Two numbers came out of the same neighborhood over the same three months, and they moved in opposite directions. In the window ending around July 2026, the median sale price for homes in the MLS area listed as Westside Alamo dropped sharply from the same period a year earlier. Over that identical stretch, the median price per square foot climbed just as sharply. Same streets. Same three months. A price that fell and a price that rose.
That is not a data error, and it is not a market that cannot make up its mind. It is what happens when a single name gets stretched over five or six neighborhoods that were never built to be compared to each other.
"Westside Alamo" Describes a Zip Code Habit, Not a Neighborhood
Ask a longtime resident where they live and you will hear Jones Ranch, Alamo Ridge, Iron Horse Estates, Stone Castle Estates, or West Alamo Estates. Ask an MLS search field and it will hand you all of them back under one umbrella tag. The homes underneath that tag were built a decade apart, by different builders, at completely different scales.
| Community | Built | Builder | Typical Size | Typical Lot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alamo Ridge | 1989 to 1999 | Thayer & Holt | 4,000 to 10,000 sq ft | 5 to 10 acres |
| Jones Ranch | 1988 to 1999 | Various custom | 3,000 to almost 7,000 sq ft | 1/2 to 1 acre |
| Iron Horse Estates I & II | 1990 to 1996 | Various custom | 4,000 to 6,000 sq ft | 1/2 to 3/4 acre |
| Stone Castle Estates | 1999 to 2001 | Suncrest Homes | 2,900 to 4,200 sq ft | 1/2 to 1+ acre |
| West Alamo Estates | 1996 to 1997 | Semi-custom | 2,900 to 3,700 sq ft | 1/3 to 1/2 acre |
Alamo Ridge sits on the ridge above everything else, with lots large enough to run horses. West Alamo Estates sits close enough to Alamo Plaza that you can walk to it. Iron Horse Estates has two separate gated entrances, Iron Horse Estates I and II, both feeding onto the Iron Horse Trail with views toward the Las Trampas Ridge. These are not five flavors of the same house. They are five different products that happen to share a school boundary and a listing tag.
Why the Median Fell While the Per-Foot Price Rose
Here is where the contradiction resolves itself. A median sale price answers one question: what did the middle transaction cost in dollars. A median price per square foot answers a different question: what did buyers pay for the space itself, regardless of how big the house was.
If a five-acre Alamo Ridge estate and a 3,200-square-foot West Alamo Estates home both sell in the same quarter, the dollar-figure median gets dragged toward whichever one is more common in that quarter's sample. Sell fewer of the big custom estates and more of the smaller semi-custom homes in a given three-month window, and the median dollar price drops even though nothing about value has changed. Meanwhile, buyers competing hard for the smaller, newer product can push the per-square-foot number up because they are bidding on scarcity, not square footage.
A falling median and a rising per-foot price in the same window is the fingerprint of a mix shift, not a market correction. It tells you which type of home happened to trade hands, not whether West Side Alamo got cheaper or more expensive. Homes across the area are currently moving fast, typically in about nine days, in what Redfin's own competitiveness scoring places near the top of its scale. A market moving that quickly with that few homes changing hands in any given quarter is exactly the kind of market where three or four unusual transactions can swing the median without swinging actual value.
The HOA You Didn't Know You Were Buying Into
The naming confusion is not just cosmetic. It shows up in the paperwork buyers actually sign.
Listing records for Iron Horse Estates illustrate the point in miniature. One home on Iron Horse Court carries HOA dues of roughly $800 a year, tied to the security gate that gives the community its name. Another listing for a different home on the same court records HOA dues of zero. Same subdivision name, same street, two different financial obligations attached to ownership.
The subdivision name on a listing tells you almost nothing about what you will actually owe every year. Only the specific parcel's HOA documents do that.
This matters because Iron Horse Estates operates through two separate gated entrances, Iron Horse Estates I and II, and community associations in gated Alamo neighborhoods are not always structured the same way even within one development. Some carry dues that fund gate maintenance and shared landscaping. Others carry no ongoing dues at all. A buyer comparing two listings under the same community name, assuming the carrying costs match because the address does, can be caught off guard well after the offer is written.
What This Changes About Comparing Listings
Before treating any two homes under the Westside Alamo umbrella as comparable, there are three things worth confirming rather than assuming.
- Which sub-community the home actually sits in, and when it was built. A 1990s Iron Horse Estates custom home and a 1999 Stone Castle Estates semi-custom home will price very differently even at similar square footage, because the underlying construction quality and lot scale differ by design era.
- Whether an HOA exists on that specific parcel, and what the current dues cover. Do not rely on the subdivision name. Pull the actual disclosure package for the property in question.
- What the lot size buys, since an acre in Alamo Ridge and an acre in Jones Ranch sit in very different topography, with Alamo Ridge's larger parcels priced partly for privacy and views rather than usable flat yard space.
None of this shows up cleanly in a portal search that groups everything under one neighborhood filter. It shows up when someone who already knows the streets walks the comparison for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is "Westside Alamo" an official neighborhood name? It functions as an MLS and search convention more than a formal designation. The area contains named communities, Jones Ranch, Alamo Ridge, Iron Horse Estates, Stone Castle Estates, West Alamo Estates, and others, each with its own history, builder, and in some cases its own HOA.
Why do two homes in Iron Horse Estates show different HOA dues? The community has two separate gated entrances, Iron Horse Estates I and II, and listing records for individual homes on Iron Horse Court show dues ranging from zero to roughly $800 a year. The subdivision name alone does not tell you which structure applies to a given parcel. The property's specific HOA documents do.
How do I find out which sub-community a listing actually belongs to? Ask directly, and ask for the year built and original builder along with it. A home's construction era inside this area says more about its finishes and systems than its listed square footage does.
If you are weighing a purchase or a sale anywhere on Alamo's west side and want a read on which sub-community a specific address actually belongs to, Jill Fusari has spent years tracking these streets house by house rather than by umbrella tag. Request a confidential home valuation to start with numbers that reflect your actual property, not a blended average from five neighborhoods wearing one name.
