Published October 2, 2026 in Market Update

Homes That Sold in Month 1 Got More Than They Asked

By Momi Gonzales

Real estate, market update clean 91913

I pulled every lived-in home sale in the 91913 market and cut them one way: how long it took to sell. Month 1 against every group after. The gap in what sellers got is the story. These numbers stop on October 2, 2026.

Homes that sold in month 1 got back more than they asked, and that gap only grows with time.

419 homes found a buyer in their first month on the market. The typical one sold in 11 days. It got 100.8% of what it first asked. That means sellers in month 1 were not just getting their price. They were beating it.

Month 2 is where the slide starts. Homes that sold in month 2 got 98.8% of what they first asked. That is a 2-point drop from month 1. The typical month-2 home sold for $830,000, which is $45,000 less than the typical month-1 home.

By month 3, sellers got 96.6% of what they first asked. By month 4, it was 96.4%. Homes that took over 6 months got 94.9%. The typical one sold for $731,500, against $875,000 for month-1 homes. That is a $143,500 gap in the middle sold price between the fastest and the slowest group.

Two homes on the same street in Haddington say it plainly. One on Calle Oxton was on the market 3 days. It asked $779,900 and sold for $779,900. One on Avenida Tealing was on the market 190 days. It asked $817,900 and sold for $798,900. Both homes were 1,621 square feet. The one that waited longer asked more and got less.

The favorite lost one round: the biggest homes took longer and gave back more.

You might expect the priciest homes to hold firm. They did not always. Homes priced at $1.1M and up got 98.8% of what they first asked. Homes priced at $650K to $800K got 100% of what they first asked. The mid-range beat the top end on price accuracy.

The same pattern shows up by size. Homes between 1,500 and 2,500 square feet got 100% of what they first asked and sold in 29 days. Homes between 3,500 and 5,000 square feet got 97.6% and took 22 days. Bigger homes moved faster but gave back more on price.

Montecito is the surprise at the neighborhood level. It had the fastest typical sale of any neighborhood in the data at 22 days. But sellers there got 97.6% of what they first asked, one of the lower figures in the group. Fast does not always mean full price.

Otay Ranch Village flipped that. Sellers there got 99.1% of what they first asked and sold in 21 days. Only 2 homes gave up out of 27 that sold.

What this means if you are selling or buying right now.

If you are selling, the first 30 days are not just important. They are the whole game. Homes that sold in month 1 got 100.8% of what they first asked. Homes that took over 6 months got 94.9%. The market does not reward waiting. It rewards pricing right from day one. Right now, 48.1% of the 81 homes for sale in this market have already dropped their price, with a typical cut of $30,000. Those sellers are catching up to where they should have started.

If you are buying, the national picture gives you a little more air. The months' supply of existing homes for sale reached 4.9 months in August 2026, its highest level in over 10 years (NAR). That is the national number, not this zip code, where supply sits at 2.2 months and still favors sellers. But the 30-year fixed rate averaged 7.28% as of October 1, 2026, up from 6.34% one year ago (Freddie Mac). That rate matters when you are deciding how hard to push on price. A seller who has been on the market 90 days and already cut $30,000 is in a different conversation than one who listed last week.