The Most Expensive San Carlos Neighborhood in 2025 Was…

Last week, I posted a quiz on the blog to see if you could guess which was the most expensive neighborhood in San Carlos, based on single-family residence sales for the full year of 2025. Here's how you guessed:

According to the poll, the clear favorites in your mind were El Sereno Corte (White Oaks/Oak Park) and Howard Park. Those are both very logical choices. Until very recently, they have essentially traded off the crown as the most expensive neighborhoods in San Carlos, because so many people were willing to pay a significant premium to live in the flats, close to downtown and schools. I would have chosen one of those as well, had I not already known the answer.

Which leads us to the answer. So, which neighborhood was the priciest in San Carlos in 2025? (drum roll….)

It depends…because in reality, it's a trick question.

The Numbers.

The reason it's a trick question is that the definition of how “expensive” a house is depends on how you actually measure it. The three common metrics that I look at and include every week in the Week In Review posts are: Average sales price, median sales price, and average price per square foot (PPSF).

The table below spells all three of them out by neighborhood for the full year of 2025:

Neighborhood	Average Sales Price	Median Sales Price	Price Per Square Foot
Alder Manor	$2,843,612	$2,740,000	$1,298
Beverly Terrace	$2,847,278	$2,830,000	$1,270
El Sereno Corte (White Oaks/Oak Park)	$2,682,087	$2,500,000	$1,519
Howard Park	$2,828,923	$2,541,500	$1,556
Clearfield Park (GESC)	$1,728,778	$1,530,000	$1,627*
Cordes	$2,803,689	$2,653,000	$1,349

Three things pop out to me right away from this data. The first is that El Sereno Corte (White Oaks) was the top guess in the poll, and yet it didn't register first in any category! In fact, it was the fourth highest out of six in both the average and median sales price categories, and second in price per square foot. THAT really surprised me when I pulled this data together. (*Note: I'm discounting the numbers for Clearfield Park because only 9 homes sold in that neighborhood in 2025, which is too small a data pool to draw any meaningful conclusions).

The second interesting tidbit is that Alder Manor just missed being the highest median and average price by a very close margin. This is somewhat surprising because most of Alder Manor is located within the Redwood City School District boundary, not the San Carlos School District, and history has proven a strong connection between strong school districts and home prices. But there's a good reason for this, which you'll see in the next point.

The third interesting trend that pops out from this data is that the three neighborhoods with the highest median sales prices — Beverly Terrace, Cordes, and Alder Manor — also had the lowest price per square foot. Why is that?

The way that paradox can be explained is this: The homes that sold in these three neighborhoods were significantly larger than the others. You may recall from numerous posts that I've written on the site, while the price of a home logically increases as the size of the home increases, the average price per square foot drops as the house gets larger. Does that theory hold?

Let's look at the data:

Neighborhood	Average Home Size (sf)	Median Home Size (sf)
Alder Manor	2,289	2,390
Beverly Terrace	2,345	2,290
El Sereno Corte	1,806	1,690
Howard Park	1,830	1,771
Clearfield Park	1,105	900
Cordes	2,203	1,960

As you can see, this is exactly the case. The homes in the three top median sales price slots were also the largest, which explains why they also had the lowest price per square foot.

It also stands to reason that these three neighborhoods have the largest homes, because they generally have larger lots to build on than do the older, established neighborhoods of White Oaks and Howard Park.

Key Takeaways

Thanks to everyone who registered their guess on the poll. Here are the key takeaways from this data exercise:

• White Oaks no longer produces the priciest homes in San Carlos, much to my surprise.
• Beverly Terrace won the top prize for the highest average and median home prices.
• Alder Manor, which is located largely outside of the San Carlos School District, is home to some of the more expensive homes in San Carlos.
• Larger homes tend to have lower PPSF than smaller homes.
• The homes with the highest sales prices were located in the hills of San Carlos, not the flats.

I hope you found this enlightening!