The cariety of homes in Seacliff is attainable for buyers across a wide range of price points!
Located north of Aptos Creek and bordering Capitola to the north, Seacliff is Rio Del Mar’s close cousin, a similar census-designated community with an Aptos mailing address but a personality all its own. It’s known for its cool, foggy mornings and its wide beach, its few but iconic businesses, and a variety of homes that make Seacliff attainable for buyers across a wide range of price points.
Seacliff is mostly residential but includes a quaint, small business district on Center Avenue that features 51-year-old local legend Manuel’s Mexican Restaurant, a one-time hangout for 1960s icon Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Prankster’s and later as headquarters for a farmworkers cooperative. The ensuing decades may have washed much of the counterculture vibe from Seacliff but its sense of close-knit togetherness remains. Despite having a large number of seasonal rental properties, Seacliff has maintained its small-town vibe through countless economic cycles, a fact which — may be in addition to its famous summer fog — over the years has kept it from becoming “just another crowded beach town.”
In Seacliff, you will also find the SS Palo Alto, a cement ship that was towed to the Seacliff Pier in 1930, used for a time as a nightclub, and then converted to an artificial reef for local wildlife. The ship is Seacliff Beach’s calling card, but not its only attraction. The beach also features a waterfront RV park and a Visitor Center with a small aquarium and a tide pool, plus a long, uncrowded stretch of sand that offers a welcome alternative to the elbow-to-elbow jostling of beaches in Santa Cruz and Capitola.
Living in Seacliff is itself an alternative to its more high-profile (and high-cost) neighbors. The community’s real estate inventory is made up mostly of modest single-family homes built after World War II, along with a mix of impressive high-end homes, condos, and even the Blue Pacific Mobile Home Park. The coastal neighborhood doles out its ocean views carefully, so as a result has fewer ultra-high-end properties than many of its neighbors. For those wishing to enter the high-end ocean view market, Seacliff Avenue beckons. For everyone else, the good news is that you can find a home located within walking distance of the beach for well under $1 million.
As with most coastal communities, Seacliff offers its residents a bounty of outdoor recreation opportunities. There is, of course, the ocean, with surfing, paddleboarding, swimming, and snorkeling; and there is the beach itself, beckoning those looking to jog, stroll, or simply lie on a towel and read a book. Golf is nearby in Rio Del Mar. Inland Aptos, with its cycling, equestrian, and hiking opportunities, is a short drive away, as are the mysterious redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Seacliff is one of California’s most “under the radar” beach communities, which locals will tell you is to its great advantage. Here you can enjoy the perks of living at the beach without enduring the crowds and high real estate prices that usually accompany them. You can walk down the sand, watch the birds alighting on the SS Palo Alto, relax over an ice cream cone at Maryanne’s Ice Cream (local since 1947) and remember — when necessary — that Santa Cruz is only 10 minutes away, from Silicon Valley and hour beyond that. Life can slow down without disengaging.
