I am helping my friend to find a home in the SF area. Do you have a good website similar to sdlookup.com that we have down here in san diego?
A good website would provides the closed price on past purchases and other good info.
By the way, I just did another visit to the bay area, this one being the sixth time. I have always been saying that SD has everything that SF has and we are a nicer city…but after the last trip, finally, I have to say that SF beats SD by a great margin on how beautiful it is. This is after I explored outside of immediate SF city and opened my eyes.[/quote]
KIBU, I totally agree. SF itself is a collection of “rocks,” densely populated and absolutely fascinating in every respect! Each section has its own “subculture.” A great portion of the residential views there are tremendous, just incomparable with anywhere else in the world!
Not only is the SF Bay Area much larger than SD County (comprised of six counties), it has MUCH more to offer than SD by way of varied terrain and vegetation, numerous job centers, variety and sheer numbers of jobs available, overall higher pay scale, culture, breathtaking rugged beauty, etc. In addition, it gets more rain and thus does not look like the (merely irrigated desert) that SD is. Many Piggs have stated it is MORE expensive to purchase real property in the SF Bay vicinity. I don’t agree with this when you actually compare like community (in SF Bay) to like (in SD). Other Piggs have complained about traffic and commute times there. There are MANY more freeways and job centers there than here. CALTRANS in the bay area also permits hybrid vehicles with ONE occupant HOV lane-usage privileges. Like SoCal, if you live near your job and are not freeway (or bridge) dependent, then this is not an issue. If you freely CHOOSE NOT to live near your job, then you made your own bed in this regard. You pay for what you get in this life :=]
I DO think RENTS may be a little higher there but also feel the (up to 45%) higher salaries for ALL occupations MORE than compensates employees for any difference in rents.
As far as Shadowfax, we don’t know where her new job location will be but I’m partial to a few communities for a family (listed in order of preference), depending on where she will work:
Peninsula: Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, Sunnyvale, Saratoga and Palo Alto, the latter if willing to live in a =< 1600 sf house, possibly remodeling and increasing its sf at a later date. (This would be a very good long-term investment, IMO.) Santa Clara if she has base privileges for shopping/gas.
Alameda County: Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin
Contra Costa County: Walnut Creek, Orinda, San Ramon
Marin County: Mill Valley (although difficult to find a one story house and/or a flat lot there) and San Rafael
I grew up in Alameda County in the "Tri-Valley" area (listed above). Much of it was semi-rural and agricultural back then but this area now has many nice tracts, custom areas and job centers. My recent experiences with the I-580/I-680 running through this area is that they are very convenient and fairly fast moving, even during rush hours.
My personal preference is San Mateo County, then Santa Clara County, then Marin County in that order. However, if I should ever relocate there (seriously considering it), I won't have quality of schools to consider.
I'm headed back to SF for a few days later in the month and try to visit it about 4x per year 🙂
