Hidden Truth: What Past Years Tell Milpitas Sellers
Timothy Alston | Broker
Aegis Luxury Real Estate · DRE# 01328224
Published
October 14, 2021
Tech corridor crossroads
What do past years actually tell us about where the housing market stands today? The data shows that despite headlines using words like “cooling” and “slowing,” the market is performing well above the historical averages seen in the years before 2020. Home sales volume, days on market, and offer counts all remain stronger than in most comparable past years, particularly for sellers in competitive Silicon Valley communities.
You know how it goes. You open a news app, and within seconds you are reading about a housing market that is “cooling off” or “losing steam.” And somewhere in the back of your mind, a question forms: should I wait? Is this the wrong time? Have I already missed it?
A lot of people in the Milpitas area are sitting with that exact question right now. But here is the part most people have not stopped to think about yet: the story the headlines are telling and the story the actual data tells are two very different things.
What Does Your Current Situation Actually Look Like?
Before we get into the numbers, think about where you are right now. Are you in a home you have been meaning to sell? Are you watching the market from the sidelines, waiting for some kind of signal that the time is right?
How long have you been waiting? And what is that waiting actually costing you?
Those are not rhetorical questions. They are worth sitting with for a moment, because the answers tend to change the conversation entirely.
In the five years before 2020, the Milpitas market moved steadily, but it moved with more inventory, longer days on market, and fewer competing offers per listing. Sellers often waited weeks for the right buyer. Bidding wars existed but were not a given. Those past years now serve as the clearest comparison point we have, and today’s conditions look dramatically different when placed side by side with that baseline.
What Past Years Tell Us About Sales Volume
Here is something worth considering. When you read that home sales dropped two percent from one month to the next, does that headline tell you anything about where we actually stand historically?
It does not. And that is the part that gets left out.
When you compare current sales volume against the past years leading up to 2020, the numbers tell a very different story. Buyers are still active. Demand has not evaporated. The market is simply returning to a pace that still outperforms most of those past years in meaningful ways. Does that change how you are reading those headlines?
Homes in Milpitas homes for sale continue to attract serious, pre-approved buyers even as broader national narratives shift toward caution. That is not an accident. It reflects the underlying strength of this market.
These were the years that reset everyone’s expectations. Record-low mortgage rates, pent-up buyer demand, and a shortage of available inventory created conditions that felt almost impossible to believe. Homes in Milpitas routinely closed well above listing price within days. Multiple offers were not the exception; they were the rule. Understanding that those years were the outlier, not the standard, is essential context for reading today’s market clearly.
Speed and Offers: What the Numbers Actually Reveal
Have you ever stopped to think about what an average of 17 days on market actually means for a seller? In the past years before the pandemic, homes often sat for 30, 45, even 60 days before finding a buyer. Seventeen days is not a slow market. It is, by almost any historical standard, a fast one.
The years tell us something important here. A single month-over-month dip does not define a market cycle. Context does.
And when it comes to competing offers, the data shows that the current average number of offers per listing is higher than in 39 of the previous 45 months. So when a headline frames this as a slowdown, what benchmark is it actually using? Is it using the unprecedented peak of 2021? Because if those peak years are the standard, almost any market is going to look like it is cooling by comparison.
Can you see how that framing changes things?
Rising mortgage rates brought a recalibration that many mistook for collapse. But Milpitas real estate held its value in ways that surprised many observers. Equity accumulated during the surge years largely remained intact. Sellers who understood the historical context continued to transact with confidence. Buyers who entered during this period did so with more negotiating room than 2021 allowed, yet still faced meaningful competition for well-priced properties.
The Cost of Doing Nothing
Here is the question that tends to land differently: what happens if nothing changes on your end? If you spend the next two or three years waiting for perfect conditions that may never come, where does that leave you?
Odeta Kushi, Deputy Chief Economist at First American, put it plainly: the market is not the white-hot environment of 2021, but it is still a hot housing market by any reasonable measure.
That framing matters. Because “not as hot as 2021” and “slow” are not the same thing. One is a comparison to an outlier. The other is a description of current reality. Which one are the headlines you are reading actually using?
Homes in Milpitas continue to benefit from strong buyer demand tied to proximity to major tech employers, walkable neighborhoods, and limited available inventory. Average property values in this part of Santa Clara County have shown resilience through multiple market cycles, making the decision to wait a choice with real financial weight attached to it.
What Would Change If You Moved Forward?
If you could sell your home in roughly 17 days, attract multiple offers, and close above your listing price, what would that mean for your next chapter? What becomes possible that is not possible right now?
Those past years of slower sales and longer escrow timelines are the true comparison point here. Today’s market, even in its “cooled” state, still outperforms those years tell us were the norm before all of this began.
Based on what buyers are telling us and what the data consistently shows, this market rewards sellers who move with clarity rather than waiting for a headline to give them permission.
Are you with me on that?
Is This the Conversation You Have Been Putting Off?
If any of this resonates, the next step is simple. Not a pitch. Not a pressure call. Just a straightforward conversation with Timothy Alston, licensed Broker (DRE# 01328224) at Aegis Luxury Real Estate in Cupertino, to look at where you are and where you want to be.
Does that feel like something worth exploring? If so, reach out directly at (408) 207-4593. The conversation is yours to start whenever you are ready.
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Serving districts: Milpitas Unified SD (K-12). School district boundaries can change; please verify current enrollment boundaries and program offerings directly with the school district.
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Broker · DRE# 01328224
Aegis Luxury Real Estate
Harvard Business School Online, Certified Master Negotiation
23+ Years Silicon Valley Real Estate Experience
Retired Military Veteran
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The data relating to real estate for sale on this display comes in part from the Internet Data Exchange program of the MLSListings™ MLS system. Real estate listings held by brokerage firms other than Aegis Luxury Real Estate are marked with the Internet Data Exchange icon and detailed information about them includes the names of the listing brokers and listing agents.
Based on information from the MLSListings MLS as of June 12, 2026. All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS. All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy. Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
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Aegis Luxury Real Estate · Timothy Alston, Broker, DRE# 01328224 · 10080 N. Wolfe Rd Ste SW3-200, Cupertino CA 95014 · (408) 207-4593
Last updated: July 09, 2026 | Data reflects July 2026 MLS statistics
