What we've learned about San Ramon
Dougherty Valley is the part of the city that changes how a visit gets planned. Gale Ranch and Windemere went up between the late nineties and the 2010s at a scale the older side of town never had: four and five thousand square feet, three-car garages, dual staircases, media rooms, laundry on the bedroom level. A house like that is not a longer version of a standard clean. It is a different sequence, usually two cleaners working opposite ends and meeting in the middle.
West of Bollinger Canyon Road the houses are older and smaller, built through the eighties and nineties around Twin Creeks and the Crow Canyon Country Club, and closer to what the rest of the valley looks like. What both halves share is paperwork. Homeowners associations here are thorough, and several communities want a vendor insurance certificate on file before anyone works inside the neighborhood. We keep ours current and send it over without being chased.
What we walk into in San Ramon
The split is generational. Pre-1995 San Ramon runs 1,600 to 2,400 square feet over two stories, carpet upstairs and tile below. Dougherty Valley runs 2,800 to 5,000, with hard flooring through most of the ground level, entry ceilings high enough to put light fixtures out of reach, and enough bathrooms that the bath count drives the quote more than the bedroom count does. Nearly everything sits under association rules, and many streets are rear-loaded, which decides where a van can actually stop.