San Mateo - San Mateo Village
“San Mateo Village is arguable the most popular and sought-after “starter” home neighborhood in San Mateo”
San Mateo Village includes the area between El Camino Real and the Bayshore Freeway, McClellan Avenue and East 40th Avenue. For decades, San Mateo Village real estate occupied a niche at the entry level of San Mateo. In recent years, that has changed. The district’s location, convenience and inventory of reasonably inexpensive mid-century homes have made it a favored destination for first-time and mid-level buyers, as well as downsizing empty nesters, and is considered an excellent “starter” home neighborhood. Increased popularity has meant rising prices for San Mateo Village real estate. Homes for sale now range from $575,000 all the way up to $800,000 and above.
San Mateo Village is a commuter’s paradise, adjacent to Highway 101, El Camino Real, Hillsdale and Caltrain. Though the neighborhood is exclusively residential, commercial development atop the former Bay Meadows site has made San Mateo Village a walking neighborhood. Restaurants, shops, Starbucks and Whole Foods are within a 15-minute walk, as are businesses on El Camino Real and 37th Avenue (the commercial strip built concurrent with San Mateo and Glendale Villages after World War II).
The seeds for popularity were always within San Mateo Village. It’s not by accident that the subdivision won the National Association of Home Builders Award in 1955. It just took some time for homebuyers to catch up.
To view a detailed google map of the San Mateo Village neighborhood, click here. The MLS area is 423.
The San Mateo Village neighborhood is surrounded by Fiesta Gardens, Los Prados, Lauriedale and Western Knolls.
History
Between the beginning of World War II and 1950, San Mateo’s population grew from less than 20,000 to almost 50,000. To accommodate its booming citizenry, San Mateo began annexing land to the south, including several hundred acres of the former McClellan Ranch. Some of this land became Bay Meadows Racetrack. Located north of Hillsdale Boulevard and built on the site of an airfield, Bay Meadows became an important part of city lore before closing in 2008.
The land south of Hillsdale Boulevard had a different destiny. In 1950, Hansen Homes, Inc. began residential development on the former McClellan estate. Their project would become Glendale Village, a subdivision of modest, three- and four-bedroom ranch-style homes that is now better known as San Mateo Village, after the larger adjacent development built by Conway and Culligan between the late 1940s and early 1950s.