The typical Bay Area homeowner keeps their home for nearly two decades — one of the longest periods of any major U.S. metropolitan area.
San Francisco metro area homeowners had lived in their homes for a median of 17 years in 2024, according to an analysis of county records by real estate company Redfin. That was tied for the fourth-highest median among the 47 largest metro areas for which Redfin had data.
- Real estate map : Home prices in every Bay Area city and ZIP code
Homeowners in the San Jose metro area had an even higher median, at 18 years. Only one metro had that beat: Los Angeles.
{ “__type”: “devHubFreeformEmbed”, “__id”: “Datawrapper”, “__fallbackImage”: “https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Qu65O/mobile.png”, “__data”: { “datawrapper_id”: “Qu65O” } }
Homeowners in those California metros are holding onto their properties for even longer than they did a decade ago, Redfin’s data shows. San Jose homeowners stayed put for a median of 14 years in 2014, while San Francisco homeowners had a median tenure of 13 years. It’s also become more common for Bay Area renters to stay in the same unit for more than a decade.
In some metro areas, including Las Vegas, Phoenix and Orlando, homeowners are not only selling their properties in less than a decade, they’re also selling them faster than they did in 2014. Those regions saw a surge in home buying during the pandemic as remote workers pursued cheaper housing. That trend has since slowed, but homes there remain relatively affordable, Redfin said in its report , making it easier for homeowners to move to or within those areas…