Rinconada

Rinconada is a residential neighborhood in Los Gatos whose name comes from the Spanish land grant that once covered this whole area. That grant, Rancho Rinconada de los Gatos, was issued in 1840 by Governor Juan Alvarado and ran to about 6,631 acres, taking in what became Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, part of Campbell and slivers of San Jose and Saratoga. It is worth getting the century right, since the grant is frequently misdated: this is 1840s Mexican California, not the 1700s Spanish mission era.

The neighborhood today is ordinary in the best sense, a settled residential area of detached homes on regular streets, without the historic district rules of the Almond Grove or the estate scale of Glen Una. The housing mixes mid century ranch homes with later remodels and rebuilds, which means the single level stock that matters to downsizing buyers genuinely exists here, unlike in much of the rest of town.

That last point is the reason I bring Rinconada up so often. Los Gatos is a hard town to downsize inside of. Most of what makes it desirable, the historic homes near downtown and the hillside properties, comes with stairs and maintenance. The flatter, more conventional neighborhoods like this one are where a longtime Los Gatos resident can usually find a single story house and stay in the same town, with the same doctor, the same friends and the same routines.

Note that Rinconada and Rinconada Hills are two different places. Rinconada Hills is a gated condominium and townhome community built between 1968 and 1981 with its own association and amenities, and it sits separately from this neighborhood. If low maintenance attached housing is what you are after, that is the one to look at.

Daily life runs through downtown Los Gatos a few minutes away, with Santa Cruz Avenue restaurants, the Los Gatos Public Library and the town’s senior services program at the Adult Recreation Center. LGS Recreation runs classes and trips for residents 55 and over jointly with Saratoga, and El Camino Health’s Los Gatos Hospital is nearby.

For outdoors, Vasona Lake County Park and Oak Meadow Park are minutes away with flat paths and shade, and the Los Gatos Creek Trail runs from there through Campbell and into San Jose without a single street crossing.

Schools run through Los Gatos Union School District for kindergarten through eighth grade and the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District for high school. I confirm assignment for each address rather than assuming, since boundaries in town do not follow neighborhood names.

On price, Los Gatos ran a median sale of about $2.7 million through the summer of 2026, up roughly six and a half percent year over year, with a median of around 23 days to go into contract. Conventional homes in neighborhoods like this one generally sit at or below the town median, which is exactly what makes them the practical entry point into Los Gatos. My Los Gatos home prices page tracks the trend and the full Los Gatos area guide covers the rest of town.

Whether you are selling a family home here or trying to find a single level house so you can stay in Los Gatos, the sequencing and the tax treatment matter more than most people realize. Proposition 19 lets homeowners 55 and over carry their existing property tax basis to a replacement home, which changes the arithmetic considerably. Working through that with older adults and their families is my full time practice. Book a call with me for an honest conversation, or read about my selling process.