Marin: February 2026 Market Stats

The new year's market just begins to wake up in January, but buyers typically jump in much faster than new listings arrive on the market. Though new listing activity begins to rise quickly in the last 2 weeks of January - after hitting its annual low count in December - it still lags buyer demand. So right from the start of the year, there is a dynamic of increasing demand competing for an insufficient supply of listings, and competition, normally characterized by fast sales and overbidding of asking prices, is the biggest factor in home-price appreciation.

This imbalance in supply and demand commonly runs through the spring months, making them the most heated selling season of the year: This is illustrated in almost all the standard measures of market conditions. (Last year, this seasonal dynamic had the wind sucked out of it by the tariff shock.) In the Bay Area, the "spring" market often begins in February.

The January sales statistics illustrated in this report mostly reflect the very slow holiday market of December and early January when the offers were negotiated and accepted, which is why January typically sees very low sales volumes - often the lowest of the year - and weaker demand stats. These can be expected to shift rapidly in the coming months.

Interest rates are near multi-year lows and stock markets, though recently volatile, remain at or not too far off all-time highs. Al boom wealth is gradually spreading through the Bay Area. Though national consumer confidence remains low and employment concerns continue, they don't appear to be seriously impacting the Bay Area. As has been the case in the past 2 years, more affluent buyers seem poised to play an outsized role in demand - and Marin is one of the most affluent counties in the country. With these factors in mind, and barring new political/economic shocks, we anticipate an early and heated spring market.