If you’re wondering what the rest of the year hold for home prices, here is the short answer: most experts agree prices are not falling. They are slowing down from an unusual spike, but the direction is still upward. For anyone navigating the Santa Clara real estate market, that distinction matters more than most people realize.

You know how it can feel like you are waiting for the right moment? Waiting for prices to dip, for rates to settle, for something to finally tip in your favor? A lot of people in Santa Clara are sitting with that exact feeling right now. And most of them have not stopped to ask a harder question yet.

What if the moment you are waiting for has already passed?

What Does the Rest of the Year Hold for Home Prices, Really?

Let’s start with where you are right now. Are you renting and watching what home prices are doing? Are you a homeowner wondering whether to sell before something shifts? Either way, you are probably carrying a quiet worry about timing.

Here is what is worth sitting with: the sharp price growth that happened a few years back, averaging around 15% in a single year according to CoreLogic, was not normal. That was the result of record-low mortgage rates colliding with a severe shortage of available homes. Bidding wars pushed prices far beyond what the market would typically sustain.

That pace was never going to last. Does that make sense?

Why Slower Growth Is Not the Same as Falling Home Prices

Have you ever stopped to think about what it actually means when someone says prices are “coming down”? Most of the time, what they mean is that prices are rising less quickly. That is a very different thing from depreciation, and conflating the two can lead to costly decisions.

Experts project that home prices will still appreciate meaningfully this year, well above the 3.8% that a typical, stable market produces. The reason is straightforward: housing supply, while slowly improving, remains historically low. Years of underbuilding have created a structural gap between how many homes exist and how many people want them.

That gap does not disappear just because mortgage rates moved higher. Demand slows, yes. But prices hold because the underlying shortage holds.

What a Longer Year Hold Means for Your Equity Picture

Here is a question worth sitting with. If you bought a home in Santa Clara homes for sale five years ago and held it through that surge period, what does your equity position look like today? And conversely, if you chose to wait, what did that year hold for you in terms of wealth that was not built?

The National Association of Realtors has tracked the net worth gap between homeowners and renters for years. The average homeowner net worth is roughly 40 times greater than the average renter’s, according to NAR data. That is not a gap that closes easily, and it widens with every year hold inside a market where property values are appreciating, even moderately.

Can you see how that compounds over time?

What Happens If Nothing Changes for You?

What does your housing situation actually look like right now, and where does it go if you keep doing the same thing for the next three to five years?

If you are renting, your monthly payment is not building equity. It is covering someone else’s mortgage, possibly in a market where home prices continue to rise above your savings rate. What does that gap look like in year three? Year five?

If you are a homeowner wondering whether to sell, consider what a year hold at current appreciation rates actually adds to your position. Deceleration is not depreciation. The rest of this market cycle could still add meaningfully to your net worth, depending on your timeline and goals.

What would it mean for your family if, instead of watching the market from the sideline, you understood exactly where the numbers landed for your specific situation?

Where This Leaves You in the Santa Clara Market

Based on what buyers and sellers across the area are working through, this shift toward more moderate home price growth might actually be the environment you have been waiting for, without realizing it. Less frenzy. More breathing room. Still appreciating, just not at a pace that feels impossible to enter.

Experts are not calling for a crash. They are calling for a recalibration. And for someone in Santa Clara real estate who has been watching from the outside, that recalibration could be the opening worth understanding more closely.

Do you feel like it might be worth a straightforward conversation to see what the numbers actually look like for your situation? Not a sales call. Just a clear-eyed look at where you are, where prices are heading, and what a realistic path forward might look like for you. Timothy Alston, licensed Broker (DRE# 01328224), is available at (408) 207-4593 to walk through it with you at whatever pace makes sense.