The Luxury Exception

Two issues ago I showed you that the fiercest bidding wars for San Francisco houses are not at the bottom of the market and not at the top. They are in the middle, roughly $1.5 to $3 million. In that same picture, the very top looked like the calm corner: over a full year, homes above $5 million sold right about at their asking price, with only half going over list. Quiet, orderly, the opposite of a frenzy.

That full-year view is true, and it is also hiding something. Zoom the lens from twelve months down to the last ninety days and the top of the market is not calm at all. It is the hottest it has been in years. The difference is what this arc has been building toward: the top plays by a different rulebook, and the rulebook is written in cash.

The top, up close

Over the last 90 days, the typical San Francisco single-family home priced at $5 million or more sold for about 112% of its asking price. Seven in ten of them, 70%, sold over list. The typical one took ten days to find its buyer and closed at a median of about $7.6 million.

Hold that next to the full-year number. Across the trailing twelve months, that same $5 million-plus band sold at about 100% of list with roughly half going over asking. So this is not a market that has been running hot all year. It is a market that caught fire in the most recent stretch, and a full-year average quietly averages that heat away.

The record nobody announced

Here is the fact that pins it down. Four of the five busiest months for $5 million-plus home sales in San Francisco since 2016 all happened this spring. April 2026 posted the single highest count of any month in that decade. May and June were right behind it. The only outside month in the top five was June 2021, the last great cash-fueled peak. The very top of the market just had its strongest quarter of volume in ten years, and it did not make a headline.

By the numbers

Metric	$5M+ houses	$3M+ condos
Median sale price	$7,575,000	$3,760,000
Sold over asking	70.3%	66.7%
Median sale-to-list	112.4%	116.4%
Median days on market	10	11
Paid all cash	64.2%	60.5%
Financed	35.8%	39.5%
Closed sales, last 90 days	64	48

What makes it an exception: cash

The engine underneath is not mortgage demand. It is cash. About 64% of those $5 million-plus home sales were paid in full cash, no loan involved. Look at the luxury condo tier and the pattern repeats: homes and condos above $3 million sold at about 116% of list, two thirds over asking, and roughly 61% of them were all cash.

Now compare that to the financed middle. In the $1.5 to $3 million band where the bidding wars live, only about a quarter of buyers pay cash. Roughly three in four use a loan. Cash share barely moves across the bottom and middle of the market, hovering near 20 to 27%, and then it climbs steeply: about 48% at $3 to $5 million, about 61% above $5 million. The higher you go, the more the market runs on money that is already in the bank.

Why cash changes everything

The numbers above are fact. What follows is interpretation, and I want to label it that way. A market that runs on loans answers to interest rates and to what a lender will approve. When rates move, financed buyers feel it immediately, and their ceiling is set by someone else's underwriting. A market that runs on cash answers to none of that. Its buyers are not asking a bank for permission. They are moving wealth, and their timing tracks the things that move wealth: the stock market, a strong year, a liquidity event, plain confidence. That is why the top can set volume records in the same season the financed middle is worrying about rates. They are not really in the same economy.

This is the whole point of the arc. The middle is hot because a deep pool of qualified, financed buyers is competing for a real supply of homes. The top is hot for a different reason entirely, and it can heat up or cool off on a schedule the rest of the market does not share. The exception is not that the top is quiet. It is that the top moves to its own beat.

What it means if you are buying at the top

If you are shopping above $3 million right now, do not carry over the assumption that the high end is negotiable. Over a full year it often is. In this particular quarter it has not been. With seven in ten of these homes selling over asking and the typical one going 12 points above list in ten days, you should plan to compete, and you should expect to compete against cash. If you are financing, that is not a wall, but it is a real disadvantage on a contested property, and it is worth building your offer, your timeline, and your contingencies with that in mind.

The flip side still holds in the corners. This is a citywide read on the top, and specific segments stay soft. The newer condo towers along the AI corridor in SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Beach remain the most negotiable part of the luxury market. Cash concentrates there too, but the crowds do not. If you want room to negotiate at a high price point, that is where more of it lives.

What it means if you are selling at the top

If you are selling above $3 million, this is a genuinely strong window, and it rewards a different approach than the middle does. The middle rewards a sensible list price that invites a weekend crowd. The top rewards precision: the right positioning, discretion, and reaching a small and specific pool of buyers who can transact in cash. A stampede is not the goal up here, and an aggressive list price aimed at starting one can backfire by narrowing an already-narrow buyer pool. Price to the real comparables, present the home to the level its buyers expect, and reach them deliberately.

One honest note for sellers. This heat is recent, and cash-driven markets can turn faster than financed ones because they are not anchored by a slow-moving rate. The strong quarter is real. It is not a promise about next quarter.

The honest caveats

A few things to keep this grounded. These top-tier samples are smaller than the citywide bands, 64 house sales and 48 condo sales in the 90-day window, though POTM Command still reads reliability as Strong on both. A 90-day window is seasonal and runs hotter than a full-year figure, which is exactly why the quarter and the year tell different stories here; both are true, they just measure different lengths of time. These are medians, not averages, and a single trophy sale can sit far from the middle. Sale-to-list also reflects pricing strategy, since a home listed conservatively posts a high ratio without any extra magic. And this is a citywide read, so any one neighborhood or building can run hotter or cooler than the curve.

That closes this three-part look at where the competition really is. The middle runs on qualified, financed buyers. Houses run hotter than condos. And the very top runs on cash, on its own schedule, an exception to both.

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.
#08 (this issue)	Jul 5, 2026	Still the soft floor even as the top books records. District 9 condos, SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Beach, sold near 100% of list with heavy cash and light competition, while $5M+ houses set a decade volume record at about 112% of list on roughly 64% cash. Cash without a crowd here.	Buyer opportunity intact where the crowds are not.

Every top-tier sale behind these numbers is live in the market explorer. Filter by price and property type and read the top of 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. The top tier is single-family homes at $5M and up and condominiums and townhouses at $3M and up; the middle comparison is single-family homes from $1.5M to $3M. Prices are medians; over-asking share, sale-to-list, and cash share are within each group. Cash share is the share of sales with no reported financing. The top-tier samples are smaller than the citywide bands, 64 house sales and 48 condo sales in the window, and reliability reads Strong on both. Trailing-year figures and the by-band cash chart use closed sales over the twelve months through the same date. A 90-day median is seasonal and runs hotter than a full-year figure, so the quarter and the year differ by design. Data deemed reliable but not guaranteed, subject to change, correction, and revision. General information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.