Seventeen more cities: the September 2026 housing market comparison
Compare the latest same-season sales evidence across San Francisco and the expanded Peninsula coverage, with home types separated and small samples clearly withheld.
Housing Alpha Research · Published 2026-09-17
7 minute read · Editorial independence
What this edition adds
Seventeen additional cities now have an authored market and planning deep dive, bringing city article coverage to all 25 places in our consumer directory. The new group includes San Francisco, the remaining San Mateo County cities and towns, and Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. This is a common-period market comparison, not a ranking of expected investment returns.
Three findings that matter to a buyer
Home type changes the answer. In Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Carlos, and San Francisco, the latest condo/co-op median is below its June–August 2021 reading while the single-family median is above it. These are differences between sales samples, not tracked returns on the same properties. A citywide story can hide the segment a household is considering.
A large movement can be a weak signal. Portola Valley’s single-family median rose sharply from June–August 2025 while median price per square foot fell. There were only seventeen current sales and ten in the earlier sample. This is a reason to investigate transaction mix; the two medians cannot be divided to estimate typical home size.
Some comparisons should stay blank. Colma has one recorded single-family sale in the current window, and several cities have fewer than ten condo sales or no usable condo observation. Brisbane’s prior-year single-family sample and Menlo Park’s prior-year condo sample fall below ten. We withhold the affected price comparisons rather than infer a trend from them.
The 17-city reference
Every current observation below covers June 1–August 31, 2026. A percentage compares the median with the same June–August window in the named year. It is nominal, sensitive to the homes sold, and not an appreciation rate for a matched home. The ten-sale rule is a minimum display threshold, not a confidence guarantee.
Atherton
Single-family homes: median $11,992,972 across 26 sales. Change from 2025: +24.3% (19 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +65.4% (20 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: no usable current observation in the retained series. Missing is not zero. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Belmont
Single-family homes: median $2,396,596 across 50 sales. Change from 2025: +4.0% (46 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +4.2% (69 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: 7 recorded sales; median withheld because the sample is below ten sales or the price is unavailable. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Brisbane
Single-family homes: median $1,574,078 across 12 sales. 2025 change: withheld. Change from 2021: +16.8% (14 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: 2 recorded sales; median withheld because the sample is below ten sales or the price is unavailable. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Colma
Single-family homes: 1 recorded sale; median withheld because the sample is below ten sales or the price is unavailable. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Condos/co-ops: no usable current observation in the retained series. Missing is not zero. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
East Palo Alto
Single-family homes: median $1,034,394 across 27 sales. Change from 2025: -11.6% (15 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +0.9% (29 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: 6 recorded sales; median withheld because the sample is below ten sales or the price is unavailable. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Read the East Palo Alto deep dive.
Foster City
Single-family homes: median $2,160,234 across 26 sales. Change from 2025: -1.8% (34 earlier sales). Change from 2021: -4.1% (37 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: median $974,704 across 26 sales. Change from 2025: +5.8% (20 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +5.4% (36 earlier sales).
Read the Foster City deep dive.
Half Moon Bay
Single-family homes: median $1,723,990 across 28 sales. Change from 2025: +1.4% (27 earlier sales). Change from 2021: -6.5% (29 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: 3 recorded sales; median withheld because the sample is below ten sales or the price is unavailable. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Read the Half Moon Bay deep dive.
Hillsborough
Single-family homes: median $6,496,193 across 38 sales. Change from 2025: +26.8% (36 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +29.9% (47 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: no usable current observation in the retained series. Missing is not zero. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Read the Hillsborough deep dive.
Los Altos
Single-family homes: median $4,821,175 across 68 sales. Change from 2025: +3.9% (72 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +16.2% (115 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: median $1,549,530 across 12 sales. Change from 2025: -16.0% (13 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +0.0% (16 earlier sales).
Los Altos Hills
Single-family homes: median $5,796,603 across 30 sales. Change from 2025: +5.9% (27 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +9.4% (36 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: no usable current observation in the retained series. Missing is not zero. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Read the Los Altos Hills deep dive.
Menlo Park
Single-family homes: median $3,652,859 across 53 sales. Change from 2025: +13.5% (61 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +28.7% (96 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: median $1,529,536 across 11 sales. 2025 change: withheld. Change from 2021: +27.5% (19 earlier sales).
Read the Menlo Park deep dive.
Mountain View
Single-family homes: median $2,860,324 across 50 sales. Change from 2025: +3.1% (64 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +10.4% (100 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: median $734,777 across 28 sales. Change from 2025: -21.8% (37 earlier sales). Change from 2021: -20.6% (61 earlier sales).
Read the Mountain View deep dive.
Palo Alto
Single-family homes: median $4,192,543 across 102 sales. Change from 2025: +13.3% (113 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +18.0% (152 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: median $1,390,803 across 23 sales. Change from 2025: +0.3% (24 earlier sales). Change from 2021: -11.7% (30 earlier sales).
Portola Valley
Single-family homes: median $5,709,154 across 17 sales. Change from 2025: +59.0% (10 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +53.3% (19 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: no usable current observation in the retained series. Missing is not zero. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
Read the Portola Valley deep dive.
San Carlos
Single-family homes: median $2,598,477 across 73 sales. Change from 2025: +1.9% (65 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +3.9% (106 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: median $879,733 across 17 sales. Change from 2025: -3.3% (13 earlier sales). Change from 2021: -18.2% (26 earlier sales).
Read the San Carlos deep dive.
San Francisco
Single-family homes: median $1,868,905 across 693 sales. Change from 2025: +20.2% (672 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +2.5% (892 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: median $1,224,629 across 742 sales. Change from 2025: +11.3% (555 earlier sales). Change from 2021: -2.0% (1099 earlier sales).
Read the San Francisco deep dive.
Woodside
Single-family homes: median $4,622,291 across 21 sales. Change from 2025: +3.3% (10 earlier sales). Change from 2021: +2.7% (33 earlier sales).
Condos/co-ops: no usable current observation in the retained series. Missing is not zero. 2025 change: withheld. 2021 change: withheld.
How to use the comparison
Choose the home type you could actually purchase, then compare the same dates across cities. Use the charts to see whether a recent observation looks unusual relative to earlier periods. A city median can help orient a search; it cannot determine whether two listings with different size, condition or location are equally priced.
The comparison tool supports rolling three-month observations and calendar-quarter endpoints, with one-, three-, five- and ten-year ranges or custom dates. Missing observations remain missing. A cheaper city is not automatically undervalued, and a faster-rising median is not automatically a better investment.
Open the interactive city comparison. Read the housing-plans companion for the local context behind the articles.
What this does not yet establish
The edition adds editorial coverage, not new calibrated city forecasts. It does not extend the original eight-city jobs/housing experiments, financial analysis or individual-property database. The next useful work is verified property-level comparisons and dated completion evidence; adding more decimals to medians would not address those gaps.
Sources and method
Sales source: Redfin Data Center download; metric definitions. These observations cover overlapping rolling three-month windows; this edition compares the same June–August season in different years. It does not sum adjacent windows or average their medians. Price-per-square-foot samples may contain fewer homes than the total sales count. The retained download was retrieved September 16, 2026 and labels its source update September 3, 2026.
This is desk research with official sources reviewed September 17, 2026. It includes no fieldwork, interviews, address-level valuation or validated price forecast. The original eight-city models retain their existing scope. Future updates should preserve this edition and identify changed evidence rather than rewrite its historical interpretation.