Poll: The Top Reasons Why People Choose San Carlos as Their Home.

Hey, I absolutely LOVE living in San Carlos. I chose to focus my real estate practice here because I live here and love the community and lifestyle that I am able to promote and sell to others. For most of the past 38 years, I have either owned or rented a home in various neighborhoods of San Carlos, and I've seen a LOT of changes to the town during that time, and I think the vast majority of those changes were positive ones. You don't need my opinion to validate that fact — just look at the demand for housing here, and the corresponding house prices.

Below, I highlighted the top reasons why people choose to make San Carlos their home. They're not listed in any particular order, because it's such a subjective category – something that's at the top of one person's list may not even register for another. But I did include a poll at the end for you to register your opinion. It will be interesting to see which of the choices fetches the most votes.

From my own personal experience, and having helped hundreds of residents either buy or sell homes in San Carlos, here are the top five reasons why I believe people love this town.

Location

San Carlos is located almost exactly between San Jose and San Francisco. This truly mid-Peninsula location has quite a few benefits: It provides a good commuting compromise for working couples who are going both north and south. Quite often, it's right in between both work locations.

It also has a flexible topography, so whether you want a home in the hills with a stunning bay view, or you just want to be a short stroll from the downtown area, there are lots of options for you.

And because it's adjacent to the city that claims that its weather is “Climate Best By Government Test”, San Carlos' proximity to Redwood City affords it the same (or even better) weather.

Schools

There has been a LOT of hard work put in over the years to make the San Carlos School District one of the highest-rated and most desirable public school districts on the Peninsula. When I talk with prospective buyers about why they are focusing on San Carlos, the quality of schools is one of the most common answers.

But as I've stated many times before, you don't have to have kids to enjoy the benefit of living in a town with an excellent school reputation. Stable home pricing and good school districts go hand-in-hand, and it's the primary reason why San Carlos real estate is more expensive than in Redwood City. Same location, same weather, similar topography (flats and hills)….. just better schools.

Downtown

When I first moved to San Carlos 38 years ago, the downtown wasn't a primary factor… because the downtown that you know and love today was NOT the downtown that was there in the late 1980s. There were very few restaurants, and Laurel Street basically shut down after 6:00 PM.

But that has all changed over the past few decades, and Laurel Street has become a destination for not only San Carlos residents, but people from all over the Peninsula — especially Belmont, which is sorely missing a downtown shopping and dining district.

And now, Laurel Street is poised to undergo another major facelift with the transformation of the prime shopping and dining blocks into a walking plaza.

Community/People

I know for a fact that there are residents who are happily entrenched in San Carlos when they could easily afford to live in similar cities with much higher price points — like Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Burlingame, etc.. One of the reasons they still opt for San Carlos is the sense of community, and the people who live here.

San Carlos offers much of the same benefits that the aforementioned communities do, but without the pretentiousness and competitiveness that may come with other zip codes.

That being said, if having a flat acre to build a 6,000 square foot mansion is at the top of your list, San Carlos is probably not the place for you.

Affordability.

I know, here comes the “A-word” again, and it almost sounds comical to characterize a city whose median home price is now over $2.6M as “affordable”. But when you apply the other 4 attributes that we discussed above to any other city on the Peninsula, you'll be hard-pressed to beat San Carlos on value. It's certainly much more affordable than Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Burlingame — the most commonly compared cities.

So it's conceivable that the top reason someone chose San Carlos is that it was the only option they could afford that checked as many of the boxes as possible for them.

What About You?

For me personally, when I moved to San Carlos 38 years ago, I think location was probably at the top of the list. I grew up in the very upper reaches of Emerald Hills, so the ability to walk from my San Carlos apartment to Bell Market (now Bianchini's) was more than just a novelty. It was liberating!! No more 15-minute drive down the hill to get groceries or dinner. But I didn't want to stray too far from my old digs.

The schools didn't matter at that time, because I didn't have any kids. But I loved the ability to own a home in the flats after living the hill-life for all of my youth. And as I mentioned above, there was no downtown to speak of at that time. It just turned out to be a bonus years later.

So, which of these five is the top reason that you choose to live in San Carlos? Please register your vote in the poll below — I'm very curious to find out which one is the most common!