Blog > Best Time to Buy a House in Silicon Valley: The Buyer’s Calendar, Month by Month
Best Time to Buy a House in Silicon Valley: The Buyer’s Calendar, Month by Month
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Thinking about when to buy? The flip side of the spring rush is a slower winter. We sorted 248,990 Silicon Valley and Peninsula home sales from 2012 through 2025 by the month they closed, and measured how often buyers paid over asking, by how much, and at what price per square foot against that year’s typical sale. Here’s the buyer’s calendar.
The short answer
- Winter is the softest stretch: January closings went over asking 51.6% of the time, against 70.9% in April.
- Price per square foot runs lowest in January (10.5% below that year’s median) and February (5.4% below).
- The catch is choice: January brings only 4.8% of the year’s closings, against 10.1% in May.
- Read it a month or more ahead. A January closing usually means an offer in December, so the window is the holidays and the weeks around them.
- City by city, all 23 cities with enough sales to average year by year had their softest month in January or December.
Shopping now?
- Where homes sell under asking, city by city.
- Budget Lab shows what your budget bought in up to three cities.
- Talk to a Property Nerd about offers in a slow month.
Month by month for buyers
Santa Clara and San Mateo counties together, averaged over 2012–2025. Lower is better for buyers in the first three columns; the last is how much choice you’d have.
| Closing month | Sold over asking | Median sale vs. asking | Price per sq ft vs. the year | Share of the year’s sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 51.6% | 1.1% over | −10.5% | 4.8% |
| February | 63.3% | 3.4% over | −5.4% | 5.6% |
| March | 68.8% | 4.6% over | −0.1% | 8.3% |
| April | 70.9% | 5.0% over | +1.6% | 9.4% |
| May | 70.3% | 4.5% over | +3.4% | 10.1% |
| June | 67.8% | 3.5% over | +2.7% | 10.1% |
| July | 63.8% | 2.5% over | +0.7% | 9.5% |
| August | 61.1% | 2.1% over | −0.1% | 9.2% |
| September | 60.3% | 1.8% over | −0.4% | 8.6% |
| October | 60.2% | 1.9% over | +1.0% | 9.1% |
| November | 57.1% | 1.5% over | +0.6% | 8.0% |
| December | 53.2% | 1.2% over | −1.5% | 7.2% |
City by city: the softest closing month
Each city’s month with the lowest average share over asking; the city links to its own month-by-month post where we have one. Small towns marked “pooled” have too few sales to average year by year, so all 2012–2025 sales in each month are combined.
| City | Softest month | Sold over asking | Sales, 2012–2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atherton (pooled) | September | 21.4% | 1,095 |
| Belmont | December | 58.3% | 3,000 |
| Burlingame | January | 44.6% | 3,224 |
| Campbell | January | 51.0% | 5,571 |
| Cupertino | January | 60.9% | 4,872 |
| Daly City | December | 59.2% | 4,703 |
| East Palo Alto (pooled) | January | 45.7% | 1,509 |
| Foster City | December | 54.8% | 3,436 |
| Gilroy | December | 34.6% | 7,260 |
| Hillsborough (pooled) | January | 16.9% | 1,687 |
| Los Altos | January | 46.3% | 4,747 |
| Los Altos Hills (pooled) | January | 25.6% | 1,200 |
| Los Gatos | January | 30.7% | 7,908 |
| Menlo Park | January | 40.1% | 5,383 |
| Millbrae (pooled) | January | 57.8% | 1,995 |
| Milpitas | December | 56.9% | 6,313 |
| Monte Sereno (pooled) | November | 29.8% | 616 |
| Morgan Hill | January | 33.7% | 7,529 |
| Mountain View | January | 60.7% | 7,589 |
| Palo Alto | January | 40.2% | 6,535 |
| Portola Valley (pooled) | February | 26.8% | 969 |
| Redwood City | January | 48.3% | 8,551 |
| San Bruno | January | 54.1% | 3,733 |
| San Carlos | January | 46.5% | 4,775 |
| San Francisco (2022–2025, pooled) | January | 40.2% | 18,028 |
| San Jose | December | 54.3% | 99,603 |
| San Mateo | January | 52.0% | 12,113 |
| Santa Clara | January | 58.0% | 11,480 |
| Saratoga | January | 38.8% | 4,455 |
| South San Francisco | January | 60.3% | 3,939 |
| Sunnyvale | January | 63.5% | 12,110 |
| Woodside (pooled) | January | 10.0% | 1,090 |
Buying in the off-season
- Watch homes that sat through the fall. A home that listed in September or October and is still for sale in December may have a seller with more room to negotiate.
- Get pre-approved before the holidays, so you can move when the right home appears; holiday schedules can slow lenders and escrow in late December.
- Averages aren’t guarantees. A well-priced home in a popular area can still draw several offers in January.
How we counted
248,990 closed sales of houses, condos and townhomes in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, January 2012 to December 2025, reported to the MLS and read through the IDX feeds that power our home search, with repeat records removed and sales under 50% or over 200% of list left out. These are the 31 cities we cover in the two counties; smaller places and unincorporated areas aren’t in the totals. Sales are grouped by the month they closed. For each month, the share over asking and the median sale-to-list are worked out year by year and then averaged, so a hot year like 2021 or a cool one like 2023 counts once; price per square foot is compared with the same calendar year’s median, which takes out the long-run rise in prices but not the rise within a year: in a rising year, January closings look lower and December closings higher than the season alone would make them. It’s a pattern across many years, not a forecast, and part of the seasonal price gap is the mix of homes that sell in each season. Our data covers Silicon Valley and the Peninsula; the East Bay, North Bay and Santa Cruz County aren’t in it, and San Francisco only from 2022.
Go deeper
See the interactive calendar, the best time to sell, the home buyer’s data guide and common first-time buyer mistakes.
Ready to shop?
We’ll set up a search that catches new listings the day they hit and tell you how each one compares with recent sales nearby. Call (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or book a strategy call. Commissions are negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what’s included.