Old Town / Downtown Novato
Walk to Grant Avenue — bungalows and mid-century homes with the town's best everyday convenience.
Communities / Novato & Marin
Novato & Marin
Jonathan's home ground — Marin County's friendliest entry point, with Mt. Burdell above town, SMART rail through it, and the rest of Marin unfolding south.
County
Marin
To Golden Gate Bridge
~25 miles from Novato
Rail
SMART — San Marin & Downtown Novato
Feels like
Small-town Marin with big open space
Living Here
Life in Novato
Jonathan grew up in Novato, and it's still the town he'll defend in any argument: Marin County living without Marin County's steepest price of admission. Old Town's Grant Avenue has the restaurants and the parade route, Mount Burdell rises straight off the northern neighborhoods, and two SMART stations tie the town into the rail line north and south.
South of Novato, Marin proper takes over — San Rafael's working downtown and Canal-to-Dominican spectrum, Mill Valley under Mt. Tamalpais, and the ferry-and-101 commute culture that defines the county. We work the whole corridor, with Novato as our Marin anchor.
Neighborhoods to know
Hamilton
The converted 1930s airfield: landmark hangars, parade grounds turned parks, and a planned-community feel.
San Marin
Family neighborhoods under Mount Burdell with their own SMART station and high school.
Pleasant Valley & Indian Valley
Semi-rural west Novato — horse properties, oaks, and the college's wooded campus.
San Rafael
Marin's county seat and most varied market, from the Canal to Dominican estates.
Mill Valley & Southern Marin
The premium tier — redwood canyons, Tam views, and SF commutes by ferry or bridge.
Out your front door
- Mount Burdell Open Space — 1,600 acres of oak savanna trails rising directly from San Marin's streets.
- Stafford Lake Park — Picnics, disc golf, and the west-county reservoir views.
- Grant Avenue, Old Town — Novato's main street — restaurants, the farmers market, and the Fourth of July parade.
- China Camp & the bay shore — State-park shoreline and mountain-bike singletrack minutes from San Rafael.
- Mount Tamalpais — The county's rooftop — the view that explains Marin prices in one look.
Schools & essentials
- Novato Unified — K–12 across town, including Novato High's MSEL academy and San Marin High.
- Marin's school reputation — District quality drives micro-markets county-wide — we map it street by street with you.
- Marin Health & Kaiser San Rafael — The county's hospital anchors.
- US-101, ferries & SMART — Two Novato rail stations; Larkspur ferry and the bridge for the city commute.
Community Films
See it, don't just read it
We're filming each of our communities the way locals actually live them — markets, trails, main streets, and the neighborhoods in between. New films land here, onInstagram, and onYouTube.
Novato film — in production
Novato film 2 — in production
Novato film 3 — in production
The Market
What your money buys here
Novato is Marin's relative-value play: the same county, schools reputation, and open space at a meaningful discount to central and southern Marin. Hamilton and San Marin lead family demand; Old Town trades on walkability. South of town, San Rafael offers Marin's widest spread, and Mill Valley and southern Marin operate as a premium market of their own.
Jonathan's roots here are the real advantage — twenty years of local relationships, and a firefighter's read on what a house has actually been through.
Detailed market snapshot updates quarterly. For today's numbers on a specific street or property, call — we'll pull them while you're on the phone.
Thinking about Novato?
Jonathan707-782-3897Matt707-322-1579Send Us a Listing LinkSet Up a Custom SearchPhotography: Mt. Tamalpais view — Chris Koerner, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Novato SMART platform — Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 3.0 — via Wikimedia Commons.