In 1864, William Chapman Ralston, one of the Silver kings and a founder of the Bank of California,

Belmont CA

purchased a large ranch in Belmont and from the first ranch house he built, he went on to build a huge mansion, still standing today.  This mansion is now part of Notre Dame du Muir University, and has been completely restored.

The town grew slowly until after WWII.  Chrysanthemums were grown in the hills at that time.  By 1950, the town had about 5000 residents.  By 1960 the population had grown to over 16,000 and kept growing until available land for building was used up.

Belmont, whose name means Beautiful Mountain, today has a population around 25,000 people.  With schools ranking high, and residents willing to pass bond measures to sustain good schools, it’s a family friendly place to live.

Home prices until recently were a little less than surrounding communities, but that changed last year.  Prices have jumped and are staying high.  Many homes command beautiful views of the San Francisco bay, north up to San Francisco or south down to San Jose.

Belmont rises from the flats near US 101 to the steep hills just below 280, where you see sage and chaparral growing and deer wandering around.  Homes with views command much higher prices than those without.

The downtown is small with some shops and there is a shopping center up Ralston Road at the Alameda de las Pulgas called Carlmont Center.  There are sixteen parks and playgrounds, including one surrounding a lake in the city.  During the summer, free concerts are held on Sunday afternoons at Twin Pines Park.

Belmont is an easy commute to either San Francisco or Silicon Valley.  The weather is moderate.  There is a canyon in the city originally known as “La Canada del Diable” or Devil’s Canyon. Spanish missionaries decided the name was inappropriate, so they rechristened it, “Canada de San Augustine” in the 1780’s.

Belmont is a small communities sitting between San Mateo and San Carlos, generally up in the hills.  There are some fabulous views from some of these homes and of course, the better the view, the more the house costs.

Belmont is the home to Notre Dame de Namur University, a private Catholic co-ed university in the heart of the town.  The Belmont-Redwood Shores Elementary School District has four elementary schools and one intermediate school.  They feed into Sequoia Union High School District’s Carlmont High School or children attend the private Notre Dame High School.

Prices for homes in Belmont are heading down a bit.  Altos Research believes there will be a persistent down-shift in the Market Action Index before we see prices deviate from these levels.

The Market Action Index is in the Cool Buyer’s zone at 24. Keep in mind that 30 is the line between cool
and warm, and it is not strongly into Cool Buyer’s so Altos Research believes that buyers should expect to find reasonable levels of selection in homes for sale.  This is indicated to be so, with the 51 houses for sale and only 31% of those has seen price reductions.

Houses are staying on the market a little less than some of our other cities, at 46 days average.
Belmont is across 101 from Redwood Shores where Oracle  and Electronic Arts are headquartered.  It’s an easy commute south to the Silicon Valley or up to San Francisco.

If you’d like to see a more in-depth report about Belmont please let us know.  We’re here to serve you
in all of your real estate needs.