Selling a home in Central San Jose

Around the $1 million mark

measured: houses

Houses in the 7 neighborhoods sold for a median $1.07M, or $856 per square foot, in the two years to October 27, 2026, against $1.66M and $980 across San Jose. Medians run from $831K in Spartan Keyes & Martha Gardens and $925K in Washington-Guadalupe & Tamien to $1.25M in Burbank, and the median house measured 1,281 sq ft. Buyers search in price brackets, so where your list price sits against a round number like $1 million changes who sees the listing; we set it with that in mind.

At these prices Measure E, which starts above $2.3 million, doesn’t come into play: inside city limits a sale at $1.07M owes $4,708 in transfer tax, San Jose’s $3.30 and the county’s $1.10 per $1,000. By local custom the seller pays the county tax and the buyer and seller split the city tax; all of it is negotiable, and the purchase contract decides.

San Jose transfer tax and Measure E

The typical sale closes at asking

measured: 24 months

Counting all home types, the typical sale closed at asking in five of the 7 neighborhoods over the last 24 months: Horace Mann & Julian-St. James, Roosevelt Park & Olinder, Spartan Keyes & Martha Gardens, Washington-Guadalupe & Tamien and Buena Vista. It closed 0.2% under in Diridon & Delmas Park and 2.3% over in Burbank. Of the area’s 280 house sales, 54% closed over asking, against 62% across San Jose; in Burbank, 63% did.

With little bidding past the list price, the list price has to be right on day one: we price from your neighborhood’s record and the closest recent sales, not the area median.

Over asking, neighborhood by neighborhood

Conservation areas and the city’s inventory

city records

By our neighborhood guides’ count, the city’s historic resources inventory lists about 540 buildings inside Washington-Guadalupe & Tamien (about 520 of them in the Guadalupe/Washington Conservation Area), about 230 in Horace Mann & Julian-St. James, about 150 in Spartan Keyes & Martha Gardens (about 93 in the Martha Gardens Conservation Area) and about 110 in Diridon & Delmas Park (about 38 in the Lakehouse district and 21 in the River Street district). Roosevelt Park & Olinder has about two dozen, including the 1907 Carnegie library.

Before we list an older house we pull its inventory record and permit history, since conservation-area buyers ask what has been changed and when, and buyers of 1890s and 1900s houses ask about foundations, wiring and sewer laterals.

San Jose Victorian homes

City land or county land?

our guides

About half of our Burbank guide, roughly 235 acres, is unincorporated Santa Clara County land with San Jose mailing addresses: about 1,330 of its about 1,880 parcels, covering most of the blocks south of Forest Ave. Buena Vista has a county pocket of about 12 acres on Richmond Ave and the east side of Leigh Ave north of Scott St. It changes the sale: on county land the county handles planning, zoning and building permits, and only the county transfer tax applies, $1,177 on a $1.07 million sale.

Before listing we say plainly which side your parcel is on (your escrow officer confirms it from the tax rate area), have the county or city permit records ready for any addition, garage conversion or ADU, and give the exact lot size from county records, since Burbank lots run from about 4,000 sq ft on the narrow streets east of S. Bascom Ave to about 7,200 on the city blocks north of Forest Ave.

Our Burbank guide

Small lots, flood zones by the creeks and liquefaction

measured: R-1 lots

Median single-family (R-1) lots run from 4,510 sq ft in Horace Mann & Julian-St. James and 4,970 in Diridon & Delmas Park to 6,580 in Buena Vista and 7,190 in the city’s part of Burbank, against 6,410 across San Jose. Horace Mann, Roosevelt Park, Washington-Guadalupe and Delmas Park also have two-family (R-2) blocks; for a house with a second unit, or a duplex, we document every unit with its permits and current leases.

By City of San Jose parcel records, 95 of Washington-Guadalupe & Tamien’s 259 single-family lots (37%) are in a FEMA high-risk flood zone (AO), 69 of Roosevelt Park & Olinder’s 380 (AH and AO) and 5 of Spartan Keyes & Martha Gardens’ 48; none in the other four, and none of the 7 has a lot in a CAL FIRE fire hazard severity zone. By the state’s maps, every single-family lot is in a liquefaction zone in Horace Mann & Julian-St. James, Roosevelt Park & Olinder, Spartan Keyes & Martha Gardens and Diridon & Delmas Park, as are 243 of 259 in Washington-Guadalupe & Tamien and 225 of 316 in Burbank; none in Buena Vista, and none of the 7 has a lot in a landslide or fault zone.

Sellers must disclose these zones, and the natural hazard disclosure report states them for the property. By Coyote Creek we also document any 2017 water damage and repairs; a current elevation certificate helps buyers price insurance.

Earthquake zones by neighborhood