Published October 18, 2026 in Market Update

Peninsula condo sales rose even with rates above 7%

By Brad Bell

Real estate, Peninsula Condo - $700K+

Rates went up. Sales went up anyway. That is the short version of what happened here in the three months ending August 31, 2026.

Realtor.com reported mortgage rates topped 7% for the first time since January 2025. Most people expected that to slow things down. It did not, at least not on the Peninsula.

The Real Estate Data Aggregator counted 958 homes sold across these ZIP codes, up 11.4% from the same three months in 2025. For sellers, demand held. For buyers, the field did not clear.

Fewer homes were for sale, down 8.3% from a year ago per the Real Estate Data Aggregator. New listings were nearly flat, off just 0.8%. More homes sold than came to market. That kept supply tight.

What rates above 7% mean for this market

Fannie Mae, as reported by CNBC, forecast the average 30-year fixed rate at 7.4% for the fourth quarter of 2026 and 7.5% for all of 2027. That is not a short-term dip. Buyers here are pricing in a higher cost of money.

Nationally, Realtor.com found price cuts on 20.8% of listings in September, the highest share since 2018. That is the U.S. picture. The Peninsula picture, ZIP by ZIP, is more varied.

How each ZIP code moved

The Real Estate Data Aggregator breaks this out by ZIP. Prices rose in some areas and fell in others. Speed and competition tell a clearer story than price alone.

A price dip in one ZIP does not mean the market is soft there. In 94066, the median fell 3% per the Real Estate Data Aggregator, yet homes sold 5 days faster than a year ago and 61.5% sold above list.

In 94404, the median dropped 11.1% and days on market stretched 5 days longer. That ZIP moved differently from its neighbors. One number does not cover all of them.

Where competition was strongest

The Real Estate Data Aggregator tracks what share of homes sold above list price. That tells you how many buyers were still competing, even at rates above 7%.

In 94080, the Real Estate Data Aggregator found 71.3% of homes sold above list, the highest of any ZIP here. The sale-to-list ratio there was 108.3%. Buyers paid meaningfully more than the asking price, on average.

94401 was the quietest. Only 33.3% sold above list, and the median sale-to-list ratio was 103%. That is still above list, but the gap between ZIPs is real.

How fast homes moved

94402 moved fastest, with a median of 12 days per the Real Estate Data Aggregator. 94401 took the longest at 29 days, though that was 11 days shorter than the same period in 2025.

Speed improved in most ZIPs. 94061 cut 7 days off its median. 94066 cut 5 days. 94063 went the other way, adding 7 days. Not every ZIP moved in the same direction.

What the national picture adds

The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported U.S. house prices rose 2.6% from July 2025 to July 2026. The Peninsula's stronger ZIPs outpaced that by a wide margin.

CNBC reported that Zillow found pending home sales nationally were down 8.5% year over year in September. The Peninsula's pending count was nearly flat, down just 0.1% per the Real Estate Data Aggregator. Local demand held better than the national trend.

One street can read very differently from the whole ZIP code. The 94402 median and the 94401 median are both in San Mateo, and they are $1.4 million apart. As of October 18, 2026, that gap is still there.