Market Update | Fall 2026

One Advisor, Two Markets

Autumn has arrived in both places I call home, and they look nothing alike. I moved to San Francisco in 1998 and purchased my first Wine Country home in 2011, and in all that time I have rarely seen these two places tell such different stories at once.San Francisco is in full voice. Demand is soaring, prices are rising, homes are selling in days, and a wave of new wealth is gathering at the city’s edge. Wine Country, quieter by nature, is only now beginning to stir after an extended lull. What follows is a reading of both: the numbers first, then the life each place affords. The most interesting conversations I am having this season are with people who have begun to realize they want both.

Market Update

The City: A Market in Full Voice

San Francisco closed the third quarter with a median sale price of $1.55 million, 14% above a year ago, and homes sold nearly a third faster.¹ Vanguard Properties’ September update found that nearly 92% of homes in the city sold above their asking price,² and sales above $5 million rose 109% through the first nine months of the year.³On the north side, the story is sharper still. Across Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow, the Marina, and Russian Hill, single-family homes traded at a median of $1,714 per square foot, 27% above the same quarter last year. Four of every five homes sold above their original asking price, the typical home was in contract within 11 days, and fifteen sales closed above $5 million. Fewer homes changed hands than a year ago, and that scarcity is itself part of the story. In Presidio Heights, a Clay Street residence offered at $11 million sold for $14.7 million in 21 days.³

Single-family homes in ZIP codes 94109, 94115, 94118, and 94123, closed July 1 to September 30 of each year; BAREIS MLS, compiled by The Goodrich Group.¹⁵The reason is no secret. SpaceX went public in June, and the first of its insiders’ shares became eligible for sale in August, with further releases expected around year’s end.⁴ Anthropic filed publicly for its own offering on October 26 and could begin marketing it as soon as the week of November 9.¹⁶ OpenAI now expects its listing in 2027.⁵ Redfin estimates that current and former employees of those two companies alone could, in theory, purchase nearly a third of the homes in the San Francisco metro area.⁵ Liquidity of that scale rarely stays within one ZIP code. In time, it goes looking for room.

The Valley: A Market Beginning to Turn

Read quickly, the Napa County figures look unremarkable: a third-quarter median of $915,000, 5% below last year, on slightly fewer sales. Read closely, they describe a market beginning to turn. Homes sold a week faster than a year ago.⁶Up-valley, the turn is clearer. In St. Helena, single-family homes sold at a median of $1,081 per square foot, 13% above last year, and the median price rose to $2.41 million. In Yountville, price per square foot climbed 22%. Calistoga moved fastest of all: the average home sold in 37 days, less than half of last year’s pace, and at nearly 98% of its original asking price.⁷ What Calistoga lacked this quarter was a sale at the very top, with none above $3 million against four a year ago. That is less a verdict than an opening.

Single-family homes closed July 1 to September 30 of each year; St. Helena (94574) and Yountville (94599) by ZIP code, Calistoga by city; BAREIS MLS, compiled by The Goodrich Group.¹⁵ With so few sales, a single closing can meaningfully move a median. I am glad to share the detail behind any figure here.The upper tier stirred first. In the second quarter, sales above $3 million in St. Helena and Yountville more than doubled.⁸ The Goodrich Group was proud to represent one of only four estate homes at $12 million or above to change hands so far in 2026. We prepared it, priced it properly, and sold it in 16 days.Local observers have noted that up-valley prices tend to follow the city’s by roughly six months.⁹ If that pattern holds, what San Francisco is experiencing now is a preview of the season ahead here. The most discerning buyers tend to arrive before the crowd, and we are beginning to see them now.

For the City Reader: Room to Breathe

When most people picture Napa Valley, they picture vineyards. I would invite you to picture something else first: the way life is lived up-valley.The morning might begin with a ride or walk on the Vine Trail, whose eight-mile stretch between Calistoga and St. Helena opened in 2024, or with a guided ride from Vine Trail Adventures along the quiet lanes of the Silverado Trail.¹⁰ It might be a climb through the redwoods of Bothe-Napa Valley State Park, or the long ascent of Mount St. Helena as the valley floor wakes below. Whatever your interest—be it a sunrise fitness group, a round of golf, or a spirited game of pickleball—there is always an option, and each leaves time to unwind afterward. Finally, Calistoga’s thermal waters, which have drawn people for over a century, now flow through Solage, Indian Springs, Dr. Wilkinson’s, and the Four Seasons.That resort tradition is about to deepen. Rosewood Calistoga, expected to open in early 2027, occupies a 118-acre wooded ridgeline with 129 guest rooms, suites, and residences, 20 private villas, and 13 homesites, along with Rosewood’s Asaya wellness sanctuary and its hydrotherapy gardens.¹¹ With it, Calistoga’s standing as the resort capital of Napa Valley becomes something closer to settled fact. Who would not want to live the resort life, not for a weekend, but as the ordinary rhythm of a Tuesday?Beyond the spas lies the land itself. Here the days are warm, the nights are cool, and the grass grows green beneath the oaks. There is room for a henhouse and a few sheep, for goats on the hillside, perhaps for a horse. Childhood here is measured in seasons rather than city blocks: the first ripe fig, eggs gathered at dawn, the long light of a summer evening with nowhere in particular to be. For anyone who has felt the city press a little close, the valley offers what it has always offered: space, light, and the freedom to spread one’s wings.

For the Valley Reader: The City, Closer Than It Has Been

For those of us who live among the vines, San Francisco may still carry the reputation of a few difficult years. That reputation is now outdated. Reported crime in the city fell 25% in 2025, and homicides reached their lowest level since 1954.¹² Car break-ins have fallen by nearly half, and tent encampments are at a historic low.¹³ The streets of Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow feel as gracious as they ever have.What the city offers in return, the valley cannot. The city offers an evening of Mahler at Davies Symphony Hall, an opening night at the War Memorial Opera House, and the Ballet’s winter season. There are afternoons among the galleries of SFMOMA, the de Young, and the Legion of Honor, and unhurried hours on Fillmore and Union Streets, in Jackson Square, and around Union Square. Dining at a table that took a month to secure, followed by a walk home through the fog.The city is also closer than it has been. Since September 2025, Highway 101 has run three lanes in each direction from Sausalito to Windsor, finally widening the Marin–Sonoma Narrows.¹⁴ A pied-à-terre in the city is no longer an expedition. It is simply the other half of a well-composed life.

Both Halves of a Life

This is the conversation I most enjoy: helping a family in Pacific Heights imagine a weekend place in Calistoga, or a St. Helena couple consider a flat above the Marina. Each market has its own rhythm, and timing in one can inform a decision in the other. If you would value a quiet conversation about either, whether a private valuation of what you hold or simply a sense of what is possible, I would be glad to hear from you.With warm regards from the valley and the city,ArthurArthur D. Goodrich · The Goodrich Group | Sotheby’s International Realty · 415.735.8779 · goodrichgroup.com

Sources

1. Sotheby’s International Realty: San Francisco quarterly market report, Q3 2026 (updated Oct. 6, 2026)
2. Vanguard Properties: September 2026 update via Mark D. McHale, August 2026 SFAR MLS data
3. Hoodline: Presidio Heights mansion sells for $17.2M; Compass data, Oct. 16, 2026
4. Initial public offering of SpaceX, Wikipedia; The Motley Fool: SpaceX lockup expires Aug. 6, 2026
5. The San Francisco Standard: The AI money bomb is about to hit San Francisco, Oct. 14, 2026
6. Sotheby’s International Realty: Napa County quarterly market report, Q3 2026 (updated Oct. 6, 2026)
7. Sotheby’s International Realty: Calistoga, Q3 2026 (single-family)
8. Sotheby’s International Realty: St. Helena / Yountville, Q2 2026
9. Jeffrey Earl Warren: The six-month lag and the off-market ceiling
10. Napa Valley Vine Trail, Wikipedia
11. Hotels Magazine: Rosewood Calistoga opening 2027
12. KTVU: San Francisco crime fell 25% in 2025, Jan. 2, 2026
13. KRON4: Lurie’s first year shows crime decline, Dec. 18, 2025
14. The Press Democrat: Marin-Sonoma Narrows reaches final milestone, Sept. 29, 2025
15. BAREIS MLS closed-sales searches, single-family residences, Q3 2025 and Q3 2026, run Oct. 17, 2026. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
16. IPOScoop: The IPO Buzz: Anthropic (ANT Proposed) Files its S-1, Oct. 26, 2026