Samantha Andres and Brandon Smith looked for their dream house in the East Bay with a two-car garage, three bedrooms and a man cave for almost five months in 2024, to no avail. Experts say they could have a better chance to find it this year without having to pay too much more.
Alameda County home prices are predicted to grow 5% this year, reaching a median price of $1.7 million, and a modest bump in the number of homes on the market is in the offing, real estate professionals said.
One unexpected wild card: The Los Angeles wildfires. The state’s already-faltering home insurance market could be affected by the billions of dollars in expected new insurance claims, and this could make for fewer coverage options and fewer policies for homeowners statewide.
“The tightening of the insurance market could lead to increased premiums and more stringent underwriting standards, affecting both current homeowners and prospective buyers,” said Geri Stern, a Berkeley real estate agent.
“I expect home insurance premiums to go up,” said Nico Veran, a broker with M.A. Hays Insurance Brokers in Richmond. Also, Veran recommended that buyers of a potential property check with an insurance company to see if the home is in a fire hazard area, which he said could affect premium prices or even coverage—a situation that has been in place for some time.
The impact of the wildfires on home insurance has yet to be determined, but otherwise, 2025 is shaping up to be a year of recovery. The predicted 5% price increase is a sign that the market is stabilizing, in comparison with the wild ride of the last few years.
“2024 wasn’t a great year for real estate,” said Tia Hunnicutt, a real estate agent who specializes in Alameda County.
The wild ride started in 2020, when the pandemic paradoxically sparked a boom in East Bay home sales and prices. Remote work meant San Francisco residents could buy homes in the East Bay and other areas farther away and enjoy more amenities for less money. Also, mortgage interest rates plummeted to historic lows.
Dramatic interest rate hikes in 2022 took the wind out of the market’s sales, because when interest rates go up, monthly mortgage payments go up as well. Rates went from around 3% to as much as 7% in 10 months, buyers lost buying power and the boom went bust in mid-2022.
“We had those little blips when rates went down a little bit, but nothing very dramatic. At the end of 2024 rates actually came back up again even though the anticipation was that they were going to drop,” said Alison Teeman, co-owner of Yovino-Young, Inc., a Berkeley real estate appraisal company.
Oakland home prices dropped 6.6% in November 2024 compared to 2023, to a median price of $805,000—an uncommon development.
Overall, in Alameda County, the price of a single-family detached home increased only 1.9% in November 2024, to $1.1 million, according to Redfin.
However, encouraging signs developed in December, Teeman said.
“It’s interesting—the last three weeks of the year, properties that had been sitting on the market went into contract and closed,” Teeman said. “Certainly some inventory got absorbed and people closed deals at the end of the year, which is usually a dead time.”
Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist, predicted that Alameda County home prices will go up 5% year-over-year, reaching a median price of $1.7 million. Agreeing with Teeman, she said, “I think there will be more homes for sale and more demand.”
Fairweather added, “There has been a shift toward working in the office, which should bolster demand. A lot of people left the Bay Area for remote work, but new jobs are being created in person and that will attract more residents to the Bay Area and more buyers.”
Hunnicutt echoed Fairweather’s assessment. “I do think there are a lot of people who held off last year who are ready to buy.”

That’s good news for Smith and Andres, who want to buy a home in Oakland and are less concerned about price and more focused on amenities.
“It would make it easier. There would be more options as we are looking and going through each of the neighborhoods,” said Andres, who works in marketing at a tech firm.
The couples’ price range is $800,000 to $1.2 million, and they are looking to buy in a safe neighborhood with good schools where they can raise their children, she said.
Looking in Oakland is probably a wise decision, at least in terms of price point.
“Berkeley is looking a lot hotter than Oakland,” Fairweather said. “Berkeley prices are up 6% from last year, and Oakland prices are down 6.6%.
“There are three months of supply in Oakland compared with only one-half month of supply in Berkeley. It’s much more of a seller’s market in Berkeley,” she added.
The number of months of supply tells how many months it would take for all the current homes for sale on the market to sell, given a monthly sales volume.
The more months of supply there are, the more homes there are for buyers to pick from, and according to the law of supply and demand, prices will be lower. A “buyer’s market” means a market with more homes for sale and, generally, lower prices.
Because of the dearth of homes on the market, the East Bay is still a seller’s market. But the balance is shifting, albeit slightly.
Though other statistics for November 2024 were not encouraging, 816 homes sold in Alameda County that month, up 9.7% over the previous year—another good sign.
“There’s a lot of inventory coming up for sale,” said East Bay real estate agent Julie Yuan. “Right now I’m prepping three homes that are going on the market soon. The election is over, interest rates are going to be where they are now—people can’t wait any more. They want to make life happen.”
Agent Anna Bellomo elaborated on Yuan’s remark about interest rates.
“I think a lot of sellers were on the fence about selling and waiting for interest rates to go down in 2024,” said Bellomo, who founded Berkeley real estate brokerage District Homes in 2018.
High interest rates not only diminish buying power, they discourage homeowners from selling, she said. A homeowner with a 3% mortgage interest rate would be disinclined to sell and then have to buy a home with a much higher interest rate.
Like Yuan, Bellomo said she doesn’t believe rates will go down. The hope is, as Yuan said, that both buyers and sellers will become reconciled to the relatively high rates and move ahead anyway.
To others, interest rates remained a wild card, though all agreed they are a crucial factor.
“It’s really going to come down to interest rates,” said David Stark, public affairs officer for the Bay East Association of Realtors. “If we see a significant drop there will be more choices for buyers. But in terms of radical changes in the market: I’m not anticipating any.”
Summing up, Bellomo said, “My optimistic outlook is it’s going to be a little bit similar to 2024, and maybe a little bit better if people realize the market is going to be stable.”