There was a time a decade or so ago when a housing dollar in the resale market went close to 60 percent farther in San Joaquin County than in Santa Clara County where a growing number of Manteca-Lathrop-Ripon residents commute to jobs.

Based on December real estate data on transactions that have closed escrow, that gap has widened considerably.

A median resale home closing escrow in Santa Clara — the heart of the Silicon Valley and where you will find the City of San Jose — was 247% percent higher than in San Joaquin County in December.

The growing gap underscores how Manteca-Lathrop in recent years have been building — and selling — a combined roughly 1,600 single family homes on an annual basis

The median priced home in San Joaquin County cost $525,000 or 71 percent less than the median priced resale closing escrow at $1,830,000 in Santa Clara County during December.

The December median in Alameda County was $1,181,00, in Contra Costa County it was $839,500, in San Francisco County it was $1,697,500, in Sacramento County it was $530,000, and in Stanislaus County it was $426,500.

The December median for the Manteca resale market was $72,000 higher than for San Joaquin County overall, coming in at $597,000.

The Manteca median for new tract homes in December was roughly $650,000.

That means Bay Area paychecks not only go much further east of the Altamont Pass when it comes to housing costs but the growing gap makes commuting — especially if ACE travel is involved or workers are able to telecommute on some days — more viable.

Manteca median for resales

$18,000 short of all time high

December at $597,000 for Manteca, was the second highest December on record for median resale prices.

It is only topped by $615,000 in 2021 at the height of the pandemic. That’s $18,000 higher than the 2025 number.

The 2024 median was $567,000, the 2023 median $568,000, and the 2022 median $582,500 based on Metro Listing Service data.

Median prices jumped sharply from 2021 to 2022 in Manteca, going from $479,000 to $615,000.

The resale median in Manteca reached $400,000 in 2006 before the mortgage meltdown hit.

They dropped to $301,500 in 2007 then plunged to $156,450 in 2008 before starting to rebound in 2009 when they reached $180,000.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com