Episode 2 · Property Types & Supply Dynamics
Los Altos Hills Housing Guide: Homes, Lots and Taxes
Los Altos Hills is a town of detached houses on large lots. This page shows what the housing itself looks like: what kinds of homes there are, how big and how old they are, what they cost to hold under California's tax cap, and how long owners keep them.
💡 Key Insights & Takeaways
- Single-family homes are 93.1% of the Town's 2,548 parcels, and the median house has 3,748 square feet of living area on a lot of 47,994 square feet.
- The median yearly property tax bill is $39,090, and the median effective rate is 1.235% of assessed value.
- The median house was built in 1973, and 30.0% show a recorded renovation, or 19.2% when the gap must be 2 years or more.
- The median hold is 13.9 years among houses with a recorded sale date, and 32.6% have been held more than 20 years.
- Trusts hold 10.1% of single-family homes and corporations or LLCs hold 6.2%, so a trust on the title is not a sign of an investor.
The tax bill on a Los Altos Hills house follows its last sale more than its size. As of 20 October 2026, the median yearly bill is $58,904 for houses sold under 5 years ago and $33,205 for houses held 20 years or more. The rate is not the cause. The Proposition 13 base-year value is.
At a glance
Los Altos Hills single-family homes at a glance, as of 20 October 2026.
| Measure | Value | Homes counted (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Median living area | 3,748 square feet | 2,358 |
| Median lot size | 47,994 square feet | 2,371 |
| Median year built | 1973 | 2,355 |
| Median yearly property tax bill | $39,090 | 2,366 |
| Median years held (homes with a recorded sale date) | 13.9 years | 1,701 |
What kinds of homes are in Los Altos Hills?
Los Altos Hills is a town of single-family houses with a thin layer of empty lots. Of the Town's 2,548 parcels, 2,371 are single-family homes, as of 20 October 2026. The count leaves out address-only entries that carry no property details, so it covers the parcels with a full record. Every figure below runs across all 2,371 single-family parcels unless it says otherwise.
Los Altos Hills parcels by type, as of 20 October 2026 (n = 2,548 parcels).
| Type | Parcels | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family homes | 2,371 | 93.1% |
| Vacant land | 123 | 4.8% |
| Other non-residential land | 54 | 2.1% |
| Condominiums | 0 | 0.0% |
| Multi-family buildings | 0 | 0.0% |
The data lists no condominium and no multi-family building. It also cannot pick out accessory dwelling units, so this page gives no count of them.
How big are the houses and the lots?
The median Los Altos Hills house has 3,748 square feet of living area (n = 2,358), and the median lot is 47,994 square feet (n = 2,371). Lots are large: 87.2% are an acre or more. Houses are small beside them. The median floor-area ratio, which is living area divided by lot area, is 0.0728 (n = 2,358), so the floor area of a typical house equals about 7.3% of its lot.
Los Altos Hills single-family layout, as of 20 October 2026.
| Measure | Value | n (homes) |
|---|---|---|
| Houses with 4,000 square feet of living area or more | 44.9% | 2,358 |
| Median bedrooms | 4 | 2,364 |
| Median bathrooms | 4 | 2,364 |
| Houses with 3 or more bathrooms | 90.3% | 2,364 |
| Houses with 1 bathroom | 1.1% | 2,364 |
| Houses with 2 or more stories | 52.8% | 2,358 |
| Houses with 1 story | 47.2% | 2,358 |
How old are the houses, and how many have been renovated?
The median Los Altos Hills house was built in 1973 (n = 2,355). Most went up in the postwar decades: 54.7% were built from 1950 through 1979, 6.8% before 1950 and 16.9% in 2000 or later.
A house counts as renovated when its recorded effective year is later than the year it was built. By that test, 30.0% of houses show any renovation, and 19.2% show a gap of 2 years or more (n = 2,355). The median effective year is 1980. The count covers only the work the data records.
The 1980s group is the least renovated of the older houses. Only 9.0% of houses built in the 1980s show a recorded renovation (n = 301), against 32.4% of those built from 1950 through 1979 and 58.1% of those built before 1950.
Share of Los Altos Hills houses with a recorded renovation, by build era, as of 20 October 2026.
| Build era | Share with a recorded renovation | n (homes) |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1950 | 58.1% | 160 |
| 1950 through 1979 | 32.4% | 1,289 |
| 1980s | 9.0% | 301 |
| All houses | 30.0% | 2,355 |
What does it cost to hold a Los Altos Hills house each year?
The median yearly property tax bill is $39,090 (n = 2,366). The median effective rate is 1.235% (n = 2,366), which is the bill divided by the assessed value. The median assessed value is $3,146,885 (n = 2,370), or $852 per square foot of living area (n = 2,358).
Assessed value is the county's estimate under Proposition 13, which caps yearly increases at 2.0% and resets the value when ownership changes. It is not market value, worth, or what a home would sell for, and homes bought in different years cannot be compared on it. Assessed values here come as one number per home with no split between land and building, so this page does not say how much of a bill pays for land.
The bill follows the year of the last sale. Houses sold under 5 years ago pay a median of $58,904 a year (n = 302), against $33,205 for houses held 20 years or more (n = 554). The median assessed value of the first group is 1.85 times that of the second, and the houses are about the same size, so size does not explain the gap. Both groups come only from homes with a recorded sale date, and the recorded sales stop on 11 May 2026.
Median yearly property tax bill by years since the last recorded sale, as of 20 October 2026.
| Group | Median yearly bill | n (homes) |
|---|---|---|
| Last sold under 5 years ago | $58,904 | 302 |
| Held 20 years or more | $33,205 | 554 |
| All single-family homes | $39,090 | 2,366 |
Set each home's assessed value against the price in its last recorded sale and the same pattern shows. The median assessed value is 1.26 times that price (n = 1,547), and 16.4% of homes sit at 2.0 times or more. For homes whose last recorded sale was in the 1980s, the median is 1.99 times (n = 123). These compare assessed values with past sale prices, not with today's prices.
How long do owners keep their homes, and who holds title?
Among the 1,701 houses with a recorded sale date, the median hold is 13.9 years. Of those, 63.2% have been held more than 10 years, 32.6% more than 20 years and 10.0% more than 30 years. Only 134 show a last sale since 30 September 2024. That counts last sales, not listings, so it measures how few houses change hands and not how many sell in a year.
Sale dates are recorded for 71.7% of single-family homes, and the other homes have no known sale date. The recorded sales end on 11 May 2026, so every hold is understated by about 5 months and later sales are not in the data. That is a limit of the data, not a sign that nothing sold.
Of the 2,371 single-family homes, 16.6% have an entity such as a trust or company in the owner's name. Trusts hold 10.1% and corporations or LLCs hold 6.2%. A trust is an estate-planning tool, so this page does not read it as investor ownership, and the company share is the closer measure. Trust-held homes with a recorded sale date have a median hold of 7.4 years (n = 189). Owner occupancy cannot be measured from this data, so the page gives no figure for it.
How many houses could be rebuilt, and what about empty lots?
Each house is scored on four conditions: low floor area for its lot, high assessed value per square foot of living area, built before 1970, and no recorded renovation. On the three-of-four test, 404 houses (17.0%) qualify (n = 2,358). That is an upper bound, because 69.8% of scored houses meet the no-renovation condition by default, since most show none. The firmer figure is the 70 houses (3.0%) that meet all four. The scoring uses assessed value per square foot and floor area against lot size, not a split between land and building. A count of candidates is not a forecast that any house will be rebuilt.
The 123 vacant lots have a median size of 49,924 square feet (n = 123). Corporations or LLCs hold 18.7% of them (n = 123), against 6.2% of houses. The median hold among vacant lots with a recorded sale date is 10.6 years (n = 56), under the same limits on sale dates. The vacant label comes from the county's land-use text, and some lots with that label carry a year-built or living-area entry. So 123 counts vacant-labelled lots, not lots ready to build on.
Common questions
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