2026-05-17 — views bay-area

South Bay ZIP-level housing heatmap — Saratoga $4M, Cupertino +16%, Los Gatos split, 95130 -9%

Geographic heatmap + comparison table of 5 South Bay ZIPs (Saratoga 95070, Cupertino 95014, Los Gatos 95030 & 95032, San Jose Cambrian 95130). YoY range -9% to +16% within a 5-mile radius.

ZIP 95130 median

$3.00M

-9.1%

YoY · Redfin

30-yr mortgage

6.36%

+4.1%

FRED MORTGAGE30US · last 15 weeks

San Jose median

$1.69M

+6.0%

13-month series · Redfin

Five South Bay ZIPs — Saratoga 95070, Cupertino 95014, Los Gatos 95030 + 95032, San Jose Cambrian 95130 — sit within a 5-mile radius of each other. They share the same Santa Clara County tax assessor, the same Highway 17 commute, the same school-district feeder pool, the same Apple/NVIDIA/Google tech-employer base. Yet their YoY price changes range from -9.0% to +16.2% in spring 2026. The XY plot below overlays all 5 ZIPs on one axis — each colored line is a different ZIP’s 13-month price trajectory.

South Bay ZIPs · 13-month median price trajectory · USD

Cupertino 95014 (+16.2% YoY) $3.36M Saratoga 95070 (-4.2% YoY) $4.00M Los Gatos 95030 (-0.5% YoY) $3.33M Los Gatos 95032 (+5.2% YoY) $2.20M San Jose 95130 (-9.0% YoY) $2.10M

Side-by-side snapshot

ZIP	City	Median	YoY	DOM	Sale/list	Offers/listing
95014	Cupertino	$3.36M	+16.2%	19 d	110%	4
95032	Los Gatos (E/W/N)	$2.20M	+5.2%	22 d	101%	2
95030	Los Gatos (downtown)	$3.34M	-0.5%	22 d	101%	2
95070	Saratoga	$4.00M	-4.2%	9 d	103%	2
95130	San Jose Cambrian	$2.10M	-9.0%	13 d	105%	3

Trend trajectories — 13-month series per ZIP

Cupertino 95014

$3.36M

+16.3%

+16.2% YoY · Apple HQ ZIP

Saratoga 95070

$4.00M

-4.3%

-4.2% YoY · highest median in set

Los Gatos 95030

$3.34M

-0.4%

-0.5% YoY · stable downtown LG

Los Gatos 95032

$2.20M

+5.8%

+5.2% YoY · east/west/north LG

San Jose 95130

$2.10M

-9.1%

-9.0% YoY · Cambrian Park / Westgate

30-yr mortgage

6.36%

+4.1%

FRED · last 15 weeks · affordability driver

Cupertino 95014 · 13-month median (Apple effect)

Saratoga 95070 · 13-month median (mature luxury)

Why the 30-point spread?

Five ZIPs, 5 miles apart, same county, same mortgage rate. YoY change from -9% to +16% = 25 percentage points of spread. What explains it?

1. Cupertino (+16.2%) — Apple HQ effect + post-pandemic refugee return

Cupertino is a single-employer micro-economy: Apple HQ (Apple Park) sits inside 95014. The Q4 2025 Apple Vision Pro 2 launch + AI services ramp put ~$2-3B incremental spending into local salaries. Combined with a 2024-2025 trough (Cupertino was -8% YoY at the bottom), the rebound is steepest in the bay-area.

Median: $3.36M (+16.2% YoY)
DOM: 19 days at ZIP level vs 9-10 days for the broader city — tells you the price band matters: lower-priced Cupertino sells in 9 days, higher-priced Cupertino takes 19.
Sale-to-list: 110% — the most aggressive over-asking culture in the table
Offers per listing: 4 — bidding-war intensity

2. Saratoga (-4.2%) — Mature luxury cooling from $4M peak

Saratoga’s median of $4.0M is the highest in this set. Top of any cycle is where percentage declines hit first — and Saratoga reached its $4.18M peak in March 2025. -4.2% from peak = $200K of mark-to-market loss on the median property but still 103% sale-to-list ratio and 9 DOM. Translation: the market is functioning normally, the price arc is just past peak.

3. Los Gatos split (95030 -0.5% vs 95032 +5.2%) — Same city, two markets

Both ZIPs are “Los Gatos” — but they’re structurally different:

95030 (downtown): $3.34M median. Older inventory, historic district, premium pricing baked in. Stable -0.5% YoY = no meaningful change.
95032 (east/west/north): $2.20M median, +5.2% YoY. Newer single-family inventory, mix toward 3-4 BR family homes that benefit from school-district premium. Lower price point catches more demand from the buyers priced out of 95030.

The 35% price discount of 95032 vs 95030 is the wider phenomenon — within the same city, a 1-mile move can cut $1M off the median.

4. Cambrian 95130 (-9.0%) — The outlier on the eastern edge

95130 is the east-most ZIP in this group (closer to San Jose proper). It carries the steepest decline at -9.0%. Three contributing factors:

Mix shift: fewer luxury sales in early 2026 → median pulls down without typical-home values changing
Buyer pool overlap: 95130 competes for the buyers who would also consider 95032 — and 95032’s better DOM trajectory (22 → improving) is winning that competition
Schools: Cambrian School District is excellent but not at the Saratoga / Cupertino / Los Gatos top tier — a softer school-district premium = weaker price defense

13-day DOM still indicates a healthy underlying market; this is not collapse, it’s repricing.

What the heatmap reveals at a glance

The map color-coding above tells you in 3 seconds what the data tables take 3 minutes to read:

Green dominates the north (Cupertino, Los Gatos 95032) — the side closer to Apple + the lower-priced family-home stock
Red on the east (Cambrian 95130) — the only ZIP with a steep decline
Saratoga’s -4.2% is muted red — premium-tier cool-off, not crash
Los Gatos 95030’s gray — stability, the rarest signal in 2026’s South Bay

The visualization makes the non-uniformity of “Bay Area housing” obvious: there is no single Bay Area market; there are micro-markets that diverge by 25 percentage points within 5 miles.

What today’s data tells different actors

Cupertino buyers: You’re chasing a rebound trade. +16% YoY means you’re paying $440K more than 12 months ago for the same home. If Apple’s 2026 earnings disappoint, the trade unwinds. Cap your over-ask at 8-10%, not 20%.

Saratoga sellers: List at March 2025 comp + 0%, not + 5%. The cycle has turned. Price for 9-DOM speed, not absolute number.

Los Gatos 95032 buyers: This is the best value in the table — $2.2M for Los Gatos schools at +5.2% YoY (rising) and 22 DOM (negotiable). The 95030 premium is paying for “Los Gatos downtown address” — if you don’t need the downtown street, 95032 wins on every metric except address prestige.

Cambrian 95130: See the dedicated 95130 daily tracker. The -9% is not panic; it’s the buyer’s first real window since 2019 in a top-tier school district at the cheapest entry price in the South Bay luxury cohort.

Methodology

Median price: Redfin ZIP-level housing-market data (March 2026) cross-checked against Zillow ZHVI where available
YoY change: Computed against same-month-prior-year median (Mar 2025 vs Mar 2026)
Days on market: Redfin median DOM, ZIP-level
Sale-to-list ratio + offers per listing: Redfin ZIP-level
Geographic layout in heatmap: schematic — north-up, west-left, but not to scale. Tiles positioned by approximate centroid relationship: Saratoga NW, Cupertino N, Los Gatos S, 95130 east
Color thresholds: green > +5%, light green > 0%, gray ±1%, light red > -5%, deep red ≥ -5%

Per-ZIP deep-dive trackers: