Anyone ever lived in the south bay area?

[OCmike]

I've got a job interview next Friday for a job that looks like a done deal. They suggested that I stay for the weekend and look for a place to live. So it sounds like unless I come off as a complete tool (insert joke here), the gig is pretty much mine.

The new job is in the Sunnyvale/Palo Alto/North San Jose area. Other than "avoid East Palo Alto at all costs", I really don't know much about the South Bay.

Serious replies only please. :D

Oh, and save the inevitable Castro/Tenderloin district jokes, homos. SF is more than an hour's drive away.

[Dinsdale]

Cost of housing in PA/ San Jose is pretty cheap, from what I hear. You should have your pick of anywhere you want to live.


South Bay -- all the inconveniences of the Bay Area, without all that pesky culture, nightlife, and urban advantages.

[OCmike]

The company just moved from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale somewhere, so I don't know if it'll be closer to Palo Alto, San Jose or Sunnyvale.

I'll just be looking for an apartment for now and the prices have been fairly reasonable (for CA) from what I've seen. I'm not even going to THINK about ponying up for a house, especially in the Bay Area, where houses are horribly overpriced for 1960's crapshacks, at least until the market settles out a bit...which probably won't be for a couple of years.

[Mikey]

I grew up in Palo Alto, but that was a loooonggg time ago.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&g ... 39911&z=15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you could score a crib in my parents' old neighborhood you might like it. They were the second house on the street and sold it in 1984. It was a lot more reasonable when it was built in '69.

Back then Palo Alto was a lot nicer than Sunnyvale, and San Jose was considered a slum. I think it's prolly changed a lot since then.

[Mister Bushice]

Cost of housing in PA/ San Jose is pretty cheap, from what I hear. You should have your pick of anywhere you want to live.


South Bay -- all the inconveniences of the Bay Area, without all that pesky culture, nightlife, and urban advantages.

Once again, this dip shit is out of place, and way off base. Chalk up another area cliffy doesn't know jack shit about, if you still have room left on your spread sheet..

Forget about a house purchase in the greater San Jose area unless you are going to make well over 100K in j-a-c-k (damn word filter) and have low or no debt. "Affordable homes" in the south bay mostly translates to "crack infested gang neighborhoods". Even the oldest, cheapest houses are expensive there. Its the primary reason for the major housing boom in virtually every community within a 2 hour drive of the bay area. No one can afford to live there anymore, but all the good jobs are there.

Go to zillow.com, and start doing searches on areas in the south bay. You can put in a city or district, and check home prices. If its below half a mil, chances are good it's a piece of shit.

Santa cruz and all the coastal cities would be a shit commute. Morgan hill is a nice little community 30 mins south of san jose but GOOD LUCK finding something there for under 750K.

If I were in your position I'd hair club for men it, then i'd rent a place on the west side of the peninsula until I figured out where everything was at, compared to where I was going to be working. I know that area very well, having worked in it and lived near it for years. Downtown palo alto is a ritzy little district, but the eye candy on a hot day and the many many restaurants are worth the visit. Stanford U is just down the street. Sunnyvale is ok, but there's no real main part of the city, it's very spread out, with just a couple of blocks here and there that have good eats and stuff to do. It's mostly a tech/bedroom community, very expensive but safer than most other BA places because of that.

Around 1999, a friend of mine told me his sister sold a 1 bedroom, 875 sq ft condo in Palo Alto for $450,000. Do the math from there to here. They may want your skills, but if they aren't telling you that decent sized housing in a decent area is out of reach for most people, they are lying.

You wanna live a 1 hour commute from there you will do a hell of a lot better.

[Dinsdale]

Cost of housing in PA/ San Jose is pretty cheap, from what I hear. You should have your pick of anywhere you want to live.


South Bay -- all the inconveniences of the Bay Area, without all that pesky culture, nightlife, and urban advantages.

Once again, this dip shit is out of place, and way off base.

And to demonstrate this, you decided to reinforce my obviously sarcastic comment about housing prices, and reaffirm that such places are high in crime (and obviously don't have the culture/nightlife of San Francisco).


You were hoping to accomplish... what by agreeing with me while claiming I don't know anything about it?


Dude... just stop.

[Mister Bushice]

Ya know what, cliffy? You've become such a puffed up blowhard there's no telling what you call bullshit apart from what you say is fact.

Add to that your California track record of knowing NOTHING about a place you don't live in and have never spent any time in or near,

you should look within to say "just stop"

Just set any cali related threads on ignore, and we'll ALL be better off.

Christ Almighty you are thick.

(cliffy reset of "ikyab..." in...)