Median price matched an all-time high in September. Median price for September was $1,000,000, equal to 2021 levels and an all-time high for the Inner East Bay. For Q3, prices are now only 6% lower than their all-time high, which was set in 2021.

Homes sold an average of 11% over list price in September. Other than 2021, that's an all-time high for the month. This reveals particularly strong seller confidence and buyer activity in $1M+ price ranges. What’s more, Albany, Kensington, El Cerrito, Berkeley and Alameda had the highest average price over asking in the entire Bay Area, which ranged between 15 and 25%.

The $1M-$2M market was particularly strong. 23% of these transactions sold 30% or further over list price and were on the market for an average of only 20 days. What’s more, they spent an average of only 20 days in escrow, meaning that buyers faced significant competition and wrote particularly strong offers.

The number of sales was near an all-time low. With the recent rise in mortgage rates, homeowners have been less likely to put their property on the market. This drove available East Bay inventory to its lowest level ever recorded (going back to 2011 when Red Oak began tracking these data). As a result, the number of home sales was also low; in fact, the only time fewer homes sold in September was during the financial crisis of 2007.

There appeared to be softness in the upper end of the market. Homes that sold above $3M appeared to face lower levels of buyer competition: Only 50% of homes sold above asking (compared to 80% in the $1M-$2M range). What’s more, the higher the list price, the more likely the listing was canceled: Among the homes that came off the market in Q3 2023 and were listed for $3M or higher, 47% of them canceled (compared to 22% for homes that were listed $1M-$2M).

El Cerrito saw a surprising decline in value. The median price in El Cerrito fell 22%  in Q3 2023 compared to one year prior. However, this may have been because the city experienced greater price increases in the pandemic markets of 2021 and 2022. The El Cerrito market otherwise remained strong: Q3 2023 transactions sold an average of 17% over list price in an average of just 21 days.