Yes, but only if the home, the pace, and your ceiling all agree before you write.
Trying to decide whether you can shop San Carlos, CA carefully or whether you need to move like your coffee is on fire? My rule of thumb is this move fast on the right house, not on every house, because recent numbers still show about 5 offers per home and many strong listings were going pending in roughly 13 days. Speed matters here, but random panic is not a strategy. It is just cardio with paperwork.
Here is the clean answer. San Carlos, CA was still highly competitive over the previous 30 days, with recent offers landing around 102.9% of asking and many well-positioned homes going pending in about two weeks. A typical sale timeline was also reported at 35 days in one recent reading, and another recent reading put it at 27 days. That is not contradictory once you see the split the good homes disappear quickly, while the stale ones hang around long enough to fake a calmer market.
For a buyer, that creates one very specific assignment. I would not treat every listing as a bidding war, because the market is rewarding the best homes, not every home with a mailbox. Recent price-per-square-foot figures around $1,080 to $1,100 were described as a more sustainable level after an earlier peak, which tells me chasing wildly beyond the property's lane is how people volunteer for regret. San Carlos, CA still demands decisiveness, but it does not require recklessness.
Set your walk-away number before you tour. Prioritize homes that already show the move-in-ready traits the market is rewarding. Write cleanly and quickly when the home checks your boxes, then let go of the ones that need too much optimism to justify the price. That is how I would stay competitive without turning the purchase into an expensive improv class.
