Sunshine Gardens

Sunshine Gardens is a classic post-war suburban subdivision, developed between 1953 and 1957 and offering street after street of neat, spacious mid-century single-family homes plus one of South San Francisco’s first transit-oriented condominium complexes, which sits adjacent to the South San Francisco BART station on Old Mission Road. Single-family Sunshine Gardens homes generally sell for between $800,000 and $1.4 million. Most recent sales have fetched a median of $1.05 million and an average of $1.06 million. Sunshine Gardens condominiums, which can have anywhere from one to three bedrooms, sell for between $500,000 and $1 million.

Homes here are fairly uniform, “modest mansions,” according to the Garden Development Company’s original 1953 marketing, with two to four bedrooms and 1,000 to 2,000 square feet of living space on 4,500 to 5,000 square foot lots. A few have been expanded or razed and replaced, giving the neighborhood a pocket of homes that sell in the mid-$1 millions. Sunshine Gardens homes are well-maintained and the neighborhood has a real community feel. Despite its ur-suburban vibe, Sunshine Gardens residents can easily walk to BART and to Trader Joe’s and Starbucks, thanks to the Park Station mixed-use development, which brought these perks to the neighborhood in 2007. Children can walk to Sunshine Gardens Elementary School and El Camino High School.

Favorable

• Quiet, suburban feel with excellent access to transit and commuter corridors

• Strong neighborhood spirit

• Solid mid-century housing inventory; entry-level and mid-market price points

Adverse

• Access from streets at the center of the neighborhood do not have easy access to El Camino Real and may experience heavy traffic during school hours; they do, however, offer excellent access to the neighborhood’s only public playground

• There is some uniformity among Sunshine Gardens’ single-family homes