San Francisco housing rises 15%, San Jose slips, and Bay Area supply sits at 2.3 months

San Francisco and San Jose are moving in opposite directions. Redfin's three-month closing window through June puts San Francisco's median sale price at $1,699,075, up 15.2% from a year earlier. San Jose's median was $1,469,200, down 0.76%. Oakland sits between them at $898,511, up 5.7%. 123

The table carries two different clocks. Redfin's price, sales, and days-on-market figures describe closings through June 2026. The listing figures are the homes visible on the three Redfin shopping pages when checked on August 31. Redfin describes the listing pages as updating frequently, so the counts are snapshots of the buyer-facing choice set rather than a monthly inventory series. 456

San Francisco's June sales were also faster and more numerous than a year earlier: 1,819 homes sold, compared with 1,474 in June 2025, and the average time on market fell from 20 days to 16. The city's sale-to-list ratio reached 115.4%, up 8.3 percentage points year over year. 1

San Jose shows a milder negotiation picture. The city recorded 1,696 sales, up from 1,589 a year earlier, while its 15-day average was close to last year's 14 days. The sale-to-list ratio was 102.7%, down 0.82 percentage points. 2 Oakland recorded 805 sales, up from 752, and homes took 20 days on average, one day faster than last year. Its sale-to-list ratio was 112.5%, up 5.0 percentage points. 3

C.A.R.'s July regional series gives a wider Bay Area reference point. The existing single-family median was $1,285,000, down 1.2% from July 2025 and 8.2% from June. Regional sales were down 0.1% year over year. The C.A.R. figure covers a different month, property type, and geography from each Redfin city figure, so the two series work as context rather than one continuous price line. 7

C.A.R. reports a 2.3-month Unsold Inventory Index for the San Francisco Bay Area in July, down from 2.7 months a year earlier and up from 2.1 months in June. The regional median time on market was 22 days, compared with 24 days in July 2025. C.A.R. calls the Bay Area the tightest of California's five major regions in that release. 7

C.A.R.'s separate inventory tool defines homes for sale as active listings measured on the eighth day of the month. The July release does not publish a regional active-listing count, while the Redfin pages provide the live visible counts in the table. Those measures answer different questions: the C.A.R. index relates supply to the sales pace, and Redfin shows the current set of pages a shopper can see. 8

Freddie Mac's survey for the week ending August 27 put the national average at 6.66% for a 30-year fixed mortgage and 5.98% for a 15-year fixed mortgage. The prior week's averages were 6.65% and 5.95%; a year earlier they were 6.56% and 5.69%. 9

At the C.A.R. regional median of $1,285,000, a 20% down payment leaves a loan of about $1,028,000. Principal and interest at 6.66% for 30 years is about $6,606 a month. At the prior week's 6.65%, the same loan would be about $6,599, a difference of roughly $7 a month. This illustration excludes property taxes, homeowners insurance, HOA dues, mortgage insurance, and closing costs. 79

C.A.R.'s June 2026 policy page says AB 736 has been stopped and will not move forward. The proposal would have incentivized cities to raise transfer taxes on property, particularly higher-value homes. C.A.R. says it will continue monitoring the bill to keep it inactive. The status is a cost-policy checkpoint for sellers and buyers: the proposed tax mechanism has stopped, while no new transfer-tax charge appears in this update. 10

The Bay Area read is split rather than uniform. San Francisco's closed-sale median and sale-to-list ratio are running well above last year, San Jose's median is slightly lower with a larger visible listing shelf, and Oakland remains fast with a lower price point. C.A.R.'s 2.3 months of supply says the region remains tight by its formal measure. The next checkpoints are a newer city closing window, the September C.A.R. inventory release, the next Freddie Mac rate path, and any change to AB 736's inactive status.