The Local Lowdown: April 2025

Michelle Kim | May 1, 2025

The Local Lowdown

Quick Take:

The entire Silicon Valley continues to be a hotspot for growth, as home values continue to increase at a rapid rate.
Despite strong trends in median sales prices, inventory continues to build, as tons of new listings hit the market.
New listings are still being bought up at an incredibly fast rate, considering the amount of inventory that has built up over the past couple of months.

Note: You can find the charts/graphs for the Local Lowdown at the end of this section.

Silicon Valley homes continue to be a great investment for owners

Throughout recent years, Silicon Valley has been a great area for homeowners and real estate investors alike to invest. That is because the area has experienced a considerable amount of appreciation each year. So far, in 2025, it looks like Silicon Valley is upholding that reputation! In the month of March, we saw the median sale price for a home in San Mateo increase by 3.75% on a year-over-year basis, while median sale prices in Santa Cruz increased by 7.27%, and median sale prices in Santa Clara increased by a whopping 11.58%. This large increase in Santa Clara County came on the heels of a 10.28% year-over-year increase in February!

Inventory is continuing to build throughout the Silicon Valley

After hearing that prices are increasing throughout Silicon Valley, you might think that there might be inventory issues on the horizon. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. In the month of March, we saw single-family home inventories increase by 40.05%. This was largely due to the fact that the amount of new listings hitting the market skyrocketed by 23.83% when compared to last year. Additionally, roughly the same number of homes were sold. Moving forward, it will be important to keep an eye on inventory levels, as if they get too high, and buyers have more options, we may see prices begin to downtrend!

Despite high inventory levels, buyers are eager to purchase homes

Fortunately for sellers though, we haven’t seen buyers get any more picky! We’re seeing single-family homes spend roughly the same amount of time on the market as they were around this time last year. With that being said, new listings are being snapped up incredibly quickly. The average listing lasts just 16 days in Santa Cruz, whereas the average listing in San Mateo or Santa Clara counties only lasts 10 or 8 days, respectively. This indicates to us that buyers are still incredibly interested in the area, and they’re eager to purchase homes!

Single-family homes remain a hot commodity, but condos… not so much!

When determining whether a market is a buyers’ market or a sellers’ market, we look to the Months of Supply Inventory (MSI) metric. The state of California has historically averaged around three months of MSI, so any area with at or around three months of MSI is considered a balanced market. Any market that has lower than three months of MSI is considered a sellers’ market, whereas markets with more than three months of MSI are considered buyers’ markets.

When it comes to the single-family home market, the Santa Cruz area is fairly balanced, with exactly 3 months’ worth of supply on the market right now. However, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have 1.5 and 1.3 months’ worth of supply on the market right now, making it tough for buyers to find any negotiating leverage. However, the condo market is a completely different story, as it’s much more balanced. There are 2.8 months’ worth of condo supply in the market in Santa Clara County, 3.4 months in San Mateo County, and 4.4 months in Santa Cruz County. This means that Santa Clara County is fairly balanced, and San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties are both buyer-dominated!