The Local Lowdown: March 2025

Michelle Kim | March 31, 2025

The Local Lowdown

Quick Take:

On a year-over-year basis, prices have remained stagnant in the East Bay, likely due to the flood of inventory we’re currently seeing.
Inventory levels are increasing drastically throughout the entire East Bay, with the area seeing over 40% more active listings than this time last year.
Although you might expect homes to sit longer with such a drastic increase in inventory, they’re still moving relatively quickly.

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

Median sales prices are stagnating throughout the East Bay

Although we saw some considerable year-over-year growth in median sale prices around this time last year in the East Bay, we’re not seeing that same growth right now. Instead, prices are stagnating a bit, with the median single-family home in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties being sold for roughly the same price that it was being sold for at this time last year.

Additionally, the median condo is being sold for quite a bit less than this time last year, with Contra Costa County seeing a 5.66% decrease and Alameda County seeing a 9.77% decrease. This stagnation in prices that we’re currently seeing can likely be attributed to the vast amount of inventory that we saw hit the market in the month of February.

East Bay inventory levels are steadily creeping up

One likely reason for the stagnation in median sale prices throughout the East Bay is that inventory levels jumped by a considerable margin in February. We saw a 16.82% increase in the number of active listings compared to January and a 40.17% increase compared to February of last year. This level of inventory was not seen until April/May of last year!

This suggests that people are ready to move, and they’re not letting interest rates play into their decision to sell or stay put! If we continue to see unprecedented increases in inventory like the one we saw last month, prices could start to decrease as inventory sits on the market. However, for now, the inventory is still moving!

Despite the inventory increasing, it’s still moving!

Although we just saw inventory levels skyrocket last month, demand remains strong, with the number of sold listings in the East Bay increasing by 2% on a year-over-year basis, and 35.55% on a month-over-month basis. As we mentioned in the prior section, we have to see demand pick up substantially in order for prices to stay where they’re currently at!

The East Bay continues to be a seller’s market

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 seller’s market, whereas markets with more than three months of MSI are considered buyers’ markets.

Despite the drastic increase in supply that we saw last month, the single-family home market remains a strong sellers’ market within the East Bay, with Alameda County having just 1.6 months' worth of supply and Contra Costa County having just 1.8 months of supply. On the flip side, the condo market is not nearly as competitive, with Alameda County having 3.5 months' worth of supply and Contra Costa County having 2.8 months’ worth of supply.