Oakwood

Me and the BF came here to the Oakwood neighborhood this past weekend (as well as to Central, the neighborhood just to north of this one). Although I was under-impressed by Central, I actually really like parts of Oakwood. Both the residential areas of these neighborhoods have older homes which are on the smallish side.

The Oakwood neighborhood has been hit pretty hard by the foreclosure crisis with more than half of the homes here being on the market due to foreclosure.

This neighborhood however, borders affluent Atherton on its southern end, and as you get near it property prices and the quality of the homes rise in anticipation. So you will actually find a couple of million dollar homes down near Selby (the street that marks the border with Atherton).

So what do you get for $1.4 million in Oakwood? (The most expensive house we could find in this area.)

You get 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, a pool, a large backyard, about 3000 sq. ft. of floor space and a Clinton Era home that still seems to be in mint condition. (I would not have been surprised to hear it was only a decade old.)

Of course, that is way out of our league, since that would be about $8000 in mortgage payments per month, but you can always dream, I suppose.

Not all homes here are quite so expensive. Many homes—especially those older homes for sale due to foreclosures--have considerably lower price tags. (Around $500K for the most part.) Many of these other homes date back to the 40’s and are not quite as attractive as the high end homes nearer to Atherton.

In fact, there can be a fairly substantial difference between the homes on one block versus the homes on the very next block over. You can notice the patchy nature of this neighborhood by checking out the wild swings you find in rent prices as well.
For example, today we noticed that a 2-bedroom just off Carlos Ave. going for $3800 while just one block away there was a 2-bedroom for $2400. And that isn’t even the widest differences. There is a 3-bedroom condo on the western end of the neighborhood going for $7500/mo while on the eastern end 3-bedroom for just $2000/month.

This is not to say that these two apartments would be in any way equivalent. They are not. The one on the western end is a brand new apartment complex with a stonework façade, gated parking lot and really attractive balcony views—while the other 3-bedroom on the eastern end is one of those older boxy apartment complexes facing an uncultivated field, a tarped over pile of rubbish (as far as I can tell) and some fairly dingy looking homes.

That is the thing about this neighborhood. It’s like a box of chocolates, as Forrest would say, You never know what you gonna get.

(Except when it comes to the schools, which are pretty awful here with Selby Lane Elementary having an API of 3.)

Oakwood is a rough-looking, lower middle-class community nestled within the many anonymous neighborhoods of Redwood City. It is rather small, condensed into about a dozen suburban blocks. It spans about 0.8 square miles of unkempt, suburban landscape and is bounded by Woodside Road, Selby Lane and El Camino Real. For perspective residents, the total population is around 6,500 (extremely dense), most of which come from a white or hispanic background. Its one biggest perk is its proximity to the vast San Francisco Bay (about a 10 minute drive), but that’s about it.

Oakwood’s flat residential terrain isn’t much too look at. For one, the neighborhood is saturated with ugly residences. Homes are mostly small, blocky and one-story in size. Secondly, they are fitted on compact lots and tightly packed along residential streets. In some areas, you’ll hit a patch of homes with a couple unsightly chain-linked fences while other areas are home to a handful of gritty, skinny roads with no sense of sidewalk for children to play. For cheaper living, there are a couple beige, bland, two-story apartment buildings clustered towards El Camino Real.

According to the 2010 US Census, houses tend to be in the range of $900,000 to $1.1 million, while smaller housing units and apartment homes can set you back $600,000. Moreover, the typical household rakes in a 55,000 annual income. For your shopping options, El Camino Real is the district’s main commercial strip, but doesn’t offer anything glitzy or glamorous. To the layman, its just your run-of-the-mill open shopping drag with fast food chains, ugly store fronts and a couple department stores (Target, Marshall’s, etc.).