Where Do San Mateo's Ultra Wealthy Live?

I'm going to share with you three of the most expensive, exclusive, and sought-after cities to live in San Mateo County. Let's dive in and take a look at what you can get between $4 million and $20 million and why these areas are the epitome of luxury living.

I'm Raziel Ungar and I'm a realtor here in San Mateo County, and I love working with people like you who are thinking about making a move within the area. 

Atherton

So let's start with the Big Daddy, which is Atherton. Atherton is the most expensive zip code in the entire country. If you think about Beverly Hills or Manhattan, Atherton ranks at the very top of that list. It is in the heart of Silicon Valley. It's very exclusive. You have large lots there, about an acre. There's so much to love about living here in Atherton. So how expensive is Atherton? Last year, the median home price was $7.8 million. However, when you look at what the average price last year was, it was over nine and a half million dollars. This actually was the highest average sales price for any zip code in the entire country, even more so than Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills was $8.2 million. And, of course, Malibu, which had an average sales price of $9 million. So at nine and a half million dollars, Atherton is the king of the most expensive real estate in the country. 

So who lives in Atherton? It's a lot of normal people, but there's a lot of famous people. Let me give you a quick idea of some celebrities who you might know who live in Atherton. Steph Curry. Jerry Rice, who played for the San Francisco 49er’s. Willie Mays, who played for the San Francisco Giants. Charles Schwab, of the financial services company. Even Shirley Temple lived here. Of course, many tech billionaires... like Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google. and even Elizabeth Holmes, who is the disgraced former CEO of Theranos, who's now serving a prison sentence. Oh, also Sheryl Sandberg... from Facebook. She lives in Atherton, too.  The average income in Atherton, no surprise, is over $450,000. However, we're just looking at averages and that's including people who have been here for a really long time. But if you're a tech billionaire building one of these homes, you're going to be making obviously quite a bit more than that.

So what's very interesting, from a zoning perspective, all the homes are on at least one acre of land. So you get these huge estates... you have ADU’s that are the size of homes in other towns. You get a lot of open space. You have tons of trees that have been here for a really long time. You don't have sidewalks in Atherton, too, because there’s so little density. There's plenty of space for parking. If you look into any of these homes here you'll see many people have three, four, five cars and motor courts. There's just a lot more space for people to spread out. 

For a town of five square miles, there's about 7,500 people who live in Atherton. If you compare at the opposite end of the spectrum, Atherton to Manhattan, for example, in Manhattan, you'd have a density of about 72,000 people per square mile. And in Atherton, it's about 1500 people. If you value privacy and relaxation and big, luxurious homes, Atherton is a great spot. 

I want to give you a quick idea of what your dollar can get you in Atherton. Here's a home that sold in September for $17 million. This was on a pancake flat, acre and a half lot, in a really good location. Now, this home has six bedrooms. It had a huge pool and some massive redwood trees. Here's another home on a 1.25-acre lot. This one sold for $7 million. This was a five-bedroom home, about 3300 square feet and you can tell from the pictures that this home, while it was nice, at this price point, I think it’s likely someone is going do a pretty significant project here. 

You might not be surprised to hear this, but Atherton is 100% residential. There is no downtown area. So if you're looking for shops, and restaurants, and bakeries, and things like that, you’re gonna want to go to downtown Menlo Park, or downtown Palo Alto, which are both within a 5 to 10-minute drive of kind of wherever you are in Atherton. For recreation, there's two places worth mentioning. Holbrook Palmer Park is a pretty sweet 22-acre park that has tennis courts, a playground, a field, gardens, and a walking path. There's also the Menlo Circus Club, which is a super exclusive private equestrian club. Every August, the club hosts the Menlo Charity Horse Show in partnership with the Vista Center for the Blind, and it's a fun opportunity to see some beautiful horses and riding. I've been a few times with my family, and it's a pretty neat experience.

So let's talk about what are the schools like in Atherton? So there's public schools here, and there's private schools. Some families will opt for some pretty prestigious local private schools. So there's Menlo School, Castilleja School, the German-American School of Palo Alto, and Phillip Brook School. Of course, being in Atherton, we are very close to Stanford University. 

If you're looking for more about what it's like to live in San Mateo County, make sure to hit that subscribe button. I work with nice people every day like you who are thinking about making a move within or to San Mateo County.

Portola Valley

The next city on our list for most expensive cities to live in is Portola Valley. It's very similar to Atherton. It's also very expensive. However, it's a very different feel. It has much more of a rural vibe. Whereas, Atherton, you have acre lots, and it's more of a grid like streets. And even though there's no sidewalks here in Portola Valley either, a lot of the streets here are a little bit windier. You don't necessarily have all the streetlights out there. You could have some killer views. A little bit more rolling hills. It's just a really great place if you want to be out in nature, close to some hiking trails, you can see some properties where you can have equestrian estates.

So now let's talk about some of the real estate in Portola Valley to give you an idea on what it costs to live here. So in 2023, the median home price in Portola Valley was $3.7 million. This is a little bit more than nearby Menlo Park, which had a median price last year of about $3 million. We're way lower in price than nearby Atherton but it's still pretty expensive when you're looking pretty close to $4 million for the median home price here. When you look at average prices, those are going to be higher because you're going to see some outlier homes, very massive estates in the $5 to $10 million price range. But that just gives you an idea. Median means half the homes are selling below that number and half the homes are selling above that number.

It was hard cause I just wanted to pick three cities for this list. But Menlo Park and Portola Valley are very similar. So when you look at price per square foot, in the last year, Menlo Park price per square foot was slightly higher than Portola Valley. In Menlo Park last year, the average price per square foot was 1,505 dollars and in Portola Valley, it was 1415 dollars, so very, very similar.

Portola Valley, as I mentioned, has a ton of nature. So if you're really into biking, hiking, going for walks, or just being out amongst the trees, Portola Valley's going to check that box. Other towns in the peninsula that are similar to Portola Valley, maybe Woodside a little bit, maybe parts of Hillsborough, maybe parts of Emerald Hills and Redwood City. Portola Valley is pretty unique for what it is. First, there's Portola Redwoods State Park, which is one of my favorite places to go camping. Portola Redwoods State Park is located pretty close by. There are tons of redwood trees and hiking trails. There's also Windy Hill Open Space Preserve, which is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It has great views of the Bay Area, including the Bay, Silicon Valley, and the coastline. There's also Jasper Ridge Preserve, that's affiliated with Stanford University and it's pretty close to Portola Valley. It's known for its diverse ecosystems, including woodlands, grasslands, and freshwater habitats. And then there's also Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve, which is in the nearby hills and has pretty sweeping views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and also the San Francisco Bay. Lastly, there's Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, which is a little bit farther south but known for its redwood forest, creeks, and diverse plant and animal life. And it's a pretty peaceful retreat for those who are just looking for a natural escape.

Last but not least, downtown Portola Valley. This is super cute. Downtown Portola Valley is the town center. There are some really good restaurants there, an excellent one is Parkside Grill. There's a library. There are a lot of local businesses. There's a pretty cool community center, as well as a whole set of tennis courts, and also an equestrian center, which is super popular, especially given that people are into horses around here. 

In terms of schools, the schools are really highly rated. So if you have kids who are in elementary school or middle school, it's important to know that many people choose Portola Valley because of its really strong public schools. Portola Valley is also super close to getting on the freeway too, 280 and heading up to San Francisco or heading into the heart of Silicon Valley. You're only anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes to get most places in Silicon Valley. And then you're about a 30 to 40-minute ride with no traffic on 280 heading north.

I'll also mention that Portola Valley has a really strong community feel, so people are super involved. People get to know each other. And we kind of value that close-knit community feel. Portola Valley is a great place to raise a family or to grow old. It's just at the top of a lot of people's lists. 

Now I want to give you an idea of three different homes, at three different higher price points of what you can get in Portola Valley.  The first I want to show you was actually on almost four acres. This was a 6400 square foot home, with four bedrooms. This one sold for $25 million, which is a massive price. But even more massive was the price per square foot at $3,800 a square foot. The next time I want to show you is a six-bedroom home. And this was on two acres, about 5,300 square feet. And this was a custom home built in 2019 and had views of Windy Hill. It was pretty much one level. It had a swimming pool, bocce ball courts, really cool vegetable garden, and this one sold for a little over $11 million. The third home that I'll share with you that sold last year was a six-bedroom home, and this one was 5,500 square feet, sold for a more reasonable 1,700 dollars a square foot. This is on just an acre lot in the Westridge neighborhood. And this was one level. It had a pool and a sports court, pretty cool Spanish-style architecture. And this one sold for $9.2 million. 

Hillsborough

And the third town that I’m going to share with you today on the most expensive cities in San Mateo County is Hillsborough. The median home price in Hillsborough last year, in 2023 was $5,250,000. But in Hillsborough, you see a variety of price points. You can get entry-level homes that are going to be starting in the low $3 million range that go all the way up to $10 million plus. The market gets a little bit thinner, 10 million plus, whereas in Atherton, you can easily spend $20 or $30 million, and I shouldn't say easily, but some properties are that expensive. And in Hillsborough, we typically see the market more maxed out in the $10 to $15 million price range. But you can still see that every property here is on about a half-acre lot. There are a few exceptions for some that are more like 12,000 to 15,000-foot lots, but most are about 20,000 square feet or more.

Now, in terms of the topography in Hillsborough, if you're in the flatter areas or the hillier areas, that's the main decision point you want to consider. If you're in the flatter areas, you'll find a higher price per square foot. Whereas if you're in the hillier areas, you're not necessarily going to spend a lot less money, you might just be getting a little bit lower price per square foot or a little bit bigger house perhaps because that's the lot configuration we see in Hillsborough.

Hillsborough, like Atherton, is 100% residential. So that means there's no downtown, there's no shopping area, there's no restaurant area. But that's okay. Hillsborough just has single-family homes everywhere. There are a couple of thousand homes in Hillsborough. The population is a little bit higher than in Atherton. So if you live in Hillsborough and you're wondering where do you go shopping? The main area would be downtown Burlingame, and then downtown San Mateo. In downtown Burlingame, you have amazing places to eat. I grew up in Burlingame, and downtown Burlingame is phenomenal. We have the Apple Store. We have some favorite spots like Copenhagen Bakery and Backhaus... so that's very close to Hillsborough. And then in downtown San Mateo, If you live in the southern part of Hillsborough, that's the other place you'd go to. But both are within a 2 to 10-minute drive from wherever you live. Additionally, Hillsborough doesn't even have a library system. Hillsborough contributes a third of the budget for the Burlingame Public Library and a third of the budget for the San Mateo Public Library.

One reason that people move to Hillsborough is because of its excellent public school system. Of course, there are some really good private schools like Nueva and Crystal Springs Uplands. However, the public schools, there are three. There's West, North, and South. There is no East. These public schools are fantastic. From a per capita funding perspective, the Hillsborough Public Schools get about $15,000 per student per year, which contrasts to nearby Burlingame, which is still very expensive and they receive about $9,000 per year. Both towns have education foundations, which do a lot of fundraising to help the schools be even better and retain top talent and teachers. However, this is a sought-after place that people move to because of the schools in particular.

In terms of the outdoor amenities that we have here in Hillsborough, there is the Burlingame Country Club. That is a private golf club that's actually in Hillsborough. It's been around for a while and it's a big part of the Lower Hillsborough scene.

Now, let's talk about the real estate in Hillsborough from a topography perspective. Right now we're in the hillier areas, but this is a perfectly flat block. So it depends if you want more of a view, or if you want to be in an area where it feels a little bit more trick-or-treat-able. Hillsborough I would say,  just like Atherton and Portola Valley, these aren't towns that are very trick-or-treat-able just due to the lot size in all three towns being half acre to an acre or more. If you want to trick or treat, you're going to want to go into some of the nearby towns like Burlingame, San Mateo, San Carlos, and Redwood City. Those are going to be a little bit more traditional streets with grids and homes and like five, six, 7,000 square foot lots where things are just a little bit closer together.

But if you're looking at Hillsborough, Atherton, and Portola Valley, these are areas that just offer a ton of privacy, larger lots, and a lot more wooded. And that's the vibe that people like about moving here. I've had many people tell me that they like the small-town feel that some of the other towns had and that they could know their neighbors. But they valued buying more space and having a much larger home. And you just can't get these large homes that you see in Hillsborough, and Atherton and Portola Valley on the smaller lots of the other towns. It's not like a perfect thing because I think people would love to have a larger home and be able to know their neighbors. But you have to choose one, if this is attractive to you.

One thing about the location in Hillsborough as I mentioned we are in the North Peninsula. So unlike Atherton and Portola Valley, which are close to Silicon Valley, in Hillsborough, we're super close to San Francisco. So you can very easily pop up to the city, in 25 to 35 minutes if you work in Fi-Di, in the financial district. And if you work in the valley, you're only 20 to 40 minutes to head a little bit more south.

So because we're so centrally located, you have very close access to San Francisco Airport, which is one freeway exit away from here. And from SFO there are tons of nonstop destinations. So regardless of where you live in San Mateo County, SFO is going to be your go-to spot. But when you're in Hillsborough, you are just super close and you're looking at like a $20 to $30 uber ride, just to give you an idea of how convenient it is.

When I think about the outdoors in Hillsborough, there are so many different ways that you can engage. I really like going on the Bay Trails. And you have Coyote Point. And you can go for a really beautiful bike ride or walk. And then we're also very close to Sawyer Camp Trail at Crystal Springs Reservoir, which is a super popular place for people who live in Hillsborough to go for a walk.

I like going biking a lot. So I'd say maybe two out of four weekends per month, I'll do a bike ride through Hillsborough and I kind of go down Crystal Springs Road and then go all the way up to Crystal Springs Reservoir. And it's just very relaxing because there's so much greenery here, there's tons of nature and you don't really feel like you're as close to everything else as you are when you're in Hillsborough.

If you'd like to learn more about San Mateo County, check out this video here.  I'll see you in the next video.