Bay Area housing: San Francisco up 13.4%, San Jose down 3.8%, and rates at 7.40%

The 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 7.40% in the week ending October 8, Freddie Mac reported, up from 7.28% a week earlier and 6.30% a year ago.1

For a $1.27 million loan — 80% of San Francisco's median sale price — that payment runs about $930 a month higher than it did last October.

Prices cover the three months ending in August 2026. The for-sale counts are Redfin's live pages on October 12.

San Francisco's median sale price reached $1,587,500 over the three months ending in August, up 13.4% from a year earlier. Homes there sold in a median of 20 days.

San Jose went the other way, its median slipping 3.8% to $1,395,000. Oakland rose 5.6% to $802,500.

Sale-to-list ratios show the same divide. San Francisco homes closed at 113.8% of asking and Oakland homes at 111.4%, while San Jose's closed at 101.4%.

One timing caveat: Redfin's three-month window still ends in August, so these prices have barely moved since the last Bay Area brief. They describe late-spring and summer closings, not this month's deals.

Redfin listed 1,063 homes for sale in San Francisco on October 12, 1,358 in San Jose, and 926 in Oakland.

Those are live page counts, which the sources do not convert into a months-of-supply ratio. The formal supply measure comes from C.A.R., whose latest published month is August: the Bay Area's unsold inventory stood at 2.6 months, against 2.3 in July and 2.9 in August 2025, with a median 22 days on market.8

C.A.R. publishes that report monthly, so August is the newest formal reading on hand.

The 15-year fixed rate averaged 6.73% on October 8, up from 6.60% a week earlier and 5.53% a year ago.1

On San Francisco's median with 20% down, a $1,270,000 loan at 7.40% runs about $8,790 a month in principal and interest. A year ago, at 6.30%, the same loan cost about $7,860.

Those figures cover principal and interest only, excluding taxes, insurance, and HOA dues. A loan that size likely prices above the national average, since it sits over the conforming limit.

C.A.R.'s 2027 forecast, published this month, expects California's existing single-family sales to rise 3.7% to 277,900 next year, the statewide median to edge up 1.4% to $894,400, and the 30-year rate to average 6.6% for a third year.9

San Francisco voters decide three measures that touch housing money and the transfer tax.10

Proposition C would raise the city's annual Housing Trust Fund contribution toward $125 million, from about $50 million in the 2024-25 fiscal year, and extend the fund from 2043 to 2058. The Controller estimates the added General Fund cost at about $6 million in 2028-29, growing to roughly $60 million a year by 2034-35.11

Proposition I would dedicate half the transfer tax collected on sales of $10 million or more to housing programs, and cut the rate on those deals from 5.5% to 2.75% between $10 million and $25 million, and from 6% to 3% at $25 million and above.12

Proposition J would end the partial transfer-tax exemption on foreclosures and deeds in lieu for everything except single-family homes and residential buildings with fewer than five units, beginning March 1, 2027.13

Both transfer-tax measures land mostly on investors and on larger buildings. A typical owner-occupied purchase keeps its current treatment.

Two readings are still to come: C.A.R.'s September report and Redfin's window rolling into September closings. Until then the mortgage rate moves a Bay Area budget fastest — a quarter-point on that $1.27 million loan is about $215 a month.