The BEST Marin County Suburb You've Never Heard of (Larkspur)

In less than 20 minutes, I'm gonna tell you why Larkspur is Marin County's best city you've probably never heard of and why it's a top destination for so many people moving from all over the country to Marin County. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County. And in this video, I'm gonna break down all things Larkspur from its incredibly charming setting, small town vibe, superb access to outdoor amenities, incredibly gorgeous architecture, A+ shopping and dining, and of course, I'm gonna tell you what you could expect to pay for homes in the area. So let's get right to it and start with Larkspur's location, which is one of its best amenities by far. Larkspur is in central Marin, about 15 miles north of San Francisco, and its central location in Marin makes it the perfect place to live if you want to live in the suburbs, but you still have to commute to work in San Francisco, or you just want to take advantage of the food, shopping, and nightlife in the city. One of the biggest gripes I hear from clients looking in Marin out of San Francisco is that they really don't want to give up all the great things the city has to offer, but they do want a lot of the great things the suburbs have to offer, like those incredible schools and much more peaceful setting. So Larkspur's central location is great because you don't have to give up all the things you love about the city by moving to the suburbs. Without traffic, it's about 15 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge and about 30 minutes from downtown San Francisco. So it's really not that far from the city at all. And if you're not a fan of driving, not a problem, because Larkspur has its own ferry terminal. So you can take a ferry across the San Francisco Bay and it'll drop you off directly at the Embarcadero at the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco. So it is one of the most scenic ways to commute. They actually have have alcohol on board if you, you know, had a rough day at work, and you avoid the bridge toll, and you avoid having to pay for parking in the city when you get there, which is sometimes, you know, $25+ a day, sometimes as much as $70 a day depending on where you park. So it can be a much more cost-effective and just a more fun and pleasant way to commute. By the way, if you have to work in San Francisco and you're not sure whether you really want to live in Marin County or in San Francisco, I've got a separate video talking about the pros and cons of living in each of these areas and how they compare to each other. I'll link that up top in the description below. Definitely check that out. And if you like videos about what it's like living in different parts of San Francisco and Marin, about current events, about new developments, make sure to subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. Now back to the reasons why so many people love moving to Larkspur. The weather. Larkspur's central location is also great for weather. Larkspur is super temperate, temperatures ranging from the 50s to the 80s pretty much all year round. The fog coming in from the Pacific Ocean typically burns off before it hits Larkspur, so it is a little bit warmer than say Sausalito or Mill Valley, which are, you know, further south in Marin, closer to the Golden Gate Bridge. And that's great because the best part about living in Larkspur are all the things that you can do outside of your home. First, you have historic downtown Larkspur on Magnolia Avenue. If you envision an old school, like small town in California from like 50 years ago, the vision that comes to your mind probably most closely resembles downtown Larkspur. Yeah. The area is so charming that it was actually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And along that stretch, you will find like coffee shops, cute boutiques, restaurants. There's a historic Art Deco theater there called The Lark. And just up the road from that historic section of downtown Larkspur is a more modern section of the downtown with a lot more modern higher-end boutiques, coffee shops, ice cream shops, that sort of stuff. And the entire area is gorgeous. It is basically flat and it's surrounded by groves of redwood trees, really peaceful setting. So it is a great environment for residents and visitors to walk around in that A+ weather. It's also downtown Larkspur where the city holds its annual Fourth of July parade. People come from all over the Bay Area, not just Marin County, to watch the Fourth of July parade. It is really cute, super old school feeling. You've got fire trucks, you have old, you know, military vehicles, you have local organizations with their own floats and parades. It's a lot of fun. There's also a great selection of high-end shopping and really great food at the Marin Country Mart, which is right across the street from where where the ferry terminal is. They host a farmer's market there every Saturday. They have live music every Friday. They do outdoor movies there. They do holiday events there. There's great clothing stores, interior design stores, home goods, bookstores, you know, anything you could possibly need, they're going to have it there. And there are awesome food and shopping scenes immediately outside of Larkspur as well. You have the Bon Air Center in Greenbrae. You have the Town Center and Village in Cortemadera. There's an RH Rooftop restaurant there. They have an Apple Store, a bunch of different athleisure stores, Williams-Sonoma, Nordstrom, pretty much anything you could possibly need or want that you can get either in or immediately around Larkspur. On top of the incredible shopping and dining, Larkspur also has one of the most renowned school districts, not just in the county, but in the entire state, the Larkspur-Cortemadera School District. The school system is one of the primary drivers of people looking to leave San Francisco for Marin and move to Larkspur in particular. San Francisco's public school system doesn't have as good of a reputation, and private school can cost, you know, as much as college tuition in SF. So families with school-aged children often look to Larkspur to take advantage of their A+ public school system. There are of course great private schools there as well if you want to take advantage of that too. Beyond the schools, shopping, the dining, Larkspur is an incredible destination if you like the great outdoors. Larkspur Loop, for example, is an 8-mile hike with a bunch of stops to make along the way. It is really peaceful. Padron Canyon is another great, you know, hiking, walking area with century-old redwood trees and waterfalls. There are also a ton of parks with tennis courts and children's play areas. You have Piper Park, Centennial Park, Remillard Park, D'Oliver. There are a bunch of places for pets, for families, or for people to just go and hang out. And because it's centrally located within Marin, it's next to so many other areas that themselves have great outdoor amenities too. So hiking and biking trails leading to and throughout areas like Kentfield, Ross, San Anselmo, Fairfax, Mill Valley. You have pretty easy access to Mount Tam. So there's just a ton of nature, hiking, biking, jogging, so much to do if you live in or around Larkspur. And you get to enjoy the great outdoors from your house as well. Because of the great weather and the peaceful setting among the redwood trees, Larkspur has one of the best environments for indoor-outdoor living in Marin County. The lots in Larkspur aren't as large as the lots you'll find in neighboring areas like Ross or Kentfield, but they're plenty big enough to have a great yard, you know, for kids, for pets to run around, or for parents to, you know, host an awesome like lunch or dinner party or something. The average lot size of homes in Larkspur over the past year is about a quarter of an acre. And what you'll notice is that most of the homes are set back further from the street. So you have true driveways, true front yards. So you have a lot of yard space both in front and in back of your house. That's not always the case in Marin. There are parts of Sausalito, parts of Mill Valley, and more hillside parts of other areas in Marin where you don't get that as much. You don't have as large of lots, and you don't have houses that have more privacy and are more set back from the street. They're more on top of each other, and it's a lot more congested. And the homes in Larkspur are of all different styles, but there is a predominance of like historic craft craftsman and Spanish-style homes. There are also some modern and more contemporary homes mixed in too. Generally speaking, houses in Larkspur are pretty modest size-wise. You're not likely to find like massive mansions in Larkspur like you would in parts of like Tiburon, Ross, or Kentfield. The average size home in Larkspur in the past year was about 2,400 square feet. Those houses on average sold for about $3 million, about $1,200 a foot on average. But that's just an average, you know, at the very high end. Some of the homes sold for as much as $3,000 a foot, and on the low end, you know, around $600 a foot for a fixer-upper. So it is by no means cheap to live there. You should also expect to pay more for properties that are within walking distance of downtown and that are in the flat parts of Larkspur. So if you're living on an offshoot of Magnolia or Madrone Canyon or in Baltimore Park, you should definitely expect to pay more than $1,200 a foot for a turnkey home. There are also certain parts of Larkspur that are on the water, specifically on Corte Madera Creek. Living directly on the water comes at a premium as well, at least compared to, you know, living up in the hills far away from downtown. Now, it isn't all roses living in Larkspur. There are definitely some downsides of living there, like there are in any place. You do need to be aware of some environmental risks. If you live near the water, you're going to be living in a flood zone. So there is a risk of flooding. You might also have to pay for supplemental flood insurance, like FEMA flood zone. If you're in a FEMA flood zone, you'll have to pay for that. And that's just going to add more to your cost of ownership. If you live among forested areas, there's a higher risk of wildfire and you may be required to implement certain defensible space measures to harden your home and defend your home against fires, which again adds to your cost of ownership. You also have to contend with traffic during rush hour. If you're heading home from San Francisco on the 101, you're gonna hit traffic starting at about Mill Valley, and it's going to be stop and go until you get to your exit, uh, at Cordova. A lot of the housing infrastructure in Larkspur is also on the older side. A lot of Larkspur was built in the mid-1900s and hasn't been updated since that time. So if you're looking at a house, might look great, but it might have outdated electrical, outdated plumbing, an old roof, HVAC, things like that. All things that you definitely need to be on the lookout for when you're going through disclosures for a particular property. In my view, all of the positives far outweigh these negatives. These negatives are very common in other parts of Marin too, not just Larkspur. It truly is an incredible place to live. I have family that lives in downtown Larkspur, a couple blocks from the historic stretch of downtown Larkspur, walking distance to all those coffee shops and restaurants and boutiques right next to Dollywood Park. It's an incredible setting with redwood trees immediately in their backyard. It's a super cool place to live, and I definitely recommend if you're thinking about moving to Marin that you look at Larkspur. And if that's you and you have questions about different parts of Larkspur or how it compares to other parts of Marin, definitely reach out to me. I've helped people relocate to Marin from all over the country, and I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact information in the description below and reach out anytime. And before you go, if you want to learn more about how different parts of Marin stack up against each other, I've got a separate video that I made where I rank in tiers a bunch of different popular and some not so popular places in Marin County. I'll link that up top in the description below as well. And if you like videos just like this, or about current events in SF and Marin, or about new developments, definitely subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one.