Explore San Mateo

The county's second-largest city and its most affordable large market. Post-war tract dominates — Westlake is the Henry Doelger development that inspired “Little Boxes” — plus later hillside subdivisions. The best transit position in the county: BART plus the 280/101 split. Coastal bluff and landslide exposure on the western edge.

The largest city and the most complete one — a real downtown and the deepest housing variety in the county, from 1920s Spanish and Tudor in San Mateo Park and Baywood down through post-war stock in the flats. The 101/92 junction makes it the best all-directions commute node. East of 101 is bay fill: liquefaction and sea-level-rise exposure.

The county seat, and the Peninsula's biggest downtown-revival story of the last fifteen years. Enormously varied — the Mount Carmel and Emerald Hills slopes read nothing like the flats east of El Camino. Redwood Shores is its own market: built on filled Leslie Salt ponds in the 1960s, lagoon-front, and in the Belmont–Redwood Shores district rather than Redwood City's.

“The Industrial City,” now the global center of gravity for biotech — which is what drives the market. Modest post-war tract plus hillside stock on Sign Hill, with newer density around the Caltrain station and Oyster Point. The heart of the SFO noise contour, and the city has run a formal residential insulation program for decades.

Solidly middle-market post-war tract with real turnover, and a genuine entry point for buyers priced out of Burlingame and Millbrae. Exceptional transit — BART, Caltrain, and 101/280/380. It sits directly under the SFO approach, and the noise contours are the single biggest street-to-street value differentiator here.

Small, tidy, and school-driven, with 1940s to 60s ranch and split-level stock on the hills toward 280 and new transit-oriented density at the station. Millbrae Intermodal is the only place in the entire BART system where BART and Caltrain meet — which is this town's central real estate argument. Adjacent to SFO, with the noise that implies.

The bayside address that competes with the hill towns on prestige. Burlingame Park and the Easton Addition hold pre-war and 1920s period architecture on tree-lined streets; the flats east of El Camino are more modest. One of only two cities in the county that has grown since 2020. Note that the Broadway Caltrain station has been weekend-and-holiday only since 2005, with weekday service returning after grade separation.

“The City of Good Living,” and one of the most competitive per-square-foot markets in the county, driven hard by its school district. Housing climbs from the El Camino flats up through White Oaks and Howard Park into the hills, mostly 1940s to 60s stock with a great deal of second-story remodeling and rebuilding. Hillside lots west of Alameda de las Pulgas need retaining-wall and drainage review.

Steep, wooded, and quieter than San Carlos next door, at a small discount to it. The hills are both the appeal and the constraint — slope, driveway grade, and access drive value street to street. Water Dog Lake open space is a genuine amenity. One of only two cities in the county up since 2020.

Entirely planned and entirely built on bay fill from the 1960s, organized around a lagoon system, with heavy HOA presence across 1960s to 80s tract, townhomes, and condos. Highway 92 gives it the best East Bay access on the Peninsula. The $90 million levee improvement project, funded by Measure P and completed in 2024, was built to FEMA standards specifically to address flood-zone designation — confirm current accreditation status before relying on it.

The county's affordability floor and its fastest-changing market, sitting directly against Palo Alto and Menlo Park — which is the whole arbitrage. Mid-century tract plus significant new multifamily near the 101/University interchange. San Francisquito Creek flood history and bayfront sea-level exposure are the two things to put in front of a buyer.

An idiosyncratic small town on the slopes of San Bruno Mountain with eclectic hillside housing, small lots, steep streets, and a fiercely independent identity. Only about three of its twenty square miles are land — the rest is lagoon. The 659-acre Baylands redevelopment is the defining land-use question here, and it is voter-gated.

The necropolis. Roughly three-quarters of its 1.9 square miles is cemetery, holding about 1.5 million burials — something like a thousand dead for every living resident. There are only about 526 housing units in the entire town, so it is a curiosity rather than a market. It has its own BART station.

Six square miles of purely residential estate property with essentially no commercial base — the town provides its own police, fire, water, and roads. Housing spans 1910s and 20s period revival through mid-century and contemporary rebuilds. Its elementary district is among the most highly regarded in California. Minimum lot sizes and floor-area limits are strict and govern what can be rebuilt.

Perennially the most expensive ZIP code in the country. Roughly one-acre minimum zoning, no commercial district, deep tree canopy, and a continuous tear-down-and-rebuild cycle. One thing to know before you repeat the listing copy: Atherton's Caltrain station closed permanently in December 2020. The nearest stations are Menlo Park and Redwood City.

Rural and equestrian by ordinance and by culture — horse trails, split-rail fencing, large parcels, no streetlights. Top-tier pricing for a completely different product than Atherton: land, privacy, and trees rather than address. The town publishes formal geologic hazard maps and requires geotechnical reports, so landslide and slope review is a routine part of the transaction here, not an edge case.

Nine square miles west of 280 running up to Skyline, with roughly four-fifths of the housing stock single-family and much of it on an acre or more. Architecturally the most California-modern of the hill towns — post-and-beam, redwood, hillside siting. The San Andreas Fault bisects the town, and the fault-zone setbacks and hillside review that follow are real design constraints, not formalities.

Nine neighborhoods stitched along the ocean — Linda Mar, Rockaway, Sharp Park, Pedro Point, Vallemar — mostly modest post-war tract with ocean-view premiums, and the county's most affordable coastal ownership. Commute is Highway 1 north or the Devil's Slide tunnels south, and both bottleneck. Active bluff erosion is a live regulatory fight; national park lands wrap the city and permanently cap its growth.

The Coastside's only incorporated city and its commercial center, spanning a genuine nineteenth-century downtown, mid-century stock, and resort-adjacent subdivisions near the Ritz-Carlton and Ocean Colony. Two things govern everything here: Measure D limits growth to roughly one to one and a half percent a year and requires an allocation for every new unit including ADUs, and the whole city sits under Coastal Act jurisdiction.

Fewer than one in ten residents live in unincorporated San Mateo County, but it is most of the map. On the bayside: Ladera, a 1946 housing cooperative with its own community association and recreation district; Emerald Lake Hills, oak-covered and rustic between three cities; West Menlo Park, which sells as Menlo Park at a school-district premium; the San Mateo Highlands, a tract of more than seven hundred single-story Eichlers built 1956 to 1964; and North Fair Oaks, the largest of them and the county's main affordability story.

Montara, Moss Beach, El Granada, Princeton-by-the-Sea, and Miramar — unincorporated, Coastal Act, and served by small water and sanitary districts whose capacity has always gated development more than zoning has. The urban Midcoast is under a hard cap of forty housing units a year including ADUs. That cap is currently oversubscribed, and the county is not accepting new residential permit applications until 2028 unless the plan is amended.

San Gregorio, La Honda, Loma Mar, and Pescadero — genuinely rural, redwood and ranchland, largely off municipal services, where wells and septic are the norm rather than the exception. One of California's smallest unified school districts serves the whole area. Much of the farmland is under Williamson Act contract, which runs with the land. Fire exposure, road access, and emergency response times are the practical buyer issues.