San Mateo, CA Housing Market 2026: What Homes Actually Sell For

San Mateo produces a steady stream of closings but little consensus: sales over the last six months span a range wide enough that the median is a midpoint between different markets, not a going rate. The distribution below matters more than the headline.

A note on scope: these figures are for San Mateo itself, not San Mateo County. They share a name but are different areas, and county-wide numbers will differ.

The snapshot

• •Closings tracked, last 6 months: 514
• •Median sold price, last 6 months: $1,600,000
• •Median sold $/sqft, last 6 months: $1,053
• •Middle half of sales closed between: $1,000,000 and $2,350,000

What the numbers say

Resideline tracked 514 closed sales in San Mateo over the last six months, with a median closing price of $1,600,000. That median is the midpoint of what buyers actually paid, not what sellers hoped to get, which is why it moves differently from the asking prices you see on listing sites. The middle half of those sales closed between $1,000,000 and $2,350,000. That spread matters more than the headline median: where a specific property sits inside it decides whether the citywide number helps you or misleads you. These are the closings Resideline tracks and may differ from complete county or municipal records. Across the 511 closings with usable living area, the middle half sold between $761 and $1,345 per square foot.

Figures last updated October 3, 2026 from closings Resideline tracked.

Median home price in San Mateo, CA (October 2026)

The median home price in San Mateo is $1,600,000, measured across the 514 closed sales Resideline tracked over the last six months. The middle half of those sales closed between $1,000,000 and $2,350,000.

Where San Mateo sale prices land

Medians hide the shape of a market. The distribution above covers the closed sales Resideline tracked in San Mateo over the last six months that carry a usable sale date, trimmed to the 5th through 95th percentile, with the middle half of sales closing between $1,000,000 and $2,350,000. Among the 262 California markets with a published band, San Mateo's middle-half spread ($1,000,000 to $2,350,000) ranks 237th from the narrowest. Where your target property sits inside that spread matters more than the citywide median. Measured as the ratio of the upper to the lower quartile, its middle-half spread ranks in the 89th percentile of the 2,230 US markets in Resideline's national Market Watch set, on data as of October 3, 2026.

How long a sale takes here

• •Listed to under contract: a median of 14 days, across 316 San Mateo closings Resideline tracked in the last six months
• •Contract to closing: a median of 20 days, across 325 San Mateo closings Resideline tracked in the last six months

San Mateo prices by property type

Among the San Mateo closings with usable living area over the last six months, single-family houses closed at a median of $1,309 per square foot (300 sales), condos at $743 (157 sales) and townhouses at $882 (38 sales).

The San Mateo angle

San Mateo's middle half stretches from $1,000,000 to $2,350,000, wider than most bands we track, with a median closed sale price of $1,600,000 from 514 tracked closings over the last six months. Citywide statistics here mostly measure how much the market disagrees with itself. The valuation work lives entirely in the comps, matched as tightly as the closed-sale record allows, and the published band serves one purpose: reminding you how expensive it is to be casual about comparability in San Mateo.

From market read to offer price

A spread this wide means the citywide number cannot price a specific address; the step that matters is the property-level read. The decision still comes down to one property and one number: what it is actually worth and what you should pay. Every Resideline report opens with this same market snapshot for the subject's exact ZIP code, then gives you the property's value, the sold comps behind it, and a market rent estimate. Pricing a specific deal? The free ARV calculator, rehab cost estimator, BRRRR calculator and rental property calculator run the numbers in about a minute.

And we show our work. Every estimate is frozen while the home is for sale and graded against the real closing price after it sells. See the live accuracy dashboard for the receipts, or read how the Area Market Snapshot works.

Run any San Mateo address through Resideline and you will see the local market and the property's value together, in one report.

Cite this

Using these numbers? Please cite the source and the sample size:

Source: Resideline Market Watch
Market: San Mateo, CA
Geography: incorporated municipality, Census place 0668252
Data updated: October 2026
Analysis period: last six months
Tracked closings: 514
Median sold price: $1,600,000
Median sold $/sqft: $1,053 (511 qualifying)
https://resideline.com/blog/san-mateo-ca-housing-market

Writing about this market? Paste this into your post:

<a href="https://resideline.com/blog/san-mateo-ca-housing-market">
  <img src="https://resideline.com/images/embed/san-mateo-ca.png" alt="San Mateo, CA home sale price distribution, last six months" width="1000" style="max-width:100%;height:auto">
</a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://resideline.com/blog/san-mateo-ca-housing-market">Resideline Market Watch</a></p>

The local market statistics in this report are calculated from closed sales tracked by Resideline. Transaction coverage may differ from complete county or municipal records.

Every local market figure on this page is computed from closed sales Resideline tracked in San Mateo over the last six months, and is refreshed when the data is. The closings we track within the San Mateo city limits are not limited to listing-service sales: they also include foreclosure deeds, estate and family transfers, and other off-market sales that portal medians exclude, which is why 11% of the 514 closings in this window never appeared on a listing service, and the median of MLS-listed sales alone was $1,619,350.