Silicon Valley’s Price Ladder Is Stretching: Entry-Level vs. Top-End Home Prices Since 2019

Line up every Silicon Valley home sale from the lowest price to the highest and read five points off the line: the entry price (the 10th percentile, where 1 in 10 sales closed at or below it), the lower quarter, the median, the upper quarter and the top end (the 90th percentile). We call it the price ladder. Every city’s ladder, year by year since 2012, is on the new Price Ladder page, built from closed MLS sales.

The ladder today

• Silicon Valley, last 12 months (October 2025 – September 2026, 15,237 sales): entry $755K, lower quarter $1.13M, median $1.65M, upper quarter $2.58M, top end $3.90M.
• Santa Clara County: entry $740K, median $1.60M, top end $3.73M. Bay-side San Mateo County: entry $800K, median $1.80M, top end $4.45M.

The top rungs pulled away after 2019

Since 2019, the entry price across Silicon Valley rose 8%, the median 38% and the top end 51%. In all 25 cities with at least 100 sales in the last 12 months, the top end rose faster than the entry price. A few examples:

• San Jose: entry +7%, top end +59%.
• Sunnyvale: entry −2%, top end +48%.
• Mountain View: entry −18%, top end +49%.
• Palo Alto: entry −7%, top end +46%.
• Menlo Park: entry +7%, top end +61%.

It used to go the other way

From 2012 to 2019 the entry price across Silicon Valley rose 2.50 times and the top end 1.73 times, so the ladder narrowed before it stretched. Sales data alone can’t say why it flipped. The bottom rung is often a condo or townhome and the top rung a large house, so part of the gap may be condos lagging houses. Our archive doesn’t split prices by home type, so we can’t measure how much.

Where the entry price is lowest and highest

• Lowest entry prices among cities with 100+ sales: San Bruno ($418K), Daly City ($605K), San Mateo ($615K) and San Jose ($650K). At that rung most sales are condos and townhomes.
• Highest: Hillsborough ($4.50M), Saratoga ($1.87M) and Los Altos ($1.81M), where most sales were houses.
• Narrowest ladders (top end divided by entry price): South San Francisco and Gilroy (2.3×) and Daly City (2.5×). Widest: Menlo Park (5.4×), Mountain View (5.3×) and San Mateo (5.1×).

What the ladder can and can’t tell you

• It counts every home type together. The houses’ share column on the page shows each city’s mix of houses, condos and townhomes.
• Dollars aren’t adjusted for inflation.
• Small towns swing. Atherton, East Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno, Portola Valley and Woodside had fewer than 100 sales in the last 12 months, so they’re on the page but left out of the rankings above.
• It describes homes that sold, not a forecast or any one home’s value.

How we counted

Closed sales reported to the MLS, read through the IDX feeds that power our home search, with repeat records removed. The full method, a CSV download and every city’s year-by-year ladder are on the Price Ladder. Every dataset is listed in the Property Nerds® Data Library.

Looking for the first rung?

A Property Nerd will show you where the entry price sits in the cities on your list and which homes come up at that price. 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.