Redwood City Eichlers / Peninsula comparison
The Peninsula · Market by market
Same architects. A million dollars apart.
Anshen & Allen and Jones & Emmons worked in Palo Alto, San Mateo, Sunnyvale and Redwood City. What separates those markets now is supply, protection and liquidity — not who drew the houses.
Scale and era
Every Peninsula Eichler market, side by side.
| Market | Eichlers | Years | Architects | Protection |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palo Alto | ~2,700 | 1949–1975 | Oakland, J&E, A&A | Guidelines 2018 · 11 tracts under Single Story Overlay · 2 on the National Register |
| Marin County | 1,700+ | — | — | — |
| Sunnyvale | ~1,100 | 1949–1973 | A&A, Oakland, J&E | Single-storey combining districts |
| San Mateo | ~900 | 1953–1965 | Oakland, J&E, A&A, Belluschi | [not researched] |
| San Francisco | ~600 | — | — | — |
| Redwood City | 121 | 1950–1956 | A&A, J&E | None of any kind |
| Menlo Park | ~50 | 1950–1970 | J&E, A&A | [not researched] |
| Los Altos | ~45–50 | 1968–1974 | Jones & Emmons | [not researched] |
The Redwood City figure is 121 buildings: 64 at Atherwood, 28 at Fairwood and 23 at Sequoia Meadow — 115 houses — plus the six Roble Avenue duplexes. Counted as dwelling units rather than buildings it is 127, since each duplex holds two. Counts for the comparison markets come from a single publisher and are internally consistent rather than independently verified. We show them because the orders of magnitude are the useful part — 2,700 against 121 is a real difference whatever the exact figures.
Price
What each market was asking, 11 September 2026.
| Market | Listings | Median ask | Per sq ft | Days on market |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palo Alto | 9 | $3,698,000 | $1,896 | 18 |
| Sunnyvale | 4 | $3,098,000 | $1,596 | 14 |
| San Mateo | 1 | $1,998,800 | $1,428 | 1 |
| Redwood City | 0 | — | — | — |
Redwood City's line is the finding, not a gap in the data. With 115 houses, there is frequently nothing for sale at all. Against that, verified Redwood City sales since May 2024 ran $2.05M to $2.605M — so the market sits clearly below Palo Alto and Sunnyvale and at or slightly above San Mateo. Note the comparison is list against sold, which is not apples to apples.
What you get for the difference
The case for buying here.
A Palo Alto Eichler asks a median $3.698M. Redwood City Eichlers have been closing between $2.0M and $2.6M. That is roughly a million dollars, for houses by the same architects.
And in Atherwood's case, an earlier and more unusual tract than most of what that million buys in Palo Alto: November 1950, one of four Subdivisions of the Year in Architectural Forum, and the largest collection of butterfly roofs Eichler ever built. Plus the only duplexes he ever built, a few streets away.
You also get latitude. No overlay zoning, no design guidelines, no HOA, no design review board. In Palo Alto eleven tracts sit under Single Story Overlay and a voluntary guidelines document shapes what gets approved.
And the case against
What the discount is paying for.
Liquidity, mostly. In Palo Alto there is always something to compare against and always a buyer pool in motion. Here there is often nothing on the market for months, which makes pricing harder in both directions and makes an automated estimate close to useless.
The same absence of protection that gives you latitude gives it to your neighbour. In Palo Alto, an overlay means the house across the street stays single storey. In Redwood City the residential standards allow two and a half storeys and twenty-eight feet with no floor-area cap, and a second storey needs only a staff-level Architectural Permit.
Whether that is a feature or a risk depends entirely on which side of the fence you are standing, and we would rather you knew before you bought than after.
The rest of the Peninsula
We cover these markets too.
~2,700 homes · 32 tracts
Palo Alto
The volume market. Design guidelines, overlay zoning, and a tract page for every one of the thirty-two.
~50 homes · four clusters
Menlo Park
The beginning and the end — Stanford Gardens in 1950, Stanford Avenue Court in the early seventies, facing each other.
~45–50 homes · 1968–74
Los Altos
The scarcest of them all. Fallen Leaf Park, Parsons Way, and a handful of customs.