Morgan Hill's Nine-Day Market and Its Ninety-Four-Day Market Are the Same Market

Which is it: nine days or ninety-four? Pull up three real estate portals this year and look up Morgan Hill's median days on market, and you'll get three different answers, all claiming to describe the same city. One site showed homes moving in about 11 days. Another showed a median of 94. A third, pulling from the actual multiple listing service that Silicon Valley agents use, landed close to the fast number for single-family homes and a much slower one for condos and townhomes.

None of these numbers is wrong. They are measuring different things, and the gap between them is the most useful piece of information a Morgan Hill buyer or seller can have right now, because it points to a market that has split into two speeds at once.

What Each Number Is Actually Counting

A rolling median built from closed sales, the kind Redfin and the MLS itself report, only counts homes that have already sold. By definition, those are the homes that moved. Over the three months ending May 2026, Morgan Hill homes that closed did so after a median of 11 days, a figure that mirrors what MLSListings recorded for single-family closings that same month: a median of 11 days and a sale-to-list ratio of 100 percent. Both numbers describe the winners. A house that has been sitting unsold for four months hasn't closed yet, so it never enters that average.

An active-listing median, the kind Movoto reports, counts everything currently for sale, sold or not. That number is backward-looking in a different way: it captures every listing still waiting for a buyer, including the ones that have been sitting since spring. In August 2026, that median sat at 94 days, essentially unchanged from a year earlier, while the same portal showed the median list price down 4 percent year over year to about $1.25 million.

Put the two together and the story isn't a contradiction. It's a market where the well-priced listings are still moving in under three weeks and the overpriced or dated ones are stretching the average past three months, and both of those things are true on the same street in the same week.

The Market Underneath the Split

The numbers behind that split describe a real shift, not a rounding error. In July 2026, closed sales in Morgan Hill were up compared to a year earlier, yet the median time to sell had climbed sharply from where it stood twelve months prior, and roughly 18 percent of the city's 232 active listings were carrying a public price cut. Inventory itself had thawed after three straight years of tight supply: more homes sitting active, fewer of them brand new to the market in any given week.

That combination, more closings but slower ones, more listings but flatter demand for each, is what a market looks like when urgency drains out of it gradually rather than all at once. Buyers in 2026 have comparison-shopping time the market never gave them in 2021 through 2023. Sellers who list at the comps on day one are still closing quickly. Sellers who test a higher number are the ones adding weeks to the median, because buyers' agents now routinely watch a listing's day count and advise clients to wait out a price drop once it passes the three-week mark.

Segment matters too. MLSListings' May 2026 numbers show single-family homes closing at a median of 11 days while condos and townhomes in the same month closed at a median of 43. A buyer comparing a single-family listing to a townhome listing isn't just comparing two price points. They're comparing two different market speeds.

Why Supply Loosened When the Old Story Said It Couldn't

Part of what explains the thaw is a piece of local history that most home-shopping guides skip. For decades, the pitch for buying in Morgan Hill rested on the idea that the city controls how many homes get built each year, which was true under Measure S, the 2016 voter-approved growth ordinance that capped the population at 58,200 through 2035 and limited new residential allotments to 215 a year.

That system has been preempted by state law since January 1, 2020, when the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, known as SB 330, suspended local growth-control systems like Morgan Hill's. That preemption has since been extended through 2030. In practice, the scarcity story many buyers still repeat at open houses describes a policy that hasn't applied in more than six years. The Village at Madrone, an affordable housing project built by Jemcor on a 7.5-acre parcel at Monterey Road and Madrone Parkway, used the state's density bonus law to build at 80 percent higher density than the old zoning allowed, with exemptions from the city's usual height, floor-area, and setback rules. The Magnolias, a 65-unit project a few blocks away on Monterey Road, drew partly on Santa Clara County's 2016 Measure A affordable housing bond and targets households earning between 30 and 50 percent of the area's median income.

The city has already produced 2,203 homes against a state-assigned goal of 928 for the 2015 to 2023 housing cycle, or 237 percent of target. That is not a growth-capped market. It is a market that added real supply faster than its own reputation suggests, and 2026's slower, more price-sensitive conditions are one visible result.

What This Looks Like Street by Street

The two-speed pattern shows up differently depending on where in Morgan Hill you're looking.

Jackson Oaks, the hillside community in the city's east foothills that dates back to 1971, still commands a premium for its valley and mountain views, and homes there typically come with an HOA that includes shared pools and a community store. That kind of amenity-backed inventory tends to hold buyer interest even when the broader market slows.

Holiday Lake Estates, a neighboring hillside community, markets itself on proximity to Downtown Morgan Hill and to major employers up the valley, including Facebook, Amazon, and Google, according to recent listing descriptions. Listings there lean on views toward the Henry Coe foothills as much as on square footage.

Paradise Valley, on the west side, and Madrone, toward Coyote Valley to the north, pull a different kind of buyer: relocators looking for Santa Clara County schools at a discount to what the same square footage costs in Cupertino or Saratoga. That far-north edge of the city sits close enough to San Jose that school assignment isn't automatic. Depending on the parcel, a buyer could land in Morgan Hill Unified or cross into Oak Grove or East Side Union boundaries, and that distinction can move a comp more than a kitchen remodel does. Anyone pricing or offering on a home in that zone should confirm the district before anchoring to a neighboring sale.

Downtown Morgan Hill and the Barrett Place area, meanwhile, see the fastest turnover among the city's lower-priced inventory, the kind of starter and move-up stock that keeps selling close to list even while the median across the whole city stretches out.

What To Actually Do With These Numbers

If you're selling, the single most useful question to ask about any market stat someone hands you is what population it's counting. A fast number built from closed sales tells you what a well-priced home can do. A slow number built from active listings tells you what happens to a home that missed that window. Both are true, and pricing at the comps from day one is what keeps you inside the fast story instead of contributing to the slow one.

If you're buying, the same divergence works in your favor. A market where 18 percent of listings already carry a price cut and the active-listing median sits well above the closed-sale median is a market with real room to negotiate on anything that has been sitting, even while the freshest, best-prepared listings still move in under three weeks.

A Few Direct Questions

Is Morgan Hill a buyer's market or a seller's market right now? Neither label fits cleanly. Recently listed, well-priced single-family homes are still closing in a median of about 11 days as of the three months ending May 2026, while the broader active-listing pool, including homes that have sat for months, was showing a median of 94 days in August 2026. The honest answer depends on which slice of inventory you're looking at.

Does Morgan Hill still limit how many homes can be built each year? Not currently. The city's 1977 growth-control system, updated by Measure S in 2016, has been suspended since the state's Housing Crisis Act took effect in 2020, and that suspension runs through 2030.

Why do condos and townhomes seem to move slower than single-family homes here? MLSListings' May 2026 figures show single-family homes closing at a median of 11 days against 43 days for condos and townhomes in the same month, reflecting a smaller and more price-sensitive buyer pool for attached housing in Morgan Hill right now.

Numbers like these change month to month, and the right read on any single listing depends on details a spreadsheet won't show you. If you're weighing a purchase or a sale in Morgan Hill and want someone to walk through what the current split actually means for your address, Amy Martinez is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.