San Francisco home prices are far from their pandemic-era highs, but they are still up from 2023, when a combination of rising interest rates and uncertainty about the city’s future wiped out those 2021-2022 gains.
At the end of 2024, the median home price in the city was just over $1.6 million, according to Compass’ January report. That’s a 4 percent increase over 2023 but still 11 percent off of 2021’s all-time high.
Listings were up 5.5 percent last year compared to 2023, but remain at near-historic lows. Sales volume was up 11.5 percent, but also remains very low by historical standards.
Nearly three-quarters of homes sold over list price at an average of 10 percent over asking, compared to 63 percent selling over list price for an average of 6 percent a year earlier, a good indication that competition is heating up after many buyers sat out 2023.
Luxury sales outperformed the rest of the market due in part to a booming stock market, according to Compass Chief Market Analyst Patrick Carlisle, who authored the report. This segment is also less impacted by interest rates, which ended the year higher than they began.
The number of San Francisco home sales over $5 million was up nearly 28 percent year-over-year, with 115 sales over that price threshold. That’s lower than the 199 sales for $5 million-plus in 2021 and 120 in 2022, but is still only the third time the city has broken the 100-sale mark at that price point since Carlisle’s data begins in 2005. More than 35 homes sold for over $4 million in October alone, an extraordinary number for a fall month, topped only by the fall of 2021.
Looking at neighborhoods
Seventeen homes sold for more than $10 million — including the biggest sale in San Francisco history — which is second only to 2021’s 28 sales. The vast majority of these were in District 7, which includes Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow and the Marina. Median prices in the district are by far the highest in the city at just under $5 million. District 5, which includes Glen Park, Noe Valley, Eureka Valley and Clarendon Heights, was a distant second at about $2.5 million.
Within the northern neighborhoods of District 7, Pacific Heights barely eked out a win as the most expensive on a price per square foot basis at a median of $1,448. Presidio Heights and the Marina were both less than $10 off that figure. Sea Cliff was the only other neighborhood in the city to break the $1,400 per square foot mark in 2024. Likely because it is the most expensive, District 7 homes took an average of 50 days on market to find a buyer, well above the citywide average DOM of 29.
District 2 on the city’s southwestern side, which includes the Sunset, Parkside and Golden Gate Heights, was the most competitive market in 2024. Homes there sold on average in 21 days, the quickest pace in the city. The average overbid in the district was 18.5 percent and 84 percent sold over asking, the highest percentages in the city. Sunset and Parkside also had the highest number of home sales, at 194 and 183, respectively. Third-highest Bernal Heights had 143.
The median price per square foot in the Central Sunset/Parkside market was just under $1,000 per square foot, which was surely part of its appeal as that is just below the citywide average. The neighborhoods also have strong commercial corridors along Irving, Noriega and Taraval streets, which have thrived even as Downtown retailers have struggled, as well as proximity to natural attractions like Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach and Stern Grove, which have been particularly popular with buyers since the pandemic.
The median home price in District 2 was $1.5 million in 2024, a 3.7 percent year-over-year increase. There is no district in the city with a median price below $1 million, but District 10 is the closest at $1.1 million, unchanged from 2023. The southeastern district includes Bayview, Excelsior and Visitacian Valley. Bayview was by far the least expensive neighborhood citywide at just $612 per square foot in 2024. Second-least-expensive Excelsior/Portola was nearly $200 over that price.
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