Cambrian Park, or more broadly, Cambrian, is a west San Jose neighborhood or district and is one of the more affordable, high-value areas in Silicon Valley. The schools are good, the crime is low, and the commute is not too bad. For people relocating to Santa Clara County, this is a place to know about since quality education and affordability are often high priorities!

What’s the compromise for the more reasonable prices of homes for sale? Well, Cambrian doesn’t have an interesting, upscale downtown area like Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, or Willow Glen.

But it does have tons of shopping & restaurants and even a Farmer’s Market. It also enjoys a top notch hospital (Good Samaritan) and plenty of parks as well as a fantastic rec center with a large park adjacent to it, the Camden Community Center, which has tons of programs (including an after school program for youth), classes, and a fabulous pool.  (My family and I lived in Cambrian in the “Cambrian Gardens” neighborhood for 10 years and loved it – our kids made great use of the community center too.)

Altogether, there are about 75,000 to 80,000 residents in Cambrian, spread throughout the three zip codes of 95124, 95118 and a little tiny bit of 95008.

If there is a “central Cambrian Park”, it would have to be near the original Cambrian Park Shopping Center, which was the first actual mall in San Jose! That area is sometimes known as Cambrian Village.  People sometimes use the three names interchangeably: Cambrian, Cambrian Park, Cambrian Village.:

Where is Cambrian Park? Map of approximate Cambrian Boundaries:

View Cambrian Area of San Jose in a larger map

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The post below was written in October 2009. To see the most current posts on Willow Glen and the real estate market there, please click on this link to see all related posts with the most current on top. At the bottom of this post, I’ll add links to some articles which are specifically related to the Willow Glen real estate market trends & statistics, too.

Willow Glen is an interesting, varied, historic, scenic and upscale part of Silicon Valley.  It is convenient to downtown San Jose but has its own distinct history; even though it’s been part of the city of San Jose for nearly 75 years, ask a Willow Glen resident where he or she lives and the answer will be “Willow Glen”, not San Jose.

I’ll use Altos Research for my source (a subscription I have & have the right to reproduce images etc here). Since 95% of Willow Glen is composed of 95125 zip code, that’s what we’ll use. The graphs below are dynamic so although I’m posting this in fall of 2009, the charts should be accurate in the future too. NB, Altos uses list prices.

List prices for San Jose, 95125 over the last 12 months by price quartile:

Average days on market for San Jose, 95125 over the last 12 months by price quartile:

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Located along the Guadalupe River and adjacent to downtown San Jose and resting against the borders of Campbell and the Cambrian Park area of San Jose, Willow Glen is a very charming, older part of San Jose and Silicon Valley that seems to beckon to a more gracious time.

The area’s centerpiece is Lincoln Avenue, a street bustling with cars and pedestrians alike. It’s filled to the brim with restaurants and shops and seems to attract a never-ending strea of visitors, especially in summer and during the holidays.

This place has a great sense of community and history too. Willow Glen was once its own town, until the need for being hooked up to the sewer system proved prohibitively expensive, and the residents voted to be annexed to San Jose in the 1920s. Ask someone from this district where he or she is from, and you won’t hear “San Jose”, but rather “Willow Glen”. It’s expected that you will know where that is!

Lovely, Older Architecture is a Hallmark of the Willow Glen area of San Jose

Much of Willow Glen was built early in the 1900s and so the homes in the “downtown” area are older and feature classical styles of housing on tree lined streets – Spanish, Craftsman, and some even more venerable and Victorian. That is surely a large part of its charm. On the edges of Willow Glen, the homes are newer and tract. One area, known as Palm Haven, has a myriad of palm trees (both Royal Palm and Fan Palm) and older, diverse architecture surrounding a community park. The original access to Palm Haven from Bird Avenue and the rest of Willow Glen has been blocked off, but the grand old road can still be found easily enough via Clintonia off Riverside.

In addition to the unique architecture and the draw of Lincoln Avenue in “downtown Willow Glen”, there are other features that make Willow Glen popular for visitors and those who want to live there too. One is the community involvement and the love of the arts. There are festivals and free music concerts and they are a popular draw! The pace seems to be a little slower here. Is it really? I’m not sure, but just seeing that people slow down enough to play Bocce Ball at a neighborhood park convinces me that things somehow just aren’t as hectic here.

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