The typical condominium value rose in just eight Bay Area ZIP codes between March 2024 and March 2025, after adjusting for inflation. All of them were in San Francisco.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
After half a decade of freefall, San Francisco condominium values are coming back up.
The typical condo value rose in just eight Bay Area ZIP codes between March 2024 and March 2025, after adjusting for inflation and excluding ZIP codes with fewer than 5,000 residents. All of them were in San Francisco, with the competitive 94114 and 94123 ZIP codes — which include the city’s Noe Valley and Marina neighborhoods, respectively — seeing the largest increases of 4%.
That doesn’t mean the San Francisco condo market is completely back — far from it. The 94114 ZIP code’s typical condo value of $1.39 million was still nearly $400,000 less, in 2026 dollars, than its 2019 figure. Values are similarly down in other Bay Area ZIP codes, with the exception of Livermore’s 94550 and Danville’s 94526 ZIP codes, which both saw spikes in condo values during the early pandemic.
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But even in those cities, condo values are no longer on the rise. Insurance woes, financing issues and condo association dues that can reach four figures a month have sent values spiraling in most of the Bay Area. The condominium, long considered a relatively affordable entry point into homeownership, is no longer an option for many buyers.
Except for the ones with six-figure signing bonuses. The artificial intelligence boom has brought a wave of wealthy buyers to San Francisco, pushing up prices for the city’s infamously low supply of housing. Investors have followed, converting condos into rentals to get a piece of rapidly rising rents, said Mia Takami, a San Francisco Realtor with eXp Realty. Even some parents have gotten in on the action, buying two-bedroom condos for their children, who then rent out the spare room.
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“Now that it’s been almost five, six years since the pandemic, (sellers) are excited for the upward movement,” Takami said. “Emotionally, it’s a lot better and a lot less stressful for all of us.”
Because condo prices are still far below their pre-pandemic levels, many owners are holding off on selling, fearing they’ll lose money, Takami said. That’s led to more competition, and higher prices, among the condos that are on the market — especially in the luxury segment. Condos in the Noe Valley and Pacific Heights neighborhoods, which tend to look like houses and have direct street access, are especially attractive, she added.
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Not every condo sells quickly. Mortgage lenders are still looking carefully at condo associations to ensure they have sufficient reserves and adequate maintenance. Problems in those metrics can serve as indicators for the level of risk the lender is taking on. If something looks off, buyers could struggle to get a loan for the unit.
And while condos are usually cheaper than the traditional single-family home — the typical house value in San Francisco was about $1.5 million in March 2026, roughly $500,000 more than the typical condo value — that also means a buyer can’t resell the property for as much.
But in San Francisco, some condo buyers are making all-cash offers, sidestepping the financing issue entirely, said Diana Klein, a San Francisco-based Realtor with Compass.
Cash buyers are uncommon in other Bay Area cities, where condo values are continuing to drop. In Oakland, where the housing market has cooled more than anywhere else in the region, condo values have plummeted by as much as 18% in some ZIP codes over the past year.
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Because of that, some real estate agents said that condo sellers in cooler markets are often willing to negotiate, such as by returning a portion of the sale price to the buyer so they can temporarily reduce their mortgage rate, a strategy known as a rate buydown.
As San Francisco condo values climb back up, incentives like those might spur some buyers to look across the Bay Bridge, where many condos are selling for less than $500,000, said Lauren Steinberg, a Compass Realtor.
“We are optimistic that as single-family homes nearby pop exponentially, alongside increasingly fatigued condo buyers in (San Francisco) and the influx of AI capital, Oakland condos will be the next frontier,” Steinberg said in an email.
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