There Are Now 62.6% More Sellers Than Buyers. San Francisco Is One of Five U.S. Metros Still Tilted the Other Way.

Two things published this month are both true. There are more people trying to sell a home in America than at any point in thirteen years of records, relative to the number trying to buy one. And San Francisco is one of five metros in the country where that ratio still runs the other way.

If you own a California home and are deciding whether to list, the distance between those two sentences matters more than the record itself.

What the October 14 report actually says

• ·Redfin’s September buyers-versus-sellers report, released October 14, 2026, estimates 62.6% more home sellers than buyers nationally — the biggest gap in records dating back to 2013
• ·Redfin estimated 928,892 buyers in the market in September, down 2.4% from August and the lowest count in those records, while sellers rose 1.2% to 1,510,784, the most since March 2020
• ·Of the 50 most populous U.S. metros, Redfin counted 41 as buyer’s markets, four as balanced and five as seller’s markets; its threshold for a buyer’s market is more than 10% more sellers than buyers
• ·The five seller’s markets were Nassau County, Montgomery County, Newark, Milwaukee and San Francisco. San Francisco is the only California metro on that list
• ·Nassau County, NY ranked first, with 28.6% fewer sellers than buyers
• ·The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Applications Survey for the week ending October 9, 2026 put seasonally adjusted purchase applications down 4.0% from the prior week, following a 2.1% decline the week before (as reported by citybiz, October 14, 2026)

Why California does not look like the national number

The national seller surplus was built in markets that added listings quickly. California added fewer. The California Association of Realtors’ August 2026 home sales and price report, released September 16, 2026, put the statewide Unsold Inventory Index at 3.7 months, active listings down 6.2% year over year, median days on market at 28, and the statewide median at $901,420.

That is a different shape from a record national seller surplus, and it is also an average across 58 counties. A statewide figure has never priced a specific home, and a national one is further away still.

The Bay Area is the concrete case, and it cuts both ways

Take the Bay Area as the example, because it is both the metro Redfin singled out and the place where a percentage commission costs the most. The same C.A.R. report put the San Francisco Bay Area regional median at $1,272,000, with county medians inside that one region running from $575,000 in Solano to $2,250,000 in San Mateo — one month, one region, a spread above $1.6 million.

Redfin’s “San Francisco” is one metro area, not the nine-county region and certainly not the state. Fresno, Bakersfield, Riverside and Sacramento are their own markets on their own counts, and none of them appeared on that list of five.

Being in a market Redfin classes as seller-leaning is not a promise about your sale price. It is a statement about how many sellers you are standing next to in one month’s data. Realonomie does not forecast prices.

What actually changes for a seller

• ·Count your real competition: the comparable homes active right now in your own submarket, not the national ratio
• ·Price from closed, comparable sales in the last 60 to 90 days — that is the only dataset a buyer’s appraiser will use
• ·Budget for payment-sensitive buyers. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed at an average of 7.40% on October 8, 2026, against 6.30% a year earlier — more than a full point on the same price
• ·Treat the opening number as the decision it is; a listing’s strongest attention arrives in its first weeks and does not come back
• ·This is general market information, not legal, tax or investment advice

The one number a record does not set

You do not set the national buyer count, the Freddie Mac average, or which metro bucket a report files you under. You do set your list price and what the sale itself costs you.

Take a $1,000,000 California home as the anchor. A traditional listing-side commission of about 3% runs roughly $30,000. Realonomie puts your home on the same MLS every agent uses, with a licensed California broker, for $999 at MLS launch — non-refundable, covering photography, signage, the property page and marketing — plus $5,000 from escrow only if the home actually closes. On that $1,000,000 home that is $5,999 in total against roughly $30,000: $24K+ you keep. Above $1,000,000, the closing fee adds $2,500 for each additional million.

See the full fee schedule and real verified results, then get a free estimate of what your home would sell for.