Redwood City

Welcome to Redwood City

Redwood City gets called a suburb of San Francisco sometimes, but that's not quite right. It's a real city in its own right, with a population that's settled in around 82,000 and a downtown that runs on its own energy. It's also the county seat of San Mateo County, part of why it has its own distinct identity among Peninsula cities rather than feeling like an extension of somewhere else.

The city has been around since the 1850s, founded by loggers who used Redwood Creek to float timber down from Woodside to the Bay. Its well-known slogan, "Climate Best by Government Test," turned 100 years old in 2025. It came out of a 1925 Chamber of Commerce contest, and the winner, Wilbur Doxsee, took home a $10 prize for a phrase supposedly based on a German climate study. Whether that study ever actually existed is still debated by local historians, but the slogan and its arching downtown sign have stuck around for a century regardless.

Downtown has gone through a real transformation over the past two decades. The Fox Theatre, a 1929 movie palace on the National Register of Historic Places, reopened as a live event venue in 2010 and is now home to Broadway By The Bay, along with concerts and comedy shows most weekends. Right across the street, Courthouse Square hosts farmers markets, concerts, and festivals nearly year-round, surrounded by restaurants and shops that make downtown genuinely walkable for a city this size.

Housing here is varied in a way that few Peninsula cities can match. There are pre-war mansions along Edgewood Drive, Craftsman homes in Mount Carmel, post-war tract houses near Sequoia High School, and newer construction closer to the Atherton border, plus a growing stock of downtown condos. Out toward the hills, homes around Emerald Lake sit near the Emerald Lake Country Club, a small, longstanding private club with limited membership.

Redwood City also has more park space than most people expect: 30 parks in all, including the sprawling Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve, a skate park, a dog park, and two small lakes. Combined with a location roughly halfway between San Francisco and San Jose, it's easy to see why the city has stayed popular through more than a century and a half of Peninsula growth.

Redwood City covers a lot of ground, literally and in terms of price point and style, which makes it one of the more interesting Peninsula cities to search in. I bring the same approach here that's guided my Peninsula clients since 2004: careful preparation, honest advice, and a clear read on how location, schools, and lot size drive value block by block. If you're trying to figure out which part of Redwood City actually fits what you're looking for, I'm glad to help.

- Caroline