Silicon Valley developer market, October 2026
This is the monthly read on where the teardown, spec-build, and value-add opportunity is concentrated across Silicon Valley: the San Mateo County Peninsula and the South Bay (Santa Clara County, including San Jose). We track what the dirt is selling for, where demolition and new-construction permits are clustering, and which live listings are worth underwriting as a land-and-rebuild.
Where the activity is. Across the 16 Silicon Valley cities with classifiable permit activity since May 18, 2026, builders pulled 137 demolition and 230 new-construction permits. Cupertino led on combined teardown + new-build activity; Burlingame ran the hottest at ~107% of list.
Coverage note. 7 of the 23 tracked cities are not ranked above: they recorded no classifiable demolition or new-construction permit in this window, so we publish no count for them rather than a zero we cannot stand behind. The reason varies by city and we do not guess at it. Some file work under a generic permit type that never says what the job is (Palo Alto files most work as "Project - Building Permit"; San Jose reports the building type rather than the work), so a demolition there would be invisible to us. Others simply had a quiet window, and others we do not yet ingest fully. Not ranked: Belmont, Campbell, East Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, San Jose, South San Francisco.
What the dirt costs. Recent land buys set the basis: a 1,960 sqft home in Mountain View on a 14,586 sqft lot traded at ~$249/lot-sqft. Builders here are buying dirt and entitlements, not houses.
This month's opportunities. Our screen surfaced 10 live candidates worth underwriting as a land-and-rebuild or value-add, listed least-built-out lot first. The full list with street addresses, lot and structure sizes and days on market is below (free with email). These are screened candidates for your own underwriting. We publish the recorded lot and structure figures, not a projected return.