For much of 2025, the Bay Area housing market has been fairly cool. Prices and mortgage rates are too high to justify taking out a 30-year loan, many would-be buyers and real estate agents lamented.
But in wealthy communities like Atherton or Woodside, cash and deeds are still changing hands briskly. The luxury home market is heating up even faster than the rest of the market, which started to pick up in the second half of this year as the artificial intelligence boom brought a wave of new money — at least for some buyers.
In the San Francisco metropolitan area, the median sales price of a home at the top of the range was about $6.4 million from August to October, according to a new report from real estate brokerage Redfin. That figure, easily the highest of the 50 most populous metro areas in the U.S., reflected a 5% rise from 2024. Meanwhile, the median price of a mid-cost home actually dipped by 1% — albeit to a still-hefty $1.5 million…