Berkeley Hills Neighborhoods

Tanja Odzak is a Top East Bay Realtor with eXp Realty, helping buyers and sellers in Berkeley and across the East Bay. The Berkeley Hills are the residential slopes of Berkeley's northeast side. They begin where the flatlands start to climb, roughly along Cedar Street, Spruce Street, and Arlington Avenue, and rise to Tilden Regional Park and the ridge along Grizzly Peak Boulevard. Much of the district is single-family homes on small, winding streets, apart from the University of California's land, and the ridgetop opens into Tilden and the regional parks beyond.

At a glance: In the 12 months through September 2026, the median sale price of a single-family home in Berkeley Hills Neighborhoods was $1,700,000, across 117 sales. Homes sold for about 126.2% of their list price, and the middle sale took 14 days on the market.

In 1898, residents of Berkeley's Northside neighborhood founded the Hillside Club to keep the hills from being graded flat and covered with buildings that didn't fit the land. Their idea of "building with nature" shaped the subdivisions that followed. La Loma Park, laid out in 1900, has streets that follow the natural contours, and its La Loma Steps, built around 1910 to 1916 with stone walls, brick paving, a pergola, and benches, sit on land that neighbors donated for a public path. The steps survived the 1923 fire, were restored afterward and again in 1992, and are a City of Berkeley Landmark.

Architect Bernard Maybeck bought land in La Loma Park and divided it into irregular lots for friends and family, many of whom hired him to design their homes. His own 1907 brown shingle house burned in 1923, and the house built for his family on a very steep lot in 1933 is now a City Landmark.

Cragmont Elementary School, on Regal Road, is up in the hills. It is a public elementary school for kindergarten through grade 5. Martin Luther King Middle School is on Rose Street, down in North Berkeley, and School of the Madeleine, a private school for kindergarten through grade 8, is on Milvia Street. Berkeley High School, the city's public high school, is downtown on Allston Way. All of Berkeley's public schools are part of the Berkeley Unified School District. School assignment doesn't follow neighborhood names, so check with the district for any address you're considering. The Berkeley page lists the public and private schools across the city.

The UC Berkeley campus sits at the foot of the hills, and many hill streets lead down to it. North Shattuck's restaurants, the Elmwood's shops on College Avenue, and Solano Avenue are all a short drive downhill.

Buyers who look at the Berkeley Hills usually want space and a view, whether that means an architect-designed Arts and Crafts home or a luxury home near the ridge, with Tilden's trails close by and the rest of Berkeley just downhill.

Tanja Odzak knows what to check in an older hillside home, from the drainage and foundation to the seismic work, and how a Berkeley sale works. If you're weighing a move to the Berkeley Hills, that's worth a conversation.