Why this quiet neighborhood has become one of the hottest real estate markets in the Bay Area – San Francisco Chronicle

Susan Antolin didn’t expect to end up deep in Contra Costa County when she was being priced out of her San Francisco home 27 years ago.

She and her husband had thought about moving to Berkeley. But the only homes they could afford there were too small for the couple and their two young children. And they were already being priced out of their home in San Francisco’s Sunset District.

Then Antolin’s real estate agent drove her to the northeast edge of Walnut Creek, where the city’s Woodlands neighborhood hugs the Lime Ridge hiking area. Antolin saw the wide streets, which would provide plenty of room for her children to play. She saw how close the schools were. And, in what was a particularly exciting realization for Antolin, a poet and editor, she saw that a bookstore was just 4 miles away.

“I said, ‘Show me a house,’ ” she recalled.

Almost three decades later, Antolin and her husband are still in their Woodlands home. And in recent years, the qualities that drew them to the neighborhood have attracted many newer families, she said. Antolin explained she even has been getting pamphlets from real estate agents asking if the couple wants to sell. (They don’t).

The solicitations aren’t surprising. Her neighborhood has become one of the hottest real estate markets in the Bay Area.

Woodlands’ typical home value has risen from $1.04 million in February 2020 to $1.46 million in February 2024, a 40% surge, according to real estate brokerage site Zillow. That jump is one of the biggest of any neighborhood in the San Francisco metropolitan area, and part of a trend in recent years of buyers favoring suburban communities close to shopping centers and quality schools.

Over the same four-year period, Walnut Creek’s home values rose by 30%.

The value of the typical home in Woodlands also rose nearly twice as fast as in the San Francisco metro area overall, where values increased by about 19% over four years.

Most of Woodlands’ home value increase came during the first two years of the pandemic, when remote work policies caused many home buyers to prioritize some factors such as school quality and house size over others like short commute times.

Higher mortgage rates have slowed overall home value increases over the past year. But Woodland’s typical home value still increased by 4% from February 2023 to February 2024, about the same uptick as Walnut Creek overall.

Valley Verde Elementary School rests near the center of the neighborhood, and there are middle and high schools just outside Woodlands’ boundaries. The Cabana Club, a community pool, serves as a space for families to meet each other.

Woodlands’ family-friendly atmosphere is the main reason that Julie Rattaro, who grew up in the area, wanted to raise her own kids there. She now works as a teacher at Valley Verde Elementary, which both she and her husband attended.

“I think that’s one of the biggest things, is that the parents are involved in Valley Verde,” Rattaro said. “They want to see the success of the school for their children.”

Since buying their home 12 years ago, Rattaro said, she and her husband watched home prices rise, with many of their neighbors coming from San Francisco and other urban centers. Dayna Wilson, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty and a longtime Woodlands resident, said many homeowners also added offices or accessory dwelling units to their properties after the pandemic began, driving prices up even further.

In the Bay Area, the movement away from urban cores — which some researchers call “the donut effect” — has also resulted in home prices skyrocketing in cities like Fremont in Alameda County. That city’s 28 Palms neighborhood, which like Woodlands is a suburban community close to schools and shopping centers, saw home values increase by 48% from 2020 to 2024. It was the biggest jump of any neighborhood in the San Francisco metro area, followed by several other Fremont neighborhoods.

Woodlands houses tend to be modestly sized, single-story homes of around 1,800 to 2,300 square feet. Children often ride their bicycles in the wide streets — most of them, like Road Oak Road and Peachwillow Lane, named after trees — or play at the portable basketball hoops many families place against curbs.

The neighborhood is also walking distance from multiple shopping centers. Some of the area’s largest grocery stores are relatively new arrivals, with Safeway and Whole Foods opening in the past decade.

Sharon Vanni, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Realty who lived in Woodlands for 17 years, described it as a “ ‘Leave it to Beaver’ neighborhood,” referring to the 1950s and 1960s sitcom set in an idyllic suburban neighborhood.

“There’s never not been an interest in the Woodlands,” Vanni said, adding that buyers quickly snatch up listed homes.

It’s not just younger families buying homes, according to Wilson, the Keller Williams Realtor. She said she has helped sell the same Woodlands house three times, most recently to a woman who wanted to live close enough to her grandchildren that they could ride their bikes to her home after school.

Of course, while surging home values are good news for current homeowners, it’s much harder for first-time buyers to move into in-demand areas like Woodlands. And competition is likely to get even fiercer once interest rates start to decline again, Wilson said.

That has Antolin, the 27-year Woodlands resident, worried for younger home buyers.

“We thought it was difficult when we bought it,” she said, “but (now) it’s way more difficult.”

Reach Christian Leonard: [email protected]