18911 Decatur Road in Los Gatos, a 10-bedroom, eight-bath estate that occupies 1.4 acres. (Piazza Advantage)
SANTA CLARA — Real estate agent Joe Piazza tells some clients that he knows of people willing to pay up to a half-million dollars for their home — not to buy, just to rent for a week for their Super Bowl LX visit.
“Demand is very high,” said Piazza, who heads up Los Gatos-based Piazza Advantage Real Estate and is also with Coldwell Banker Global Luxury. “Some celebrity reps are offering a lot of money to rent these homes.”
In Santa Clara, the site of the upcoming NFL championship game, the average monthly rent was $4,935 as of midday Jan. 30, according to a historical rent tracker on RentHop.
RELATED: Welcome to Santa Clara! Your one-stop guide to Super Bowl LX
That figure represents a 28.8% increase compared with the $3,832 average rent at the end of December 2025, RentHop estimates show. A RentHop chart indicates it is the largest one-month increase in average rental property prices in Santa Clara in at least 10 years.
“Demand is seeing a real spike, and prices are way up” in the San Jose, Palo Alto and Santa Clara areas, said Bram Gallagher, director of economics and forecasting with AirDNA, an analytics firm that tracks short-term rentals worldwide.
Some people are willing to offer $250,000 for a one-week rental, while others could pay as much as $500,000, according to Piazza.
“You have people who want to pay more rent in a week than they would normally have to pay for the entire month,” said Ken DeLeon, founder and managing broker of Palo Alto-based DeLeon Realty.
In the San Jose-Palo Alto-Santa Clara area, the average asking price for available short-term rentals on Feb. 7, the day before the Super Bowl, is $229.33 a night, according to an updated AirDNA survey completed Jan. 27.
In San Francisco, where events and parties leading up to the Super Bowl will be held, the average asking price for Feb. 7 is $322.69 a night, according to the same survey.
In Oakland, the average price for available rentals is $199.57 for that date, AirDNA reported.
Compared with a year earlier, average rates for rentals that remain available are up 28.9% in the San Jose-Palo Alto-Santa Clara region, 11.7% in San Francisco and 1.3% in Oakland, AirDNA found.
Average per-night short-term rents for homes already reserved for Feb. 7 are up 55.7% in the San Jose-Palo Alto-Santa Clara area compared with a year ago, AirDNA estimates show. In San Francisco, reserved short-term rents are up 30.2%, while Oakland rents are up 12.7%.
In San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood, people are willing to pay $10,000 to $15,000 a night for a top-tier residence that would normally rent for about $65,000 a month, according to Darcy Elman, an agent with Compass Real Estate.
Yet even the wealthiest visitors cannot always find a suitable home to rent for a few days in the Bay Area, no matter how much they are willing to pay, real estate executives said.
“The right house isn’t easy to find,” Elman said. “Big houses that are in great neighborhoods, that also will be vacant at the time they’re needed before the game, and that are beautiful and luxurious, those aren’t easy to find.”
Elman said she had to scour numerous properties before placing a Super Bowl visitor in a six-bedroom, five-bath home in San Francisco that spans more than 5,000 square feet.
“These houses exist, but they aren’t cookie-cutter residences, and they’re not on the open market,” Elman said. “You have to find them by word of mouth.”
Piazza said several mansion owners he works with have declined the temptation of a quick payday — even offers as high as $500,000 — to rent out their homes for a few days.
“The demand is high, and it’s crazy this week,” Piazza said. “But I had four sellers who refused to rent out their homes for a few days. These are places with spectacular pools, so the owners were wondering if there would be big parties, maybe with a DJ. The owners are making common-sense decisions to not rent their homes.”
There is also a longer-term incentive for owners preparing to sell their homes to keep properties in pristine condition, Piazza said.
With just days left before kickoff, the laws of supply and demand are likely to intensify as visitors compete for dwindling inventory and owners attempt to command the highest possible prices.
“That last week before the game is a really crucial time,” Gallagher said.
As of Jan. 26, about 71% of available residences in the San Jose-Palo Alto-Santa Clara market had already been rented, AirDNA estimated. Occupancy levels were 68% in San Francisco and 57% in Oakland.
By comparison, short-term rentals in New Orleans reached 97% occupancy ahead of the Super Bowl in February 2025, while Las Vegas reached 92% occupancy the day before hosting the game in February 2024, Gallagher said.
In New Orleans, short-term rentals climbed to $612 a night on the eve of the Super Bowl — 53% higher than the same date a year earlier.
“When it gets to 90% occupancy, prices can go really wild,” Gallagher said.
This Super Bowl-spurred surge to grab short-term rentals might wind up as a prelude to potential demand spikes as dates loom for NCAA men’s college basketball games in downtown San Jose and FIFA World Cup soccer matches in Santa Clara.
Originally published at George Avalos