Homes in Palo Alto, Los Altos and Menlo Park are selling in single-digit days, often for $1 million or more above asking price, yet the supply of homes coming onto the Midpeninsula market varied by city in 2026. Buyer demand has intensified since fall 2025 across all four cities, but the number of sellers willing to list simply hasn’t kept pace, leaving the region locked in a stark imbalance between hungry buyers and available houses.
According to Palo Alto Online, new single-family-home listings in Palo Alto actually declined 9% during January through August 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, while Los Altos listings stayed essentially flat and Menlo Park rose 2.2%. Homes sold in Palo Alto, Los Altos and Menlo Park changed little and slipped slightly year over year during that same stretch, the outlet reports, even as limited inventory, quick sales, multiple offers and upward price pressure continued to define the market.
The numbers on how fast and how high homes are selling are striking. Nearly 80% of single-family homes in Palo Alto, Los Altos and Menlo Park sold at or above asking price, per the same report, with median days on market running just 8 to 9 days. More than 70% of homes listed in those three cities found buyers, and roughly one-third of sales in Palo Alto and Los Altos closed more than $500,000 above asking.
Atherton’s Bidding Wars Reach New Extremes
Atherton stands out as the most extreme example of buyers chasing too few homes. The town saw 19.3% of its single-family home sales close more than $1 million over asking during 2026, up sharply from 7.2% in 2025, the outlet’s analysis found. Atherton’s median sale price jumped to $11.3 million, up 17.1% from $9.65 million, even as new listings there declined roughly 11% during the first eight months of the year…