San Francisco CA Real Estate - San Francisco CA Homes For Sale | Zillow (2024)

FAQs

Are housing prices dropping in San Francisco? ›

The city of San Francisco continues to report some of the biggest price drops in the entire country, with condos downtown being sold for thousands of dollars less than they were purchased years ago, according to Zillow adverts.

$1,292,126. The average San Francisco, CA home value is $1,292,126, up 0.3% over the past year and goes to pending in around 15 days.

🔎 Key takeways. If finding a house for a low listing price is your priority, the best time to buy a house in the Bay Area is January. In recent years, prices for homes in the Bay Area have been the lowest in January. On average, homes are $194,014 less expensive than the average listing price of $1,523,962.

The cost of living in San Francisco, CA is 24% higher than the state average and 71% higher than the national average. San Francisco, CA housing is 190% more expensive than the U.S average, while utilities are about 35% pricier.

March 2024 Data Insights

The California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) reports a median sold price of $1,386,500 for existing single-family homes in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is a 10.3% rise from the previous month and a 15.5% increase year-over-year, highlighting the region's strong market dynamics.

California's median home price is forecast to climb 6.2 percent to $860,300 in 2024, following a projected 1.5 percent decrease to $810,000 in 2023 from 2022's $822,300. Housing affordability* is expected to remain flat at 17 percent next year from a projected 17 percent in 2023.

In fact, in the priciest locales — New York, San Francisco and Honolulu — $100,000 buys you the same quality of life as someone making $36,000 per year almost anywhere else in the nation, according to a new analysis from personal finance website SmartAsset.

Once you start earning about $500,000 a year as a household, you're feeling pretty good living in San Francisco. You can save more for retirement, pay for private school, and live in a bigger house. Life isn't cheap in San Francisco.

In San Francisco, an income of $339,864 is needed to comfortably afford a mortgage in the city, according to Zillow. The real estate marketplace company in its analysis found the income needed to comfortably afford a home is up 80% since 2020, while median income has risen 23% in that time.

If you're looking to choose from a large selection of homes, April may be the best month to buy a home as many sellers add new listings at the start of spring. But it's also a competitive time to buy — if you find your dream house, get an offer in early to avoid a bidding war.

Is San Francisco a good place to retire? ›

For seniors who can afford to reside in the Golden Gate City, the countless things to do and see and the warm-summer Mediterranean climate makes it an attractive spot to retire.

Nearly 75% of home purchases in a Bay Area city were made by LLCs or trusts. It's a trend among the wealthy. Only two of 12 properties on one block of Atherton, California are owned by individual people. The city near San Francisco is one of the richest areas of the country, on average.

However, when looking at the San Francisco metro area, the LendingTree study found it would take an average of $1.37 million to retire. That's nearly 40% higher than the national average, the largest amount among all U.S. metros — and only about 7% away from the “magic number” finding from Northwestern Mutual.

For example, HUD defined “Low Income Limits” in San Francisco as $82,200 for an individual and $117,400 for a family of four in 2018, based on 80% of the area's median income. However, the federal poverty guidelines in 2018 were only $12,140 for an individual and $25,100 for a family of four.

City officials in 2022 estimated that as many as 20,000 people experienced homelessness that year, or more than double the number of people tallied during the point-in-time count.

A recovery is under way in the Bay Area, as interest-rate shock finally wears off and stock-market gains fuel high-end home sales. San Francisco's luxury housing market is bouncing back from its doom doop. After being battered by slumping tech stocks and interest-rate hikes, buyers and sellers are back in action.

San Francisco rents are flat month-over-month and down 1.5% year-over-year. The median rent in San Francisco fell by 0.1% over the course of June, and has now decreased by a total of 1.5% over the past 12 months.

The area's job market has been improving in 2024, with an addition of 1,900 jobs in San Francisco and San Mateo counties between February and April. Unemployment has dropped back to 3.4%, down from 4.0% in January. Government are other bright spots, while tech job losses are continuing.

The Resonance Consultancy just released its 2024 ranking of the World's Best Cities — and San Francisco slotted into the #7 spot out of 270-plus global cities analyzed.