Silicon Valley Tops List of Nation’s Quickest-Selling Housing Markets

The San Jose metro’s median listing price of $1.39 million is the highest in the nation.

A house in San Jose, Calif., that sold for $1.9 million on Feb. 28 after being listed on Zillow for 16 days, on March 25, 2025. Dylan Morgan/The Epoch Times

The San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan area, better known as Silicon Valley, tops the list of the nation’s quickest-selling housing markets, with a median of 22 days on the market, according to the most recent data on the 50 largest metros by Realtor.com.

The San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont metro is tied for sixth place, behind the Washington, Boston, Baltimore, and Hartford metros, at a median of 31 days on the market.

“We have such a chronic under-supply of inventory that we still are operating in an environment of inventory shortage,” Olga Golovko, a Silicon Valley real estate agent, told The Epoch Times. “We have more buyers than sellers. ... That means that we have quick sales.”

Golovko said there are huge variations in the types of houses selling, with the first-time buyer market being under the most pressure as sellers are much less likely to sell nowadays.

“Sellers are locked into low-interest rate mortgages, so if they can afford it, they tend to prefer to rent out their properties,” she said.

A house in Fremont, Calif., that sold for $1.93 million on March 21 after being listed on Zillow for 9 days, in the San Francisco metro area on March 25, 2025. Dylan Morgan/The Epoch Times

The San Jose metro has experienced a 67.9 percent gain in new listings from one year ago, the largest in the nation, while the new listings in the San Francisco metro increased by 43.2 percent. All 50 metros increased their number of listings from a year ago, except the Buffalo–Cheektowaga metro, which fell by 2.1 percent.

The San Jose metro’s median listing price of $1.39 million is the highest in the nation, despite a 6.2 percent decrease in price from a year ago.

The Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim area is second, at $1.18 million, followed by the San Diego–Chula Vista–Carlsbad metro and San Francisco metro, at $950,000 each.

The San Francisco metro’s median listing price is down by 4.9 percent from a year ago, while its median listing price per square foot is down by 6.9 percent—the biggest drop of all 50 metros. It also has the smallest price gain since 2019, at 3.6 percent.

A house in Fremont, Calif., that sold for $2.5 million on March 21 after being listed on Zillow for 10 days, in the San Francisco metro area on March 25, 2025. Dylan Morgan/The Epoch Times

Golovko said it’s really difficult to correctly time the real estate market and advises her clients to instead, buy when the time is right for them.

“Buy whatever you need to buy when your life demands it, and then give that home time to appreciate,” she said.

According to a May 2024 analysis by HSH, a mortgage analytics firm, if buying with a mortgage, the required salary to afford a median-priced home in the San Jose metro is more than $463,000. To afford a home in the San Francisco metro, one needs a salary of more than $336,000, nearly $100,000 more than in the third least affordable metro, San Diego.

“Some people are priced out of the market. It’s expensive, but the area does tend to have a lot of companies that pay great salaries,” Golovko said.