Bayshore

Living in Bayshore

The Bayshore neighborhood takes its name from the Bayshore Highway — the informal name for US 101 when it was built through the San Francisco Peninsula in the 1930s, running alongside the bay's western shoreline from San Francisco south through Millbrae, San Mateo, and Palo Alto. The highway's route and character defined the communities that grew along it, and in Millbrae, the Bayshore designation still marks a specific geography: the strip of the city east of El Camino Real, oriented toward the bay and toward the transit infrastructure that became the neighborhood's defining asset.

That infrastructure is the Millbrae BART/Caltrain station, which opened in 2003 as part of the SFO extension of BART. It is the only station in Northern California — and one of very few in the United States — where two major regional rail systems converge at a single platform. From Millbrae, a commuter can reach San Francisco's downtown stations in 28 minutes on BART, the San Jose Diridon station in 55 minutes on Caltrain's Baby Bullet, or SFO's international terminal in under 10 minutes on BART. For tech workers at companies with satellite offices in both San Francisco and South Bay campuses, or for international travelers who need regular SFO access, no other Peninsula neighborhood provides this kind of multi-directional reach at walking distance.

The residential character of the Bayshore area reflects two distinct eras of development. The older single-family streets — Chadbourne Avenue, Hillside Drive, and the residential blocks running east off El Camino Real — were built in the 1940s and 1950s, when Millbrae was developing as a commuter suburb for workers in San Francisco. These are modest by Peninsula standards: 3-bedroom homes of 1,200 to 1,600 square feet on 5,500 to 7,000 square foot lots, with a working-class post-war practicality that contrasts with the grander mid-century ranch ambitions of the hillside neighborhoods. Many have been updated — kitchens opened, bathrooms renovated, garages converted — but the scale remains intimate, and the pricing reflects it: a well-maintained older home in this area typically transacts at $1.35M to $1.7M, which is among the most accessible entry points in Millbrae.

The second layer of housing is the transit-oriented development that San Mateo County's planning process deliberately encouraged around the Millbrae station after 2003. Townhome complexes, small condo buildings, and live-work loft projects dot the blocks immediately adjacent to the station, offering more contemporary floor plans — open kitchens, primary bedroom suites, in-unit laundry — at price points from $900K for a well-positioned 2-bedroom condo to $1.5M for a 3-bedroom end-unit townhome with garage. These buildings draw buyers who want modern amenities and walkable transit access without the single-family premium.