Bay Area home sales are up 14% from last year, as once-reluctant buyers return to market

This fall, Risabh Kumar spent hours scanning home listings and touring open houses. He and his wife hoped there would be fewer homebuyers searching this time of year, especially with interest rates climbing back up again, but that hasn’t been the case.

“We’re trying to find a sweet spot and felt that, because interest rates are high, we would get lucky and there would be some dampened competition,” said Kumar, 32, who works in marketing at a tech company. “But we’ve made two offers that...