POTM Blog Issue #07, June 30, 2026
The Two-Speed Market
Two homes, same city, two different markets. Over the last 90 days the typical San Francisco house sold for about 124% of its asking price; the typical condo sold for about 101%. Houses are running hot, condos are merely warm, and the gap has widened over the past year. Here is the split, and the different playbook each side needs.
By Paulo Serna, San Francisco Real Estate Agent, Compass | Level Up Group · CA DRE# 02150409 · Published June 30, 2026
Picture two buyers on the same Saturday in San Francisco. One is touring single-family homes, the other is touring condos. They will tell you very different stories about what it takes to win. That is not personality or luck. It is the market itself running at two speeds right now, and the gap between them is about as wide as I have seen it in this data.
The gap in one number
The cleanest way to see it is sale-to-list, what a home actually sold for as a percentage of what it was asking. Over the last 90 days the typical San Francisco house sold for about 124% of its list price. The typical condo sold for about 101%. Read that again. The median house went roughly 24 points over asking. The median condo went about one point over. Same city, same 90 days, two completely different contests.
This holds up on the blunter measure too. About 86% of houses sold over their asking price. For condos it was about 57%, barely more than a coin flip. When most houses clear over list and only half of condos do, you are not looking at one market with some variation. You are looking at two.
By the numbers
| Metric | Houses | Condos |
|---|---|---|
| Median sale price | $2,150,000 | $1,300,000 |
| Sold over asking | 86.1% | 57.0% |
| Median sale-to-list | 124.2% | 101.5% |
| Median days on market | 12 | 15 |
| Median price, same 90 days a year ago | $1,750,000 | $1,225,000 |
| Year-over-year change in median | +22.9% | +6.1% |
| Closed sales, last 90 days | 700 | 672 |
What each side looks like
The median house sold for about $2.15M and took roughly 12 days to find its buyer. The median condo sold for about $1.30M and took about 15 days. The days-on-market gap is modest; the price-pressure gap is not. This is the heart of it: houses are not selling much faster than condos, they are selling much further over their asking prices.
Both warmed up, but houses pulled away
Here is the part that surprised even me. Condos are not cold. Compared with the same 90 days a year ago, the share of condos selling over asking jumped from about 40% to about 57%. That is a real thaw, and it echoes the condo turn I wrote about earlier this spring. But over that same year houses went from about 78% over asking to about 86%, and from 111% of list to 124%. Both lanes sped up. Houses sped up more. The gap did not close, it widened.
Houses, last 90 days
124%
of list price, the typical sale
86% sold over asking, 12 days to sell, plan to compete
Condos, last 90 days
101%
of list price, the typical sale
57% over asking, 15 days to sell, more room to negotiate
Why houses run hotter
The numbers above are fact. What follows is interpretation, and I want to label it that way. A single-family home in San Francisco is the scarcer, more contested thing: a patch of land, no shared walls, no HOA, no board. The supply is genuinely tight, and the pool of buyers who want exactly that is deep. Scarce supply plus deep demand is the recipe for bidding 24 points over list.
Condos sit on the other side of every one of those. There are more of them, they carry monthly HOA dues, and the softest corner of the city, the newer towers along the AI corridor in SoMa and Mission Bay, is still a condo story. That overhang is lifting, which is why condos warmed up, but it keeps a ceiling on how far the typical condo runs over asking. A buyer who can negotiate on a condo today often cannot on the house across the street.
What it means if you are buying
If you are buying a house, treat the list price as a floor. In this market the question is rarely whether a desirable home goes over asking, it is by how much, and the typical answer right now is around 24%. Your budget, your financing, and your offer strategy all need to assume real competition. If you are buying a condo, you have something house buyers do not: leverage. Not at every property, the best units in the best buildings still draw crowds, but across the market a measured offer near asking is far more likely to work on a condo than on a house. The trade-off to weigh honestly is that the condo lane is warming, so the room you have today may be smaller next spring.
What it means if you are selling
If you are selling a house, this is a strong setup, and a sensible list price is what unlocks it. The 124% figure is not an argument to reach for the highest possible asking number. Much of that premium comes from homes priced to invite a crowd, where the crowd does the bidding. An aggressive anchor can thin the room and cost you the very competition you want. If you are selling a condo, the wind is finally at your back after several flat years, but you are not in the house market. Price to your building and your block's real number, lean on preparation and presentation, and let a fair list draw the larger buyer pool that is now back in the condo market.
The honest caveats
A few things to keep this grounded. A 90-day window is seasonal, so it captures a strong spring and runs hotter than a full-year figure would. These are medians, not averages, and your specific home can differ. Sale-to-list reflects pricing strategy as much as raw demand, since a home listed low on purpose posts a high ratio without any extra magic. And these are citywide groups, so a specific neighborhood or building can run hotter or cooler than the curve. With those noted, the samples are large, 700 house sales and 672 condo sales, and reliability is Strong on both sides.
Next issue, the third angle on this market: the luxury exception, where the very top of San Francisco plays by rules of its own.
AI Corridor Scoreboard
One reading per issue on the city's softest segment, the condos near the new AI offices, so you can watch the turn as it happens.
| Issue | Date | Reading | Call |
|---|---|---|---|
| #01 | Jun 7, 2026 | Soft. Only 37 to 43% of SoMa, Mission Bay, and downtown condos sold over asking. | Clearest buyer opportunity in the city. |
| #02 | Jun 10, 2026 | Turning at the edges. Citywide condos hit 101.4% of list in May; inventory fell to 584 from 905. The corridor towers remain the soft end. | Window narrowing, not closed. |
| #03 | Jun 13, 2026 | Still the bottom of the overbid table. Corridor sale-to-list at about 98 to 99% versus 103.6% citywide, trailing year. | Opportunity intact for negotiators. |
| #04 | Jun 17, 2026 | Still the soft floor while houses raced ahead. Corridor near 98 to 99% of list versus 103.8% citywide and about 123% for single-family in the last 30 days. | Buyer opportunity holds; the gap to houses only widened. |
| #05 | Jun 21, 2026 | Cash, not heat. Corridor condos carry heavier cash than the citywide condo average, about 42% versus 37%, yet still sell near 98.7% of list with only about 20% over asking versus 45% citywide. Cash concentrates here; competition does not. | Negotiating room for financed buyers. |
| #06 | Jun 25, 2026 | Still the calm corner while the house middle runs hot. District 9 condos, SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Beach, sold right at list, about 100%, with only 35% over asking on 300 sales, against the $1.5M to $3M house band at 122 to 125% of list. | Buyer opportunity holds where the bidding wars are not. |
- Two speeds, one city. Over the last 90 days houses sold at about 124% of list while condos sold at about 101%. Same market, very different competition.
- Houses ran hot: 86% sold over asking, the typical sale landed 24% above list, and homes took about 12 days to sell. Plan to compete on price.
- Condos ran warm: 57% sold over asking, the typical sale was right about at list, and they took about 15 days. There is more room to negotiate.
- The gap widened over the year. A year ago houses sold at about 111% of list and condos at 100%; now it is 124% versus 101%. Condos warmed up, but houses pulled further ahead.
- The median house, about $2.15M, now sells for roughly $850K more than the median condo, about $1.30M. Strategy here turns on property type, not only neighborhood.
Every house and condo sale behind these numbers is live in the market explorer. Switch between property types and read the gap for your own neighborhood.
Methodology and sources
Source: POTM Command governed MLS analytics, closed sales in the 90 days through June 30, 2026, readiness READY_FOR_REPORTS. Houses are single-family; condos include condominiums and townhouses. Prices are medians; over-asking share and sale-to-list are within each group. Reliability is Strong on both sides, with 700 house sales and 672 condo sales. Year-ago figures compare the same 90-day window in 2025. A 90-day median is seasonal, so it runs hotter than a full-year figure; sale-to-list also reflects pricing strategy, since a home listed low on purpose posts a high ratio. Data deemed reliable but not guaranteed, subject to change, correction, and revision. General information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.
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