Episode 2 · Property Types & Supply Dynamics
Redwood City Housing Guide: Age, Size, Tax, Tenure
Redwood City is a city of older single-family houses, many of them updated at some point and many kept by the same owner for years. This page shows how big the houses are, how old they are, how long owners keep them and what they cost to hold in property tax. It covers single-family houses only.
💡 Key Insights & Takeaways
- The median Redwood City house has 1,640 square feet of living area on a 6,500 square foot lot and was built in 1952, and 72.2% of the houses have one story.
- Among the 10,672 parcels with a renovation record, 67.0% show a recorded update, and the record is incomplete, so that is not a share of all houses.
- Among houses with a recorded sale date, the median hold is 14.6 years and 36.5% have been held more than 20 years, but only 74.6% of houses carry a date.
- Trusts hold 21.0% of the houses, which is estate planning and not investor buying, while corporations and LLCs hold 1.4%.
- A screen flags up to 23.2% of houses as strong candidates for rebuilding, but that is a ceiling, and it falls to 13.6% when a blank record is not counted as no renovation.
A Redwood City house last sold in 2020 to 2026 has a median assessed value of $1,902,000, 4.1 times the $467,556 median for one last sold before 1990, as of 20 October 2026. Proposition 13 fixes assessments at the last sale, so the gap tracks purchase dates, and assessed value is not a sale price.
At a glance
Redwood City single-family houses at a glance, as of 20 October 2026. Medians are the value that half the houses fall below and half rise above.
| Item | Value | Houses measured |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family houses | 17,624 | All houses, vacant lots left out |
| Median living area | 1,640 square feet | All houses |
| Median lot size | 6,500 square feet | All houses |
| Median year built | 1952 | All houses |
| Median annual property tax | $11,946 | All houses |
What kinds of houses does Redwood City have, and how big are they?
Redwood City has 17,624 single-family houses as of 20 October 2026, counted by parcel. A parcel is one lot of land that the county taxes as a unit, so this counts lots and not the people who live on them. In all, 17,645 parcels carry a single-family land use, and the other 21 are vacant lots with a median lot size of 5,260 square feet. This page covers single-family houses only, and other home types are outside it.
A house with an accessory dwelling unit, which is a second small home on the same lot, makes up 4.6% of the houses. In the county's story count, 72.2% of the houses have one story and 27.8% have two or more. That count covers 17,586 houses, so you will meet a one-story house more often than a two-story one.
The median house has 1,640 square feet of living area on a 6,500 square foot lot. A median is the value that half the houses fall below and half rise above. The floor-area ratio is the living area divided by the lot area, and its median is 0.236, so the floor area of the median house equals about a quarter of its lot.
How old are Redwood City houses, and how many have been renovated?
The median Redwood City house was built in 1952, as of 20 October 2026. Of the 17,624 houses, 37.5% were built before 1950 and 4.2% were built in 2000 or later.
The county also lists an effective year built for some houses. That year moves later than the year built when a house has had major work, so a gap between the two years points to an update. An effective year is listed for 10,672 of the 17,624 houses, which is 60.6%. Of those 10,672, 67.0% show a renovation, and 59.3% show a gap of six years or more. Where a renovation shows, the median gap is 21 years, so the median recorded update came about two decades after the house was built.
The renovation record is incomplete. It is thinner for houses built in the 1970s to 1990s, at about 40% to 43%, than for houses built in the 1940s and 1950s, at 67% to 70%. So 67.0% is a share of the houses that have a record, not of all houses, and the recorded renovations are at least 40.6% of all 17,624 houses.
How much is a Redwood City house assessed at, and can you tell the land from the house?
Assessed value is the county's estimate of a property under Proposition 13. It is not market value, and it is not what a home would sell for. The median assessed value of a Redwood City house is $962,292, as of 20 October 2026, across 17,621 houses with a value.
You cannot read the land apart from the house in these figures. The county source for this community does not carry separate land and building values, so there is no direct split. Instead we use a Structure Share Proxy, which is an estimate of how heavily lots are built out and is never a split of land and building. The median assessed value is $142 per square foot of lot and $583 per square foot of living area, and the ratio of the median living area to the median lot area is 0.252. The $583 is an assessed figure, not a price per square foot.
What property tax do Redwood City houses carry?
The median annual property tax on a Redwood City house is $11,946, as of 20 October 2026. The median effective tax rate, which is the annual tax as a share of assessed value, is 1.24%.
Under Proposition 13, an assessment is set when a property changes owners and then rises by no more than 2% a year. So comparing the assessed values of houses bought in different years reflects the year of purchase more than the current value of each house. The two groups below show how far apart that puts them.
Median assessed value and median annual property tax of single-family houses by year of last recorded sale, as of 20 October 2026. Houses with a recorded sale date only.
| Last recorded sale | Median assessed value | Median annual tax | Houses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1990 | $467,556 | $6,422 | 1,148 |
| 2020 to 2026 | $1,902,000 | $22,284 | 3,367 |
The 2020 to 2026 group is assessed at 4.1 times the pre-1990 group. The year of last sale explains 31.4% of the differences in assessed value between houses, while living area, lot size and year built together explain 24.8%, across 13,144 houses. In plain terms, knowing when a house last sold tells you more about its assessed value than knowing its size, lot and age. These are descriptive fits and not a cause.
Where a sale date and a sale amount are both recorded, across 12,777 houses, the median assessed value is 1.28 times the last recorded amount, and 9.1% of those houses are assessed at two times that amount or more. The recorded amount is not a qualified price, because the data has no code for whether a sale was at arm's length. A seller's tax line says when they bought. It does not say what the next owner will carry.
How long do owners keep Redwood City houses, and who owns them?
A recorded sale date is on 74.6% of the houses, or 13,149 of 17,624, so the figures here describe those houses only. The earliest date is 1977, and houses without a date may be the longest-held. The hold is the number of years since the last recorded sale. Among the dated houses, the median hold is 14.6 years as of 20 October 2026. The latest recorded transfer is 24 July 2026, so every hold figure is understated by about 2.9 months.
Share of dated single-family houses by years since the last recorded sale, as of 20 October 2026. 13,149 houses with a recorded sale date.
| Held | Share of dated houses |
|---|---|
| More than 10 years | 64.4% |
| More than 20 years | 36.5% |
| More than 30 years | 12.5% |
| Last sold since 30 September 2024 | 6.6% |
This measures how long owners stay, not how many sales happen. The market guide covers sales.
On ownership, 22.4% of the 17,624 houses are held by a trust or a company. Of these, 21.0% of all houses are held in trust and 1.4% are held by a corporation or LLC. A trust is an estate-planning tool common among owners who have lived in a house for a long time, so a trust is not read as an investor. The investor-adjacent figure is the corporate or LLC share, which is 1.4% of all houses and 3.0% of the 3,367 houses last sold in 2020 to 2026. The county data does not show whether an owner lives in the house, so this page gives no owner-occupancy rate.
How many Redwood City houses could be redeveloped?
A screening test flags 4,086 houses, which is 23.2% of the 17,624, as strong redevelopment candidates as of 20 October 2026. The screen looks for older houses that are lightly built for their lots and show no recorded renovation.
That share is a ceiling, not a forecast. The effective year is blank on 39.4% of the houses, and the screen counts a blank as no renovation. The screen also leans on assessed values, which follow the sale date under Proposition 13, so it leans toward houses bought recently.
Strong redevelopment candidates as a share of 17,624 single-family houses, as of 20 October 2026, under two ways of reading a blank renovation record.
| How a blank effective year is read | Share of houses |
|---|---|
| Counted as no renovation (the ceiling) | 23.2% |
| Not counted as no renovation | 13.6% |
The screen is a list of older houses to look at. It does not predict that any will be rebuilt, and it says nothing about what the city would permit on a lot.
Common questions
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