Hayward Highland

Hayward Highland is without a doubt, the best neighborhood in Hayward for those looking for nice residential style houses. This is, of course, what you find throughout the East Bay: when you reach the hills you get bigger, nicer homes. You also get some pretty nice views of the bay from here.

This neighborhood is the home to Cal State East Bay (formerly Cal State Hayward). It is a solid school known for its Ph.D. teaching degree and a number of Master Degree options.

The homes here--mostly larger Ranch homes from what I’ve seen--sell for a median price around $450K or so. But the range of home prices here goes from around $200 K to $800K with one or two having sold both below and above those amounts. You can pretty much predict prices by how far up into the hills you go with prices rising roughly according to elevation.

You still do get some assaults up here, even though you are up in the hills. Overall, however it is relatively safe here.

The schools here are better than in most of Hayward as well with API scores mostly in the middle for both Hayward High and the local elementary. The only dark spot is Harte Middle School which is bottom of the barrel.

The commute from here as from the rest of Hayward is pretty good except that the extra bit that it will take you to get down from the hills is what makes the difference between making it to SF within an hour and not. You can however make it to San Jose, Berkeley and Pleasanton within an hour, so you are still in pretty good shape.

Overall, however, I think this is definitely the best neighborhood in Hayward.