From October 3 through October 18, Toll Brothers is offering one year of HOA dues on select homesites at The Station, its Sunnyvale community of Terraces townhomes and Outlook condos. A Sunnyvale owner listing a resale townhome this month is competing with that offer, and with a few other new-construction sales offices still open around town.
That competition explains a lot about Sunnyvale's 2026 market. On the portals, prices for houses and for townhomes both look about 8 to 9 percent lower than last year. Only one of those drops is a real discount. A Sunnyvale townhome got cheaper this year. A Sunnyvale house mostly didn't. The space between the two rungs of the ladder got wider.
Two drops that look alike on paper
These are the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors figures for Sunnyvale, August 2026 compared with August 2025.
| Sunnyvale, August | Single-family 2025 | Single-family 2026 | Condo/townhome 2025 | Condo/townhome 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median price | $2,780,000 | $2,555,000 | $1,298,944 | $1,175,000 |
| Median $/sq ft | $1,437 | $1,431 | $877 | $788 |
| % of list price received | 107% | 107% | 100% | 103% |
| Average days on market | 17 | 13 | 62 | 32 |
| Closed sales | 33 | 41 | 28 | 32 |
The median house fell about 8.1 percent and the median condo or townhome fell about 9.5 percent. Read the medians alone and Sunnyvale looks like it went on sale across the board. The price-per-square-foot row tells a different story, and it's the row that adjusts for how big the homes that sold actually were.
The house drop comes from which houses sold
Sunnyvale single-family homes sold for a median $1,437 per square foot in August 2025 and $1,431 in August 2026. That's less than half a percent apart. If the median price fell $225,000 and the price per square foot barely moved, the August 2026 batch of sales was made up of smaller or less expensive houses. Buyers didn't get a discount.
The rest of the single-family numbers point the same way. In August 2026, houses sold at 107 percent of list price on average, the same as a year earlier, and the average time on market dropped from 17 days to 13. Supply did grow from July to August 2026, with active inventory rising from 25 to 41 houses, but 41 houses also closed in August. That's about one month of supply, which still favors sellers.
July shows a similar picture. Single-family price per square foot went from $1,460 in July 2025 to $1,413 in July 2026, down about 3 percent, while the median price slipped from $2,510,000 to $2,480,000. That's a slight softening at most, and nothing like the drop the headline numbers suggest.
The townhome drop shows up in every size-adjusted number
Condos and townhomes are different. Median price per square foot fell from $877 to $788 between August 2025 and August 2026, about 10 percent. July was almost identical, going from $912 to $809, about 11 percent lower. Two months in a row, the same segment, about the same decline after adjusting for size. That's what a real repricing looks like.
The odd part is that these townhomes sold faster and for more than asking. Average days on market fell from 62 to 32, and the share of list price received went from 100 percent to 103 percent. Lower prices and quicker over-asking sales fit together if sellers dropped their asking prices first. A townhome listed at a realistic number draws several buyers, they bid it a little above list, and it closes in a month instead of two. The bidding happens against a lower starting point.
Inventory supports that reading. In August 2026, 63 Sunnyvale condos and townhomes were on the market against 32 sales, about two months of supply. A year earlier it was 45 listings against 28 sales. In the same month, houses had about half as much supply relative to demand.
Where the extra townhomes are coming from
Sunnyvale's own housing report shows the imbalance. In 2025 the city completed 33 detached single-family homes, compared with 240 single-family attached homes, 1,067 homes in buildings of five or more units, and 72 ADUs. Detached houses are close to a fixed supply. Townhomes and condos keep arriving.
Resale sellers in early October 2026 are up against new construction:
- The Station by Toll Brothers. Quick-move-in Terraces townhomes are listed from $1.479M to $2.317M. Outlook condo move-in listings show $999,000, $1.354M and $1.699M. On top of that is the HOA-dues offer on select homesites from October 3 through 18.
- Vida by Homes Built for America, on East Fremont Avenue. The builder's page says "Final Opportunity," with homes from $1,599,000. The only plan shown as available is Plan 7, a 1,931-square-foot three-bedroom, three-bath home.
More is approved. On August 24, 2026, Sunnyvale's Planning Commission approved City Ventures' plan to replace a one-story industrial building at 1484 Kifer Road with 137 townhome-style condominiums in 13 three-story buildings near Lawrence Station. The Mercury News reported that 129 of those homes are planned as three-bedroom units. In February, the commission voted 6–0 to approve Sunnyvale Park Place at 510 and 920 De Guigne Drive, with 329 for-sale homes plus 41 ADUs.
No 2026 source we found directly blames new supply for Sunnyvale's weaker townhome prices. That link is our interpretation. It does fit the evidence: the segment gaining units is the one that repriced, and the segment the city barely adds to held its price per square foot. Ownership costs probably matter too. A June 2026 San Francisco Chronicle report put California's median HOA dues near $300 a month and said Bay Area dues can reach several thousand. A monthly cost like that gets folded into what a buyer is willing to pay up front.
What a wider gap does to the ladder
In August 2025, a Sunnyvale condo or townhome sold for about 61 percent of a house's price per square foot. By August 2026 that was about 55 percent. In dollars, the gap went from $560 per square foot to $643. That works out to about $83,000 more for every 1,000 square feet of house compared with townhome.
That cuts both ways for a first-time buyer. Getting into a townhome is cheaper than it was a year ago, and in this segment the buyer has more negotiating power than the 103 percent figure suggests, because builders are setting the bar with incentives. Moving up later costs more if this pattern continues, because the townhome you'd be selling lost value per square foot while the house you'd be buying didn't.
For someone comparing Sunnyvale with nearby cities, that changes how to read the numbers. A house here has been holding its value and still draws multiple offers. Townhomes trade at a lower price that's still adjusting, and new-construction offers sit right next to resale listings.
Some practical questions follow:
- Buying a resale townhome: What are the HOA dues, and how do they compare with what a builder is covering this month?
- Selling a townhome: What do Toll Brothers' quick-move-in homes and Vida's remaining plan cost per square foot compared with yours?
- Planning to move up later: How much more equity would the move to a house take if the per-square-foot gap stays near $643?
FAQ
Is there September 2026 data yet? Not as of October 4, 2026. SCCAOR's monthly page and the MLSListings report archive both list August 2026 as the latest month.
How much should one month count? Not much by itself. Sunnyvale had about 30 to 45 closings per segment in each of July and August, so any single month can swing. The case rests on July and August showing the same pattern.
When will the Kifer Road and De Guigne Drive homes come to market? Both projects have Planning Commission approval, and neither has a delivery date in the sources we reviewed. Approval adds future supply. It doesn't add homes for sale today.
If you own a Sunnyvale townhome and want to know where it stands against this fall's builder incentives, Homes by Brianna will price it against both the resale numbers and the new-construction competition. Get your free home valuation and we'll walk you through it.
