The top 10 cities where homes are selling for well over the asking price — some up to $200K

Would you be willing to pay $200,000 over an already sky-high seven-figure asking price for the privilege of living in a house where a murder took place?

As strange as this sounds, this is what happened recently in Santa Clara, CA, where a property was recently sold for $2.1 million mere months after news surfaced that a Google engineer killed his wife there.

While a $200,000 premium for such a property might seem extreme, it’s also a prime example of how certain markets in America face such a housing shortage, that just about any house will get a deluge of offers—many well over the list price.

In addition to location, timing matters. During the turbocharged, low-interest-rate housing market of the COVID-19 pandemic, bidding wars pushed prices well past what sellers had ever hoped to get.

“The U.S. saw homes sell for the most over asking price in May 2022, when the typical home sold for 3.1% over asking,” says Realtor.com senior economic data analyst Hannah Jones.

In today’s much more sluggish, higher-rate environment, however, these staggering offers have ebbed.

“The typical U.S. home has sold for less than asking since August 2022,” says Jones. “In the first half of 2024, the typical U.S. home sold for 1.9% below asking price.”

Nonetheless, as Santa Clara’s pricey murder house makes clear, certain markets are still hopping with bids. And since knowing where these places are can help you ace whatever your home goals are from buying to selling, we’re here to point out these cash cows so you can act accordingly.

The city where homes sell for the most over asking

To calculate the areas where home sellers are getting the most over asking price, Realtor.com looked at the sale-to-listing price ratio for the 75 largest U.S. metros.

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“The areas where homes are selling the most over list price are mostly located in the Northeast and the West,” says Jones. “Metros in the California Bay Area, such as San Jose and San Francisco, are notoriously competitive, requiring buyers to offer a highly attractive purchase price to win out against other hopeful shoppers. Though inventory has climbed annually in the area, there are still fewer homes for sale than was typical pre-pandemic, cranking the competition up another notch.”

San Jose comes in as No. 1 in these rankings, with homes selling for 6.2% over asking.

Brad Gill , a broker and owner of NextHome Lifestyles , who has worked in the area for more than 20 years, says San Jose’s geography—bordered by the San Francisco Bay and in a valley, makes it difficult for the market to grow.

“It creates a situation where you have really well-paid technology employees who receive large bonuses in stock purchase programs,” he says. “And they’re all competing for a very constrained amount of inventory.”

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Gill adds that the San Jose market has a lot of seasonality to it: There are typically fewer homes on the market in the first quarter of the year, leading to greater competition for the homes that are available. And overall, there have been fewer properties on the market in the past couple of years, thanks in part to higher interest rates. Homeowners are “locked in,” says Gill.

Yet buyers can take heart that while homes are selling for over asking prices in cities such as San Jose, they might not be selling for over-market value.

“A lot of these properties are being listed at 3% to 5% below what they would comp out at, to be more competitive,” says Gill.

Other cities where homes sell for over the asking price

While you might think that paying over the asking price is more common in wealthy cities like New York or San Francisco, the median price of homes in seven of the top 10 markets where sellers get over asking is below $500,000.

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Three of those markets are in Connecticut, a fact that Jones attributes to buyers competing to be within commuting distance of New York City and/or Boston—especially as more employers are requiring workers to return to the office at least a few days a week.

“The Northeast metros where homes sold for the most over asking so far this year have seen high buyer demand and a quick market pace as buyers flock to well-located areas within commuting distance of the region’s major economic hubs,” Jones says. “Buyers in these markets are faced with low inventory and high competition, and therefore must put their very best offer forward to secure a home.”

Curious which cities made the list? Here are the top 10 where homes fetch the most over the asking price, along with the median list price for the area.

San Jose, CA

Median home price: $1.3 million
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 6.2%

Hartford, CT

Median home price: $210,000
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 4.8%

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Median home price: $260,000
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 4.3%

San Francisco, CA

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Median home price: $1.15 million
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 3.6%

Buffalo, NY

Median home price: $220,000
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 3.1%

New Haven, CT

Median home price: $350,000
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 2.7%

Bridgeport, CT

Median home price: $375,000
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 1.9%

Worcester, MA

Median home price: $499,000
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 1.6%

Richmond, VA

Median home price: $379,950
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 1.3%

Boston, MA

Median home price: $949,950
How much homes sell for over the asking price: 1.1%

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