Palo Alto neighborhoods, one by one Palo Alto is not one market.
Buyers respond differently across Palo Alto—by neighborhood, architecture, lot size, condition, and the homes competing nearby. Start with the citywide snapshot, then choose a neighborhood to see what sold and how your home may compare.
1206 Palo Alto single-family homes closed October 15, 2025 to October 15, 2026. Select a neighborhood to explore the recorded sales included in that area.
Palo Alto Hills
1206 closed Palo Alto single-family sales are included in the citywide summary for the stated period. Neighborhood totals may differ where a record could not be assigned to one of the displayed neighborhood categories.
What recent sales suggest about price bands
These figures compare each home’s sale price with the price it first asked. They show how homes in different price bands performed during this period; they do not predict what any particular home will sell for.
The results reflect many factors at once, including preparation, presentation, pricing, competition, timing, and negotiation. Treat the table as context for a pricing conversation, not as a formula.
How results varied by price range
Buyers consider different alternatives at different price points. This breakdown helps us focus on the part of the market most relevant to your home.
In this sample the Over $7M band came out weakest against first asking (−3.4% from 43 sales ) and Under $3M strongest (+7.0% from 124 sales ). Most of the activity sat in $3M – $4.5M, with 148 sales. This is what these homes did, not a rule about what yours will do.
| First asked | Sales | Against first ask | Reached it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $3M | 124 | +7.0% | 77% |
| $3M – $4.5M | 148 | +6.5% | 78% |
| $4.5M – $7M | 87 | +6.6% | 74% |
| Over $7M | 43 | −3.4% | 33% |
Pricing strategy becomes especially important in the higher price bands, where the sample is smaller and buyer demand can be more selective. A property-specific analysis is essential.
How recent sales compared with original asking prices
This comparison shows the median sale price as a percentage of the original asking price for each neighborhood during the stated period. It describes how the homes in the sample performed; it does not measure neighborhood quality or predict the result for one property. Small samples can produce large-looking percentages, so read the sale count beside each figure. City-wide: +5.6%.
Recent median sale prices by neighborhood
Median prices and price-per-square-foot figures help show the range of homes that sold in each area. They are not a valuation for one property. Differences in lot size, architecture, condition, location, and sale mix can materially affect the comparison.
Price per square foot is a comparison tool, not a substitute for a property-specific valuation.
What the recent sample shows by home configuration
Stories, square footage, lot size, age, and neighborhood are connected variables. This comparison describes the homes in the sample; it does not isolate the effect of being one or two stories.
Single story248 sales
- Median price
- $3.59M
- House
- 1,627 sq ft
- Lot
- 6,880 sq ft
- Typically built
- 1951
- Against first ask
- +6.4%
Two story126 sales
- Median price
- $5.38M
- House
- 2,817 sq ft
- Lot
- 7,498 sq ft
- Typically built
- 1974
- Against first ask
- +3.8%
In this sample, two story homes were larger and had higher median sale prices. Measured against first asking prices, single story homes came out ahead of the other group. That may reflect price band, location, condition, and the mix of homes — not stories alone.
How to use this page
What do these numbers mean for your home?
Citywide numbers are a starting point. The most useful comparison is usually a smaller group of homes near yours. Good market data should make a decision clearer, not make it for you.
If a move is on your mind, the next question is where your home fits—and what selling or keeping it would mean for what comes next.
That means looking at homes genuinely comparable to yours in setting, size, lot, condition and buyer appeal, and at how those homes were prepared, priced, introduced and negotiated. Market data establishes the context; the property-specific plan is where the practical decisions happen.
Prefer to text? Text Maggie at 650.709.5588.
Not planning to sell? That’s fine.
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Sometimes homeowners simply want a current perspective on the house they’ve lived in for years — how it fits today’s market, what I would or wouldn’t change, or what recent nearby sales may mean for it.
I’m happy to stop by and give you my perspective. No need to prepare the house, and no selling timeline required.
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Thank you. I’ll reach out personally to talk about what would be helpful.
— Maggie
Neighborhood by neighborhood
Every neighborhood has a different mix of homes, history, and buyer expectations.
Citywide numbers provide context, but a property-specific comparison usually starts closer to home. Each neighborhood page brings together recent sales, typical property characteristics, and local context so you can ask better questions about your own address.
- Crescent Park A designed subdivision rather than a grid filled in house by house — curving streets laid to the creek, half-acre lots, and a price floor written into the 1924 deeds. 29 sales in the last year
- Downtown Palo Alto The original 1889 town — and a residential area where a street-parking permit is part of what you are buying. 18 sales in the last year
- Community Center Its identity comes from civic buildings rather than a subdivision plan — a Birge Clark campus of theatre, library, museum and park, with a late Eichler pocket dropped into the same grid. 28 sales in the last year
- Green Gables One of the first two Eichler neighbourhoods in the country on the National Register — and the tract where Eichler first hired real architects. 40 sales in the last year
- Professorville A National Register district that is also locally regulated — and the houses were commissioned by named Stanford professors from architects they knew. 18 sales in the last year
- Old Palo Alto Never part of Stanford’s town — this was the Seale family’s cattle ranch, auctioned in 1904 and annexed in 1917, which is why the lots are deeper and the houses are a generation later. 38 sales in the last year
- Midtown Seven Eichler tracts, a Mexican land-grant hacienda site, and the expressway vote that split the city and created its politics. 43 sales in the last year
- South Palo Alto Not a neighborhood — a bucket. Once Midtown, Ventura, Green Gables, Green Acres and Barron Park are given their own MLS areas, everything else south of Oregon Expressway falls in here. What is actually inside it is the densest concentration of Joseph Eichler’s work anywhere. 95 sales in the last year
- College It carried the name "Palo Alto" before Leland Stanford did — and gave it up in a settlement for $1,000. 28 sales in the last year
- Ventura The original Mayfield townsite and Palo Alto’s industrial edge — a working district whose building stock has turned over more than most of the city’s. 10 sales in the last year
- Barron Park It was county land, not Palo Alto, until November 1975 — and it still looks it: no sidewalks on most streets, and a donkey pasture at the center of it. 39 sales in the last year
- Green Acres Two neighborhood units rather than one, on a Mexican land grant bought by a Californiana businesswoman — and a neighborhood whose recent history was settled at the ballot box. 11 sales in the last year
- Palo Alto Hills Most of it is zoned Open Space with a ten-acre minimum lot — and building a single house needs a City Council vote. 13 sales in the last year
About these figures
Where the numbers come from.
- Source and period
- MLSListings, by way of Maggie’s own export. Palo Alto homes of type Residential Single Family, status Sold, closing October 15, 2025 to October 15, 2026.
- Sales included
- 1206 closed Palo Alto single-family sales are included in the citywide summary for the stated period. Neighborhood totals may differ where a record could not be assigned to one of the displayed neighborhood categories.
- Incomplete records
- 796 sales came out of the export without coordinates, so they are counted in the citywide total and do not appear on the map or in a neighborhood figure. Where a sale carries no sale-to-asking ratio, no square footage or no days-on-market value, it is left out of that figure only and the sample size beside it says so. Duplicate records are removed on the MLS number before anything is computed.
- First asking price, not the final one
- Every percentage on this page compares the close price with the original asking price — not a price the home had been reduced to. A home asking $4.5M, cut to $4.1M and sold at $4.2M appears here as below its asking price, because it was.
- Neighborhood assignment
- From the neighborhood recorded against each sale in the export. Where the export carries none, the sale stays in the citywide figures and out of the neighborhood ones; it is not inferred from an address.
- Price per square foot
- Close price divided by the living area reported to the MLS, computed per home and then taken as the median — not as total price divided by total area. Homes with no reported square footage are excluded from that figure. Price per square foot is a comparison tool, not a substitute for a property-specific valuation.
- As of
- October 16, 2026
These figures describe past sales and are not an appraisal, valuation, or prediction for a specific property.
Recent work
Local knowledge, put to work
I use market research to guide real decisions: where to invest in preparation, how to present a home’s strengths, and how to position it among the choices buyers have.
