Headlines about the market rarely tell you what you need to know for your specific decision. Here's what the numbers that matter actually mean, and how I use them with clients.

Months of inventory. This tells you how long it would take to sell all current listings at the current sales pace. Under 3 months typically signals a seller's market; over 6 months typically favors buyers. San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley often move independently of each other on this metric, which is why a citywide or national headline rarely applies evenly across neighborhoods.

Days on market. How long homes are sitting before going into contract. A shrinking number usually signals rising buyer urgency; a growing number often means sellers are starting to price ahead of what buyers are willing to pay. This number is far more useful neighborhood-by-neighborhood than city-wide.

Sale-to-list price ratio. The percentage of asking price homes are actually selling for. Above 100% signals multiple-offer conditions are common; below 100% signals more room to negotiate. This is one of the clearest signals of how competitive a specific micro-market is right now. With that being said, a market’s listing strategy also plays a significant part of this delta. (Inner East Bay markets drive this example).

Absorption rate. How quickly new listings are being bought up relative to how fast they're coming onto the market. This is the metric that tells you whether a "hot market" headline is actually about supply drying up or demand spiking two very different situations that call for different strategies.

Why this matters more than the headline. National and even Bay Area-wide market coverage averages together cities, price points, and property types that don't actually move together. A "cooling market" headline can be true for $3M+ single-family homes in one neighborhood while a two-bedroom condo three miles away is still getting multiple offers. The number that matters is the one specific to what you're buying or selling, not the aggregate.

I pull these numbers regularly for San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Lamorinda, and North Contra Costa County. If you want the current numbers for a specific neighborhood or property type, that's exactly what a Local Market Snapshot below is for.