San Francisco and San Jose have landed among the best places in the country to sell a home, according to a new WalletHub ranking that puts both Bay Area cities in the national top 10 for seller-friendly conditions. San Francisco came in at No. 2 overall, while San Jose ranked No. 8, out of the top 15 buyer's and seller's markets identified nationwide.
The rankings, reported by the New York Post, place both California metros among the country's top seller markets, alongside several East Coast cities. Rochester, New York claimed the No. 1 spot among seller's markets, with Syracuse, New York, Hartford, Connecticut, and Albany, New York rounding out the top five. On the opposite end, Jackson, Mississippi ranked No. 1 among the best buyer's markets, with Cape Coral and Miami, Florida also among the most buyer-friendly cities in the country.
The seller-market rankings arrive alongside a separate WalletHub study of the nation's best overall real estate markets, which evaluated 300 U.S. cities across 17 metrics, according to WalletHub. That broader study found three California cities in the national top 30: Irvine at No. 10, Roseville at No. 12, and Santa Clara at No. 29.
Sun Belt Growth Versus Bay Area Scarcity
Texas cities dominated the top of that overall ranking, with Frisco taking the No. 1 spot nationally and McKinney close behind at No. 2, driven largely by rapid job growth and new construction, as reported by Fox Business. WalletHub found that nearly 47% of homes in Frisco were built between 2010 and 2024, a stark contrast to California's supply-constrained coastal markets, where new construction has struggled to keep pace with demand.
That divide plays out within California itself. While Irvine, Roseville, and Santa Clara cracked the top 30 nationally, inland Southern California cities Lancaster and Palmdale ranked near the very bottom of the 300-city list, at No. 291 and No. 292 respectively, according to Patch. Statewide home values grew just 1.1% year-over-year through late summer, the outlet reported, underscoring how uneven California's housing fortunes are from region to region.
Why Silicon Valley Homeowners Have the Upper Hand
WalletHub's city rankings include Santa Clara and Sunnyvale among the cities it examined.
Frisco, a Sun Belt boomtown, has a relatively new housing stock.
California's Broader Housing Market
The seller-market rankings also put California's broader housing market in focus.
Existing single-family home sales across the San Francisco Bay Area fell 4.2% year-over-year in August.
Higher borrowing costs have weighed on homebuying activity. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 6.67% in August before climbing back above 7.0% in early September.
A Widening Gap for First-Time Buyers
A study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the age of prevalence for homeownership—the age at which homeowners in an age cohort outnumber renters—was 47 in California, compared with 36 nationwide, based on 2020–2024 data, up from 41 in 2009.
Even at today's elevated prices, affordability remains a challenge for California homebuyers.
Iconic sights like the Painted Ladies houses at Alamo Square remain a fixture of San Francisco's identity even as the city's housing market shifts beneath them. For now, sellers across the Bay Area hold the advantage — while high prices and limited supply continue to challenge would-be buyers.
