San Mateo County August 2026 Market Report
August 2026 San Mateo County Housing Market Report: Record Prices, Vanishing Inventory, and Rates at Their 2026 High
Data through July 2026
San Mateo County closed July with the median single-family home at $2.11 million, up 9.9% from a year ago, and only 424 homes on the market countywide. That is the tightest midsummer supply the county has seen in years. At the same time, mortgage rates finished the month at 6.77%, their highest level of 2026, and the average home took 33 days to sell instead of 23. The result is a market that feels strong and hesitant at once. Here is what the data shows.
The Macro Backdrop
Rates moved against buyers this summer. After bottoming at 5.99% in March, mortgage rates climbed steadily through the spring and ended July at 6.77% - back inside the three-year range of roughly 6.5% to 7.25% and above where most 2026 forecasts had them landing.
Inflation is the reason. June CPI came in at 3.5% and PCE at 3.7%, both well above the Fed's 2% target and both up sharply since March. Volatile energy markets and government spending keep the pressure on. As long as inflation prints in the mid-3s, there is very little room for rate relief, which means the buyers transacting today are the ones who decided the house matters more than the rate.
The labor picture is the counterweight. National payrolls have averaged only about 60,000 new jobs per month in 2026, and July came in 23,000 below the prior month. The Bay Area has been weaker still, with almost no net job growth this year and four consecutive months of a shrinking regional labor market. Weak employment data is generally friendly to interest rates, since it signals a cooling economy. It is also worth noting what it has not produced: unemployment remains very low and long-term unemployment is improving, so there is no wave of distressed sellers building in the pipeline.
San Mateo County continues to sit in a useful position between the AI-driven demand surge in San Francisco, where prices are up 25% year over year, and a softer South Bay. The county posted 10% appreciation in July, up from 8% in June, and ranks second in the region. Every other Bay Area county is near flat or negative.
San Mateo County: Where Things Stand
The median sale price for a single-family home finished July at $2.11 million, up 9.9% from July 2025. It eased 1.8% from June, which is normal seasonal behavior for this county - the median reliably softens after the spring peak. What matters more is that the 2026 line has run above 2025 in every month since February.
Volume told a different story this month. 366 single-family homes closed in July, up just 1.1% year over year and down 16.6% from June's 439. Pending sales fell harder, down 8.8% year over year and 22.6% from June to 309. After a spring that ran well ahead of prior years, the pace has come back in line with 2025.
Supply is the defining constraint. At the end of July there were 424 active single-family listings, down 28.6% from a year ago and down 3.9% from June. Condo inventory sits at 221, down 17.2% year over year. Across all property types, 644 homes were active against 369 under contract, working out to roughly 1.8 months of inventory. Available listings have trailed 2025 levels every single month this year, and with new listings following their normal seasonal decline through the back half of the year, supply is unlikely to loosen before spring.
Buyers are still paying above asking, though less aggressively than in the spring. The sale-to-list price ratio came in at 103% for July, meaning the typical home closed about 3% over its list price. Price reductions have been climbing since March, which is the honest counterweight - sellers who price ahead of the market are still being corrected. The typical home sold in 33 days, up from 28 days in July 2025 and from 23 days in June, the largest single-month move in any metric this cycle.
Price per square foot is the cleanest read on underlying value, since it controls for the size mix of what happened to sell. That measure finished July at $1,239, up 7.7% year over year and 0.3% from June, and has climbed steadily since a January dip. Unlike many Bay Area markets that stalled after 2022, San Mateo County has held a consistent upward trend.
The condo market posted its own strong month, with the median condo price rising to $850,000, up 9.7% year over year and 7.9% from June, and closed sales up 33.9% year over year to 83 transactions. The softer note is that condo price per square foot slipped 1.3% year over year to $750 and pending sales fell 36.7% from June, which suggests July's median was lifted by a shift toward larger units rather than broad price gains.
Bottom Line
San Mateo County heads into fall with strong prices, historically tight supply, and borrowing costs at their 2026 high. Those forces largely offset each other, which is why the market can post 10% annual appreciation and a 43% jump in days on market in the same month.
For sellers, inventory scarcity is doing real work on your behalf, and the typical home is still closing above asking in about a month. But the days-on-market move is a genuine signal that pricing discipline matters more now than it did in May. Overpricing costs weeks, and weeks cost leverage.
For buyers, there is meaningfully less competition than there was sixty days ago and more sellers adjusting price. The rate is the trade-off. Belmont, Half Moon Bay, Pacifica, and the coastal communities offer the most negotiating room right now, while Burlingame and San Mateo remain the tightest submarkets in the county.
For anyone waiting, the case requires rates to fall meaningfully without prices rising in response. With appreciation near 10% and 424 homes on the market countywide, that is a thin bet. The risk worth watching is whether Bay Area job weakness eventually reaches the Peninsula, or whether the San Francisco demand spillover keeps carrying the county through a higher-rate fall.
