Home Prices in San Francisco Continue Surge

Home prices in San Francisco are on the rise as inventory remains low compared to other parts of the Bay Area.

The median home price in the city reached $1.7 million last month, marking a 12.4 percent increase from the previous January, the San Francisco Business Times reported, citing new data from Compass. The most expensive residential listing on the market as of early this month is a Presidio Heights estate at 3199 Jackson Avenue listed for $32 million. Condominiums are also seeing price increases across the city, with two-bedroom units reaching a median price of $1.3 million last month.

Low housing inventory combined with increasing demand is fueling the increase in prices and ongoing housing shortage, especially at the higher end of the market. As of the beginning of February, only 651 homes were on the market or soon to be listed, down 27 percent year-over-year and the lowest number in more than four years. The number of new listings also dropped 19 percent last month compared with a year prior. About 30 percent of the listings were single-family homes, 60 percent were condominiums, and about 10 percent were tenancy-in-common homes or co-ops.

So far this year, San Francisco has had so few houses available for sale that Napa County, with 16 percent of the city’s population, has more homes on the market than San Francisco, according to Compass. The diminished inventory and rising demand for living space is expected to drive prices even higher this year.

The influx of tech and artificial intelligence workers into the city in recent years has caused a shortage of mansions at the higher end of the market. Renters also face increasing headwinds as AI companies continue to grow in the city, pushing up rent prices as tenants fight for limited supply across the city.

But not everyone points to the AI boom as the reason for an uptick in activity.

“While national home price appreciation is stuttering to a halt and many states and regions are seeing price declines, San Francisco’s median home sales prices continue to surge higher, a dynamic we expect to see continue in 2026,” Compass chief market analyst Patrick Carlisle said, naming the “underlying factors” as “an extremely inadequate supply of homes for sale [versus] rapidly increasing demand due to the [artificial intelligence] startup boom.”

— Chris Malone Méndez