Sales of homes priced at $5 million and above in the San Francisco Bay Area have soared 142% in the year to date compared to the same time period in 2019, according to a report Wednesday from Compass.
The spike in luxury home sales in the Bay Area, which includes 10 counties, has “far exceed[ed] the increase in sales in the overall market,” wrote Patrick Carlisle, Compass’s chief market analyst in the San Francisco Bay Area and author of the report, which did not use 2020 data because it was skewed by economic shutdowns during the pandemic.
The robust luxury market has been fueled by affluent buyers who have migrated from dense, urban areas to more spacious homes in greener regions throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Part of this is due to simple home-price appreciation, but another factor has been a significant surge in the sale of larger homes and estates in more expensive locations,” Mr. Carlisle continued. “Our largest markets for $5 million-plus homes are in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties (especially in what we call the ‘Stanford Circle’ region), which together make up the Silicon Valley market.”
Santa Clara and San Mateo counties registered 315 and 314 sales, respectively, of homes priced at or over $5 million in the last 12 months, the data showed. San Francisco was third, with 196 luxury sales, followed by Lake Tahoe, with 131.
Currently the highest-priced residential listing in the area is a $135 million home in Woodside, California, in San Mateo County, according to the report, which used data through Nov. 15. The highest regional sale in 2021, $35 million, was also in San Mateo County.
The second-most expensive listing in the greater region was in Incline Village, Nevada, on Lake Tahoe, a $60 million home that’s currently under contract, the report said. The priciest sales this year have also been around the freshwater lake that straddles California and Nevada—a $31.5 million sale on the Nevada side and a $31 million deal over the Golden State border.
