A buyer who checks Burlingame's August 2026 median against last August would see a market that barely moved. The single-family median was $3,168,888, up 2.1% from $3,102,450 in August 2025. Over the same period, the median price per square foot rose from $1,417 to $1,584, about 12%. The median stayed level because the homes that sold were smaller. Each square foot cost more.

That gap matters most at the offer stage. Suppose a buyer comps a 2,800-square-foot house against a citywide median built from 2,100-square-foot sales. That buyer is pricing a larger house off a number set by smaller ones. These figures come from the monthly single-family reports the San Mateo County Association of REALTORS® publishes from MLSListings data. Together they show that the price per square foot has reset higher, and the median has been tracking floor plans.

The median moved with the floor plans

Three months of SAMCAR data show what happens. In each one, the median and the price per square foot move in different directions, and home size explains why.

The July-to-August swing shows the effect most clearly. The median fell about 15%, from $3,738,000 to $3,168,888. Price per square foot went up, from $1,485 to $1,584. July's 29 sales averaged 2,794 square feet. August's 13 sales averaged 2,169. With so few closings, a handful of larger houses can lift a month's median, and their absence can drop it. A 15% monthly decline sounds like a price break. Here it reflects a smaller, different set of homes changing hands.

The year-over-year comparison works the same way in the opposite direction. August 2026's sold homes averaged about 7.5% less floor area than August 2025's. That roughly offset the per-square-foot gain and left the median almost unchanged.

The higher per-foot price held all year

A single month of 13 sales is thin evidence, so the next question is whether the per-square-foot gain holds up across a longer stretch. It does.

In every month from January through August 2026, Burlingame's median price per square foot landed between $1,485 and $1,707. In the same eight months of 2025, it ranged from $1,408 to $1,552. All eight 2026 months came in above the 2025 annual figure of $1,449.

The second quarter offers the cleanest comparison, because the homes that sold were nearly the same size in both years.

With average size holding near 2,350 square feet, the median rose about 5% and price per square foot rose about 8%. This is the period in which home size stayed constant, so it is the best read of underlying value. A home of the same size cost more in spring 2026 than in spring 2025, and it sold in half the time.

The overbid percentage tells less than it seems

When buyers compare cities, list-price ratios tend to stand in for heat. In August 2026, Burlingame homes sold at an average of 107% of list price. San Mateo homes sold at 113%, Millbrae at 114%, San Carlos at 108% and Hillsborough at 106%. Read on its own, Burlingame looks like the calmer market.

But a sale-to-list ratio measures how far the final price landed from the asking price. That depends as much on how sellers price as on how hard buyers compete. The faster measures point the other way. Burlingame's August average of 11 days on market beat San Mateo's 13, San Carlos's 21 and Hillsborough's 33, and trailed only Millbrae's 8. Burlingame's months of inventory was 0.8. Its $1,584 median per square foot was above San Mateo's $1,415 and San Carlos's $1,445. In Burlingame, the per-foot price and the speed of sale are the better gauges of competition. The overbid percentage is not.

Why square footage carries the price

Square footage is scarce in Burlingame for reasons that go back more than a century, and newer rules make it harder to add.

Much of the city's street grid was set by subdivisions with very different lot shapes:

• Lyon & Hoag was marketed for its closeness to Burlingame station, with lots 50 feet wide.
• Burlingame Park started as a planned development in the 1890s. Its five Arthur Page Brown cottages from 1892 stood between El Camino Real, Pepper, Floribunda and Bellevue avenues.
• Willborough, between Palm Drive, Oak Grove Avenue and California Drive, is a small-lot enclave that includes a documented group of 22 modest Tudor homes built during the Depression.
• Ray Park was carved out of the Mills Estate in the 1940s, on 114 acres west of El Camino Real. A 1963 newspaper account, reproduced by the Burlingame Voice, described Mills Estate parcels as wider than the narrower lots common elsewhere in town and noted flat-roofed Eichler construction there.

On a narrow lot, adding floor area is the expensive part of a remodel. Burlingame's tree code adds another limit. Under the Urban Reforestation and Tree Protection chapter, replaced by Ordinance 2037 in December 2024, any private tree measuring 44 inches or more in circumference at 54 inches above grade is protected. Removing, structurally altering or excessively pruning one requires a permit.

This is where buyers tend to get surprised during a transaction. The code requires the seller to disclose, on a city form, whether the property has protected trees. That disclosure is due no less than seven business days before the sale closes. If the seller can't tell whether a tree on or next to the lot qualifies, the code directs them to request documentation from the city. Seven business days before closing usually falls well after contingencies are written. A buyer who is counting on an addition or an ADU should ask about protected trees before the offer goes in, not wait for the form. When added square footage is the main way to change a home's value, a mature oak in the wrong spot is a pricing fact.

No new supply on the near-term calendar

With 0.6 months of inventory in Q2 2026, the obvious hope is that new construction loosens things. The city's own calendar doesn't point to that soon.

At a September 21 study session, the City Council reviewed options for housing on the Bayfront. The council could rezone for mixed-use development, allow housing in clusters along parts of Old Bayshore Highway and Airport Boulevard, or keep the area largely commercial and industrial and allow housing only where state law requires it. The San Mateo Daily Journal reported that about five projects are planned there, including Peninsula Crossing at 1200 to 1340 Old Bayshore Highway, but none is likely to be shovel-ready right away. Mayor Michael Brownrigg said, "That doesn't mean every piece of land has to be redeveloped this week." City staff are now studying the housing alternatives for the Bayfront Specific Plan. Whatever they decide, any resulting homes would be multifamily and years away, not new single-family lots.

The Broadway Caltrain grade separation runs on a similarly long timeline. As of June 2026, the San Mateo County Transportation Authority was planning a $21.6 million investment to move the project from about 65% design to 100% design by 2029. Construction is projected for 2029 through 2032. Caltrain brought the bare-bones construction estimate down to $380 million by dropping the Broadway station and the temporary shoofly tracks, according to the Daily Journal's June 9 report. The full project estimate is still $615 million. A buyer near Broadway is buying into a multi-year construction schedule. The dates are projections tied to a pending federal grant, not a signed contract.

FAQ

Is September 2026 data available yet? Not as of early October. SAMCAR's newest monthly single-family report covers August 2026 and was released September 16. The September file was not yet posted when this was written.

Did Burlingame prices drop 15% in August? The median fell about 15% from July. Price per square foot rose over the same month, and August had 13 sales against July's 29, of noticeably smaller homes. The data points to a change in which homes sold rather than a broad price decline.

Is there public price data for individual Burlingame neighborhoods? SAMCAR's public reports are city-level. More detailed statistics are available to MLS subscribers. Neighborhood-level pricing for a particular offer has to come from a comp analysis of recent sales.

Pricing a Burlingame home off the median means pricing off the floor plans that happened to sell that month. The Palermo Properties Team builds offers and list prices from per-square-foot comps, lot geometry and protected-tree status, checked before the contract is written. Request a Strategic Market Plan and we'll show you what your target home's square footage is trading for right now.