Team K.Ho · Vanguard Properties · Buyer Briefing

Buying in the City, 2026

A buyer’s-eye read of the San Francisco market — houses and condos in the $1M–$4M range, district by district, with the numbers that actually decide an offer.

By Kevin Ho · Team K.Ho, Vanguard Properties · DRE #01875957

Based on 4,152 closed sales · September 2025 through July 7, 2026 · San Francisco MLS

The buyer's read

There is no single San Francisco real estate market in 2026. There is a house market and a condo market, and right now they are pulling in different directions — which is good news if you know which one you’re shopping.

These figures come from 4,152 closed residential sales across the City between September 2025 and July 7, 2026 — the freshest full read available, and more current than the May county snapshot most people are still quoting. We keep houses, condominiums, and tenancies-in-common (TICs) reported separately throughout, because they are three different buyer pools with three different rules of engagement.

For the buyer working in the $1M to $4M range — which is where the overwhelming majority of the market actually trades — the shape of things is this:

$1,879,000

Median house price, citywide

84% sold over list · median $382,000 over

$1,200,000

Median condo price, citywide

49% sold over list · median $116,000 over

118.6%

House list-to-sale ratio

Condos: exactly 100.0%

Houses are the hot pool. Condos are where a buyer has leverage. The rest of this brief is about turning that into a plan.

Two markets, one city

Put the house and condo pools side by side and the story writes itself. A house in the City today is a competitive object: 84% of houses sold over their asking price, and the ones that went over went over by a median of $382,000. That is not a rounding error — it is the price of conviction in a low-inventory market. Sellers here price below expected value by convention, so the eye-popping list-to-sale ratio (118.6%) reflects that pricing strategy as much as pure heat — but the competition is genuine.

Condos are a different animal. Just 49% sold over list, the median over-list was a far gentler $116,000, and the list-to-sale ratio sits at exactly 100.0% — meaning the typical condo trades right at asking. Combine that with a deeper standing inventory and you get the one thing the house market denies buyers right now: selection, and room to negotiate.

A house asks you to compete. A condo lets you choose. Neither is better — they're different tools for different buyers.

Days to close — and what it really means

Houses are reaching an accepted offer at a median of 48 days to close; condos at 70. Read those honestly: raw MLS timelines fold in roughly 30 days of escrow and any relisting artifacts. Strip the escrow out and a well-prepared, well-priced single-family house has under two weeks of genuine public market exposure before it’s in contract. Condos genuinely sit longer — more supply, more choice, less urgency. That gap is the buyer’s opening on the condo side.

Where the $1M–$4M band lives

Below $1M is mostly condos. Above $4M is mostly houses. In between — the $1M–$4M band shaded below — is where nearly everyone actually shops.

Closed sales by price band — houses (orange) vs condos (blue). San Francisco MLS, Sep 2025–Jul 7 2026.

The band holds 1,479 house sales — 80% of every house that traded — and 1,148 condo sales, 59% of the condo market. Inside it, the two pools behave much as they do citywide, only sharper for houses:

In the $1M–$4M band	Sales	Median price	% over list	Median over list	Days to close
Houses	1,479	$1,850,000	88%	$380,000	47
Condos	1,148	$1,550,000	61%	$175,000	61

The takeaway for pricing your search: in this band, budget the list price as a floor for houses, not a ceiling. If the number you can transact at is $1.7M, the houses you should be touring are the ones asking closer to $1.35M–$1.45M, because the market has been adding a median of ~$380,000 on the way to close. Condos let you shop much closer to your actual number.

What Your Money Buys — Houses, by District

The City’s ten MLS districts are really ten small markets. For a house buyer in the $1M–$4M band, the districts in orange below are where the median sits inside budget; the two dark bars — District 7 (Pacific Heights, the Marina, Cow Hollow) and District 8 (Nob Hill, Russian Hill, downtown) — are the premium end where the median house has moved past $4M.

Median house sale price by district. Orange = median within the $1M–$4M band. San Francisco MLS, Sep 2025–Jul 7 2026.

Districts sorted by median house price, low to high. Over-list figures in dollars, per house.
District (houses)	Sales	Median	% over list	Median over
District 10 · the Southeast	369	$1,130,000	82%	$181,000
District 3 · Lake Merced & the Southwest	114	$1,380,000	84%	$238,056
District 9 · SoMa, Mission Bay, the Mission, Dogpatch	203	$1,800,000	87%	$419,000
District 2 · the Sunset & Parkside	346	$1,811,875	90%	$438,000
District 4 · Twin Peaks West & West Portal	263	$2,250,000	86%	$395,000
District 1 · the Richmond & Sea Cliff	164	$2,530,000	89%	$537,500
District 5 · Noe, Castro, Cole Valley, the Haight	260	$2,920,000	84%	$550,000
District 6 · Hayes Valley & the Western Addition	25	$3,800,000	72%	$418,000
District 8 · Nob Hill, Russian Hill, downtown	26	$4,262,500	50%	$305,000
District 7 · Pacific Heights, Marina, Cow Hollow	88	$6,504,250	57%	$805,000

If the dollar has to stretch, the volume-and-value story lives in District 10, District 2 and District 4: real inventory, medians in reach, and the classic City house — a detached or semi-detached home with a garage. District 5 (Noe, Castro, Cole Valley) is the emotional center of the family-house market and priced accordingly. The prestige addresses in District 7 are where the high-end lives; more on that below.

What Your Money Buys — Condos, by District

On the condo side the geography flips. The most affordable medians are in District 3, District 10 and District 4, and there is deep standing supply — and the calmest competition in the City — in the central and eastern towers of District 8 and District 9, where the typical condo trades right around $1,010,000 at or near asking. The premium condo neighborhoods are the same ones that command it in houses: District 7 and District 5.

Median condo sale price by district. San Francisco MLS, Sep 2025–Jul 7 2026.

District 8 and District 9 carry the City's largest standing condo inventory — the calmest competition and the most room to negotiate.
District (condos)	Sales	Median	% over list	Median over
District 3 · Lake Merced & the Southwest	17	$700,000	53%	$30,000
District 10 · the Southeast	41	$710,000	34%	$11,000
District 4 · Twin Peaks West & West Portal	37	$760,000	46%	$25,000
District 9 · SoMa, Mission Bay, Dogpatch	677	$1,010,000	33%	$55,000
District 8 · Nob Hill, Russian Hill, downtown	371	$1,010,000	41%	$62,000
District 2 · the Sunset & Parkside	25	$1,218,000	60%	$115,000
District 6 · Hayes Valley & the Western Addition	193	$1,249,000	61%	$161,000
District 1 · the Richmond & Sea Cliff	80	$1,508,500	74%	$175,000
District 5 · Noe, Castro, Cole Valley, the Haight	282	$1,520,000	73%	$205,000
District 7 · Pacific Heights, Marina, Cow Hollow	232	$1,642,500	65%	$155,000

The buyer's opening, in one line

The central and eastern condo districts are the one corner of the 2026 City market where a prepared buyer regularly transacts at or below asking — the mirror image of the house market ten blocks away.

What $1M–$4M Actually Gets You — the Bedroom Reality

Price is only half the question; the other half is how many bedrooms that price buys. Inside the band, here is the honest mapping — and it’s the single most useful thing to internalize before touring.

The condo pool is overwhelmingly two-bedroom; the family three-bedroom is the house market's center of gravity.
Bedrooms ($1M–$4M)	House median	Share of houses	Condo median	Share of condos
2 bedroom	$1,515,000	22%	$1,452,500	58%
3 bedroom	$1,850,000	43%	$1,877,500	28%
4 bedroom	$2,400,000	26%	$2,250,000	4%

Two things fall out of this table. First, if you want a three-bedroom, the house market is built for you — 43% of in-band houses are 3BRs, at a median of $1,850,000. On the condo side the 3BR is scarcer (28% of the pool) and, tellingly, its median ($1,877,500) is higher than the 3BR house median: a large three-bedroom condo in a good central building is a genuinely premium, competed-for object. Second, if your number is closer to $1.5M and you value location over square footage, the strong two-bedroom condo is the realistic, well-supplied product — 58% of the in-band condo market — and often the honest recommendation in the central neighborhoods.

The High End, Briefly

The trophy market is real but it is a narrow slice: 273 sales closed above $4M in the window — and 224 of them were houses, versus just 40 condos. It concentrates almost entirely in District 7 and District 8. The top of the market ran to $27,500,000 for a house on Pacific Avenue, with several more Pacific Heights and Marina trades in the $17M–$26M range. Relevant context if you’re watching the headlines — but for the $1M–$4M buyer, it’s a different sport played on the same field. It rarely touches your search directly, beyond keeping the prestige districts firmly out of budget.

How to Read These Numbers

Methodology & conventions

Source & window. 4,152 closed residential sales from the San Francisco MLS, September 2025 through July 7, 2026. Figures are trailing medians across that full window, so they read cooler than a single hot spring month (the May county snapshot put the house median at $2,200,000 for that one month alone).
Three pools, never blended. Single-family houses, condominiums and TICs are reported separately — they are distinct buyer markets and averaging them hides the story.
Over list is always in dollars. A median over-list of $382,000 tells you what competing actually costs; a percentage would flatter and mislead. The list-to-sale ratio is shown as a separate, honestly-framed metric.
Days to close, not "exposure." Raw MLS timelines include ~30 days of escrow. Real public market exposure on a well-prepared house is under two weeks.
No price-per-square-foot. This MLS export carries no living-area field, so we don't publish $/sqft — estimating it would be guessing. A neighborhood-level $/sqft read is available on request from an export that includes the living-area column.
Every situation is its own. These are medians. Your block, your building, your timing and your competition are specific — that's the conversation to have before you write.

Where you fit — let's map it

The useful next step isn’t more citywide numbers; it’s narrowing this to your band, your districts, and the two or three neighborhoods where your budget and your must-haves actually intersect. Tell me the number you can transact at, whether it’s a two- or three-bedroom you need, and how close to the cultural core you want to be — and I’ll build you a shortlist of districts and a realistic pricing strategy off the comps.

Kevin Ho · Team K.Ho, Vanguard Properties

team-kho.com · 415.297.7462 · DRE #01875957

Prepared as a buyer briefing. Market data from the San Francisco MLS, closed sales September 2025 through July 7, 2026 (4,152 transactions). Single-family, condominium and TIC figures reported separately. Medians and over-list figures are descriptive of the period and are not a prediction of any individual result. Not intended as the solicitation of a property already listed. Equal Housing Opportunity.