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! Most Silicon Valley home buyers would say that Cambrian Park real estate offers a very good value.
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
Cambrian Park is a west side suburban area, part of the city of San Jose for the most part (there are a few county pockets, a bit now covered by Campbell, though), which is located adjacent to Campbell, Los Gatos, Almaden Valley, Blossom Valley and Willow Glen.
The Cambrian Park boundaries are, approximately, Foxworthy Avenue, Bascom Avenue, Carlton Avenue, Blossom Hill Road (except for a jut up in the Vista Loop area), Camden Avenue, the Guadalupe Creek (between Coleman Ave and Blossom Hill Rd.) and Almaden Expressway. There are many many zigs and zags, especially with the Los Gatos border, but I sketched out the approximate boundaries so that readers could get a rough idea of the area we call Cambrian Park – see the map above.
What are the schools in Cambrian?
Cambrian is served by 3 elementary school districts: The Union School District (in the area closest to Los Gatos), the Cambrian School District (the part to the north, closer to Campbell) and San Jose Unified School District (covering most of the 95118 section). High Schools are served by Campbell Union High School District if the homes are in the Union or Cambrian schools area, or San Jose Unified in the rest of Cambrian. (Some school districts are elementary and middle only, with a separate high school district. Others are “unified”, covering K – 12.)
The newest API scores for Santa Clara County’s public schools have been released as of Nov 29, 2011. If you are unfamiliar with how API scores work, it’s on a scale of 1 to 1000. The target number for the county is 800, so anything higher is considered good. Getting close to or over 900 is rare and is the mark of an exceptionally excellent school.
Cambrian came out even stronger than in years past, particularly in the Union School District, where 5 out of 6 elementary schools were in the 900s and the other 1 school was at 878.
The middle schools in the Union area of Cambrian Park also scored high in 2010, with Dartmouth at 900 and Union Middle at 881. For some reason there are NO scores for 2011.
In the Cambrian School District there are 4 grammar schools, 3 of which slipped from the previous year and 1 of which went up. Bagby was at 905 this time and the rest were in the 8s. Price Charter Middle School held steady at 864.
The high schools in this region (the Campbell Union HSD) all went up from the previous year, but only one of them, Leigh, is over 800 (Leigh has a strong 822 API).
Maps for the school district boundaries and school of attendance in Cambrian:
Map of the Union School District
Map of the Cambrian School District, showing school of attendance maps also (they include the Farnaham charter School):
The Cambrian elementary schools covered by the San Jose Unified School District are:
Almaden Elementary (782 API), Hacienda Science/Environmental Magnet Elementary (872) , and Reed Elementary (844). The middle schools in Cambrian or covering Cambrian for the SJUSD are Castillero (795, slipped a little from the previous year – this school is in Almaden Valley) and John Muir (782). The map of this district is not very helpful since the links to schools do not work, however you can see the boundaries for attendance clearly.
The History of Cambrian, via the Cambrian Community Council
A friend & past client of mine (who purchased a home with me in Cambrian) very kindly told me about a wonderful article on the history of the Cambrian area which can be found on the Cambrian Community Council website.
Cambrian Area: It was always about the schools!
As with many parts of California, interestingly, the name itself goes back to the naming of a school (Cambria being another name for Wales). This happened in the mid to late 1800s. The details of the founding of the Union School District and the Cambrian School District are shared there, too. It’s funny to think that more than a century later, the high quality schools in this San Jose neighborhood are still of prime importance and a main driver in home values.
Where was Cambrian originally?
The article further explains that the Cambrian area was an enormous stretch of land, and that Cambrian Park is within that general area (as is “Cambrian Village”, found at the crossroads of Union and Camden Avenues in San Jose). The boundaries got defined differently at various points in time, and at times has included part of Los Gatos. (I read elsewhere that Cambrian was said to extend as far as Dry Creek Road at one point.) Some areas that were originally Cambrian are now part of Willow Glen or part of Campbell. Our local Realtor MLS defines the area as going roughly from about Foxworthy to the north to Blossom Hill in the south, Almaden Expressway to the east and Bascom Avenue to the west. (It touches Los Gatos, Almaden Valley, Willow Glen, and Campbell.)
If you live in this wonderful part of Silicon Valley, I encourage you to visit the CCC website and enjoy their colorful article, History of the Cambrian Area. [Update: the article has since been removed (as of checking, it is down March 2020), but a transcript of it was found in a Facebook Post]
Cambrian Park Neighborhoods
Because I sell a fair amount in Cambrian and lived there, I am very partial to this area and have begun doing posts which are Cambrian neighborhood spotlight pieces. I hope you will enjoy them. More posts are to come but here are a few to get you started:
Almaden Winery: Tresor, Vineland, Vintage
Blossom Hill Farms (a subdivision between the Del Oro area and Strathmore in Los Gatos)
Cambrian Acres (a subdivision within the Oster neighborhood)
Del Oro neighborhood of Cambrian on the Los Gatos border
The “King Street” Neighborhood of Cambrian Park on the Los Gatos Border
Lone Hill Highlands neighborhood
Oster Neighborhood in Cambrian
Villa Cambrian subdivision in the Parker area
More information on Cambrian neighborhoods
Cambrian Park Neighborhoods: How to Choose Where to Live?
Comparing Almaden, Cambrian, and Los Gatos
How’s the Cambrian Park Real Estate Market?
You can read about the Cambrian real estate market (as well as other Silicon Valley real estate markets in Santa Clara County) on my REReport, which is updated in the first week or so of each month.
The current RE Report for Cambrian Park Houses
The current RE Report for Cambrian Condominiums & Townhouses
Cambrian months of inventory
Cambrian Months of Inventory by Elementary School District
What is my Cambrian home worth?
If you live in Cambrian now and are wondering about the market value of your home today, there are two approaches you can take. You can request from me an online valuation (which will be approximate only as it’s “sight unseen”) at either of two places:
Price Your Home request on popehandy.com or at SiliconValleyHomeValue.com
Both of these come to me and I run the numbers personally for home owners who request them (sorry, this offer is not for home buyers). I can usually turn the info around within a day, but sometimes it takes a couple of days if I happen to be travelling or otherwise overly busy. If you make a request and for some reason don’t hear back from me within a couple of hours to acknowledge your request, please email or phone me! Once in awhile, technology doesn’t come through and I don’t get an email alert when I should.
What do houses cost in Cambrian?
Homes for sale in Cambrian 95124 – houses /single family homes
- List View
- Map View
- Grid View
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$1,475,000-
Lot Size6,469 sqft
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Home Size1,458 sqft
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Beds4 Beds
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Baths2 Baths
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See all Real estate matching your search.
(all data current as of
6/8/2023)
Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.
Homes for sale in Cambrian 95118 – houses /single family homes
- List View
- Map View
- Grid View
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$1,238,000-
Lot Size5,890 sqft
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Home Size1,080 sqft
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Beds3 Beds
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Baths3 Baths
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See all Real estate matching your search.
(all data current as of
6/8/2023)
Listing information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Read full disclaimer.
Cambrian condominiums and townhouses for sale
If you’d like to buy a Cambrian home, you can browse the MLS listings of Cambrian Homes for Sale on this blogsite. I have them listed by zip code on separate posts for houses, and below this section are the currently available condo and townhome properties which are on our MLS. These are in order of most recently added to the MLS – click the link at the end of each group to see more.
Cambrian Park real estate – Homes for sale in the Cambrian area of San Jose
Want to buy or sell a home or real estate investment in the Cambrian Park area of San Jose? Please call or email me, Mary Pope-Handy mary (at) popehandy.com 408 204-7673
