San Martin

San Martin sits in the South County between Morgan Hill and Gilroy, and it is one of the few places left in Santa Clara County that still feels truly rural. It is an unincorporated community, so the county handles planning and services, and its roughly 7,000 residents, according to the 2020 Census, are spread across about 11.6 square miles of ranches, orchards, vineyards and large estate lots. About one in five residents is 65 or older, and a lot of the families I meet here have owned their land for decades. The appeal is a balance of open space and quiet with Silicon Valley still within reach.

San Martin History and Character

The name goes back to Martin Murphy Sr., the pioneer whose Rancho Ojo de Agua de la Coche gave Morgan Hill its start, and who named this area for St. Martin of Tours and built its first Catholic church. The valley floor here sits between the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west and the Diablo Range to the east, and the land has stayed agricultural longer than almost anywhere else in the county. Wineries, garlic and mushroom growing are still part of the local economy, and residents have debated incorporating or joining Morgan Hill for years without changing the community’s unincorporated status.

San Martin Schools

Education matters to families here, and most of San Martin is served by the Morgan Hill Unified School District. The district’s San Martin/Gwinn Environmental Science Academy is right in the community, and older students typically head to Live Oak High or Ann Sobrato High in Morgan Hill. There are also private school options in Morgan Hill and Gilroy, and Gavilan College in Gilroy is only a few minutes south for community college classes. If schools are driving your decision, it is worth confirming the attendance boundaries for a specific address, since they can change at the edges of the community.

Parks, Wineries and Things to Do in San Martin

Recreation is where San Martin really shines. Coyote Lake Harvey Bear Ranch County Park has an entrance on East San Martin Avenue, with more than 30 miles of trails for hiking, horseback riding and mountain biking, a three-mile-long lake for boating and fishing in season, and a campground. Henry W. Coe State Park, the largest state park in Northern California, is a short drive east through Morgan Hill for longer days in the backcountry.

Closer to home, the Wings of History Air Museum next to the county’s San Martin Airport is run by volunteer aviation enthusiasts and is open Tuesdays and Saturdays, with vintage aircraft, engines and cockpits visitors can sit in. Clos LaChance and the other wineries around San Martin and Morgan Hill make for an easy afternoon of tasting, and the wineries’ seasonal events give the place a real small-town feel.

Shopping, Dining and Senior Services Near San Martin

For shopping and dining, San Martin itself is small, with a handful of local businesses, farm stands and tasting rooms rather than retail centers. Most residents do their everyday shopping in Morgan Hill or Gilroy, both about ten minutes away, and the Gilroy Premium Outlets and downtown Morgan Hill’s restaurants cover the rest. That trade-off is part of the deal, and most people who live here see it as a feature.

For older residents, Morgan Hill’s Centennial Recreation Senior Center specifically serves adults 50 and over from San Martin as well as Morgan Hill and Gilroy, with fitness classes, social services and a Senior Café lunch. St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy is the closest hospital, just a few miles south on Highway 101.

Getting Around and Commuting From San Martin

Proximity to major employers is a real advantage, as long as you are comfortable with Highway 101. San Jose and the rest of Silicon Valley are a straight drive north, and the community has its own Caltrain station on Monterey Highway with weekday commute trains in the morning and evening, plus VTA bus connections. Morgan Hill, with neighbors like Anritsu and Specialized, and Gilroy are close enough that a lot of residents work in the South County and skip the long commute entirely.

San Martin Homes and Rural Properties

Housing in San Martin looks very different from the rest of the county. You will mostly find single-family homes on large lots, horse properties, ranchettes with outbuildings, and custom estates in the foothills, with very little in the way of townhomes or apartments. Many properties are on wells and septic systems, so inspections, water quality and well production deserve more attention here than they would in a subdivision. I spend a lot of time with longtime owners figuring out whether keeping the land, selling it, or passing it to the kids makes the most sense, and my breakdown of selling now versus letting the kids inherit walks through the capital gains math that usually decides it. If you are also looking at the towns on either side, my guides to Morgan Hill and Gilroy cover what’s nearby.

Is San Martin a Good Fit for Downsizers?

San Martin is a better fit for people who want land than for people trying to simplify. Most homes are single-family houses on large lots, and many are single-story, but acreage, wells, septic systems, fencing and outbuildings all take upkeep, and there are almost no condos or townhomes in the community. Very little is within walking distance, so daily errands mean a drive to Morgan Hill or Gilroy.

When my San Martin clients do decide to downsize, many stay in the South County. Woodland Estates, a resident-owned 55+ manufactured home community in Morgan Hill, and income-restricted senior apartments like Bella Terra are both a short drive away, and I cover them in my guide to senior living communities around the Bay Area. The Centennial Recreation Senior Center in Morgan Hill serves San Martin residents and St. Louise Regional Hospital is a few miles south, and if you are 55 or older, Proposition 19 may let you move your low property tax base to the next home.

The San Martin Housing Market

With so few sales, the San Martin market is hard to read from monthly numbers. Redfin’s data for the 95046 ZIP code showed a median sale price of about $1.5 million for the three months ending August 2026, with homes spending a median of 22 days on the market, but only nine homes sold that month. When one large estate or one small house closes, the median can swing by hundreds of thousands of dollars, so I price San Martin properties off a close look at individual comparable sales, acreage and improvements rather than a headline number.

Frequently Asked Questions About San Martin

If you own in San Martin and are starting to think about what’s next, the land, the house and the tax picture all need to be looked at together. I would love to help you sort that out, so book a call with me for a straight conversation about your options, or read through my approach to preparing and selling a home first.