenix

• Still net outbound: Reno, Portland, Washington DC, Boulder

After years of headlines about people leaving California, that reversal is a quiet but meaningful shift, and it's one more thread adding to demand at exactly the moment supply is being held back from two directions at once: AI-driven wealth at the top of the market, and rate lock-in everywhere else.

The Bottom Line

San Mateo County heads into the back half of 2026 as a market that's genuinely bifurcated. AI-driven wealth is reshaping the top of the market in San Francisco and spilling into the Peninsula's most exclusive towns, while traditional tech layoffs are quietly weighing on Santa Clara County next door. San Mateo County itself sits in the calm middle of that split, with inventory tightening, homes still selling above asking, and condos showing real signs of a turnaround after a soft start to the year.

None of these numbers move in a straight line, and the next quarter could easily read differently depending on how rates, tech hiring, and migration patterns shift from here. That's exactly why we track this data closely and update it every quarter rather than leaning on last year's story.

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Thinking about buying or selling in San Mateo County? Give us a call. We'd love to talk through what these trends mean for your specific situation, whether that's timing a sale, understanding what a home in your neighborhood is really worth right now, or figuring out where the opportunities are for buyers.

This article is copyrighted by Raziel Ungar and may not be reproduced or copied without express written permission.