San Mateo

Welcome to San Mateo

San Mateo functions as a suburb of San Francisco, but it doesn't feel like one. It's the second-largest city on the Peninsula and has the biggest downtown, with a genuinely urban energy: busy sidewalks, packed coffee shops by day, and restaurants and nightlife that keep going well after dark.

Downtown's restaurant scene alone is worth the trip, everything from taquerias and Indian street food to steakhouses and Italian ristorantes. The Cinemark Century San Mateo 12, a downtown fixture since it opened in 2003, still anchors the area, and the city keeps a full calendar of events going: Summerfest and the Downtown Wine Walk in summer, the Halloween Fun Fest in fall, and Christmas on B Street each December, complete with a tree lighting and Santa Claus. The San Mateo County Fair, held every summer at the fairgrounds, is the biggest event of all.

San Mateo is large enough to support three separate farmers markets: one downtown, one at the College of San Mateo, and one on 25th Avenue. It's also large enough to include very different kinds of neighborhoods. San Mateo Park, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, borders Hillsborough and Burlingame and has some of the area's largest homes. Baywood, nearby, is built around Baywood Elementary, one of the most sought-after public schools in the county. Hillsdale, by contrast, is a huge postwar neighborhood that grew up around the Hillsdale Shopping Center, one of the country's first open-air malls when it opened in 1954.

There's also 225-acre Laurelwood Park, the Peninsula Golf & Country Club, and downtown's Central Park with its Japanese Tea Garden. San Mateo is also in the middle of one of its biggest growth periods since the 1950s: the Bay Meadows development, built on the site of the old Bay Meadows horseracing track, is nearing completion after years of construction, and will eventually bring more than 1,000 homes, several parks, retail and office space, and the Nueva School's upper campus, all within walking distance of a Caltrain station.

San Mateo covers a lot of ground, both literally and in terms of lifestyle: a downtown condo near the Caltrain station is a completely different search than a home in Baywood or San Mateo Park. I bring the same approach here that's guided my Peninsula clients since 2004: careful preparation, honest advice, and a clear sense of how neighborhood, school boundaries, and the Bay Meadows growth are shaping value. If you're comparing San Mateo to Burlingame or Belmont, I'm glad to help you think it through.

- Caroline

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