Questions about San Fransisco/bay area

IndianByDefault · Post by **IndianByDefault** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:11 am

I have a question for people living and working in the sanfransisco/bay area. Can you give your opinions on the following.

1. What would be the best place to live if your office is located in downtown close to howard st?

2. What would roughly be the commute time one-way and what would be the ideal form of mass transit to take?

3. What can one expect to pay roughly for rent for a 2-bedroom or 3-bedroom apartment?

4. What would be the best place to live if you had to take into consideration the elementary and middle school systems.

5. Would you recommend public schools or private schools? I understand private schools are very expensive in california?

6. What areas are considered desi dominated?

7. Finally, would you recommend a family of four with two little kids to make the move from midwest to california?

Also please add any other comments you have about life in general in the bay area for someone who has no idea what life is like there. Thanks.

kalpesh145 · Post by **kalpesh145** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:19 am

IBD,
When you said downtown --> I am assuming it's SFO.
If So, living in/close to Fremont would be best choice.
BART ( train system) leaves from Fremont to downtown SFO and lots of people working there travel in BART everyday. Very convenient compared to bay area traffic.
Besides, Fremont has good school district and good desi population.

Regarding Rent,
varies from city to city.
Fremont 2 Bd rent ~1400 $
Milpitas/North SJ 2 Bd rent ~ 1300
Pleasanton 2 Bd rent ~ 1400

Regarding desi domination,
desis are everywhere in Bay Area.
IC doesn't stand of Integrated Circuits, it stands for Indian and Chinese.

IndianByDefault · Post by **IndianByDefault** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:53 am

Kalpesh yes you are right. I meant downtown sanfransisco.

What is roughly the commute time from Fremont on BART?

athadu · Post by **athadu** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:18 am

1. What would be the best place to live if your office is located in downtown close to howard st?

Some people live in the city itself. Less commute, high rents.

If you are ok with commute (with lesser rent), there are plenty of options in the south/east bay.

2. What would roughly be the commute time one-way and what would be the ideal form of mass transit to take?

I drive like 30 miles one way and on a bad day it would take around 1hr 15mins. Best case is 40 mins.
There are people (typically home owners) who commute more than that (like 50/60 miles also).

3. What can one expect to pay roughly for rent for a 2-bedroom or 3-bedroom apartment?

Right now, in south bay you can expect ~ 1500 for 2br roughly.

4. What would be the best place to live if you had to take into consideration the elementary and middle school systems.

Some places are considered to be good public school districts. I dont think place matters for private schools.

5. Would you recommend public schools or private schools? I understand private schools are very expensive in california?

I would say, most Desis would choose public.

6. What areas are considered desi dominated?

You should not have a problem with that :)

7. Finally, would you recommend a family of four with two little kids to make the move from midwest to california?

Depends ! :) I used to live in the east coast before. I like it better here.

Athadu

DosaiLvr · Post by **DosaiLvr** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:46 am

4. What would be the best place to live if you had to take into consideration the elementary and middle school systems.

East Bay (Dublin, Fremont)

Peninsula (There are many cities here including Palo Alto, Los Altos, Belmont etc. etc. that one may want to consider)

South Bay/Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga)

5. Would you recommend public schools or private schools? I understand private schools are very expensive in california?

Private schools - Stratford, Challenger, Harker, etc. etc. are approx. $1000+ per kid per month.

Public schools - There are some very good and coveted schools/school districts.

I would easily recommend public school up to (and) grade 6 in the better school districts. Middle and highschools are a different matter...

6. What areas are considered desi dominated?

Unlike Edision, NJ or Jackson Hts, NY there isn't any place in the Bay area where you'll find only Indians.

The highest concentration would probably be "Gandhinagar" - Sunnyvale. But Indians are not a majority here either!

Indians and Indian businesses are everywhere but are very well integrated.

Better question would be where won't you find Indians in the Bay area (East Palo Alto, parts of Oakland I guess)

7. Finally, would you recommend a family of four with two little kids to make the move from midwest to california?

Definitely

Also please add any other comments you have about life in general in the bay area for someone who has no idea what life is like there. Thanks.

Weather is great, people are outward looking, generally less crime compared to many cities (not counting Oakland, parts of SF, and East Palo Alto), racial mix is different compared to the north east.

Because the Bay area is expensive, you won't find very many poor and the associated social issues in the valley.

Beware, you might not miss India too much. You could go to Chaat House for authentic Punjabi Khana for lunch and drive a very short distance to Saravana Bhavan for authentic TN style dinner!
________________________________

If I were you, I would start w/ the school district and then let everything else fall in place around it.

If considering public school system, go to greatschools.net and identify the school of your choice based on the rating (API grades) and then look for homes in that school's home-district.

Good luck.

IndianByDefault · Post by **IndianByDefault** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:00 pm

Thanks DL and Athadu for your responses. Greatly appreciated.

Another question for bay area folks. How many of you rent as opposed to owning homes. Is it comfortable living renting 2-bedroom and having couple of kids?

athadu · Post by **athadu** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:23 pm

I feel, one cannot get a decent house in a decent place for less than 500K here. This is if one sets ones expectations kind of on the lower side :). I plan to R2I. So didn't want to go thru that trouble.

I know a family (with a school going kid) who had recently moved into bay area. They choose to rent in Foster city. That is a good option for you.

Athadu.

kalpesh145 · Post by **kalpesh145** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:30 pm

IndianByDefault;14409Kalpesh yes you are right. I meant downtown sanfransisco.

What is roughly the commute time from Fremont on BART?

approx 30 mins. My advise would be either live close to BART or live close to your work. Traffic sucks in working hours. I would advise strongly against driving more than 20 miles here.
Many are driving more as they bought homes in south SJ or far from that, as homes are cheaper there.

Regarding rent v/s buy --> it's your call. RE is very expensive here. one of my friend just bought 2 bd TH for 525K, you can rent 2 bd for ~ 1500. So, do your calculation.
I have two kids and renting 2 bd apt. Main reason for not buying is R2I in mind.

IndianByDefault · Post by **IndianByDefault** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:42 am

Once again thanks Kalpesh and athadu

Old-Spice2 · Post by **Old-Spice2** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:49 am

IBD,

If you are considering the move, come with $1M in your pocket or have a job offer at GOOG, Apple, Cisco and others with bag full of stock options. Otherwise you will be living as a lower middle class in a cramped apartment dreaming about your shining 2500 sq footer bought for 150K.

No kidding - one of my friend in Chicago suburb, wanted to move as tech companies like LU, Motorola, and Alcatel were bleeding. After checking out the RE prices she decided to stay put and this was in 2003.