St. Francis Acres

A triangularly shaped neighborhood bounded by El Monte Avenue, Mountain View Avenue and Vista Grande Avenue, St. Francis Acres is a mixed middle-class community. The area is dominated by an early wave of traditional housing, but since then, many updated and renovated homes have been popping up on the market. The community’s demographic is mostly made up of families and empty-nesters with an assortment of ethnic residents. And while it offers a pretty attractive residential terrain, the area is also within close proximity to downtown Mountain View and downtown Los Altos.

St. Francis Acres residential terrain is a mixed bag of sorts. In its communal spaces, trees serve as shaded canopies that cover the street from the sun. Almond, apricot and prune orchards saturate the area in a charming arrangement, eliciting a nice, comfortable appeal. As for its living environment, the area is largely overrun by old, long, 1950’s ranch homes and California bungalows, typical of the city. There are some charming, updated house fronts that pepper the area while others still hold that traditional, albeit outdated, feel. Lots are pretty sizable with two-car garages and deeper front yards than the city is used to. They tend to be within the price range of $800,000 to $1 million. If you’re looking to rent, there are only a number of boxy, unattractive apartment buildings tightly packed along the suburban streets.

For your commercial needs, there is a commercial strip that lines the northern end of the neighborhood. Here, you can find a couple hotels, including a Comfort Inn and a Super 8. While it does have its shopping, little traffic flows through here, except during rush hour when parents pick up their children from the local schools. Speaking of which, the community is served by the Los Altos School District and oversees Almond Elementary, Egan Junior High and Los Altos High School. The quality of schools here are, however, pretty underwhelming. They post moderately low test scores set against the California average (pretty average for Mountain View’s standards).

On the northern end of Saint Francis Acres is one of those prototypical suburban strip malls with a CVS Pharmacy as the anchor and a bagel store, Blockbuster Video rental (does anyone still rent from these?), a Jamba Juice, and an eye care center. Nothing terribly exciting.
Just to east along the streets that feed off El Camino Real are a number of boxy apartment buildings with dark tightly packed apartments staring at each other over a narrow walkway (which is largely unused, since residents park in the spaces behind the apartment and use stairs to get up to their apartments).

As you head south into Saint Francis, you find the kind of typical suburban neighborhood with which anyone who lives in California is pretty familiar. Although there are some older homes, you will mostly find Ranch homes in this neck of the woods.

Think that because this happens to be a pretty middle of the road neighborhood that you will get middle of the road prices to go along with it?

Think again. A fairly typical 1500 ft. Ranch house in this neighborhood will run you over $1 million. That is over $667/foot.
Okay, so are there things that make this neighborhood worth the price of two houses in other neighborhoods in the Bay Area (three in some lower end neighborhoods)?

Well, some of the nice things about this neighborhood are that since it is one of these older neighborhoods, it is actually fairly walkable with sidewalks and shady trees. This may seem like a small thing, but you would be surprised by how many Bay Area neighborhoods are no longer walkable at all.

The second thing, of course, are schools. Since most people that move into this neighborhood will be families looking to raise kids, the quality of the schools is a major consideration.

So long as you end up at Almond Elementary and not Mariano Castro Elementary in Shoreline West to the north you are okay. The first is one of the many outstanding schools in Mountain View—the latter is middling at best.

So overall, I would say this is a nice neighborhood, but I just can’t see paying more than $1 million dollars for home here.