Moving to Tracy, CA (Livermore, Pleasanton: crime, buying a house, transfer to)

[cdrobert]

i actually grew up in chicago myself. in the sleepy quiet suburb of glen ellyn. Compared to the chicago, tracy is another world. The town has more of an exurban feel, as oppose to a suburban feel. The best way to describe tracy is a sleepy blue collar-lowermiddle class suburban enclave, surrounded by farmland. Most people who have any sort of money in tracy tend to work in the bay area. Most of these people as a result are commuters on their witts end. The south and west parts of town are filled with lower middle to upper middle class commuters, and urban whites and minorities who sold their homes in the bay area for bigger homes inland. The north and central part of town seems to be where the illegal immigrants and white trash rednecks of tracy reside. Homes in the nicer parts of town generally run between 400k and 600k. How ever there are a few upper middle class enclaves including fairoaks ranch, tracy's first gated community. Its all about where your kids get their formative k-8 education. If you live in a nice part of town they will go to better grammer schools. The two highschools are more integrated and have kids from all socio-economic classes, so it is better to instill values in your kids at a young age, before they go the highschools which do have slight gang but large drug problems. I would recomend tracy as oppose to any other valley town, just because its more "middle class". the commute from tracy to modesto will be a dream, minus the fog in the winter. most people who commute to the bay sit in 1-4 hours of traffic every day.

[dd94595]

Originally Posted by namx

Hi Everyone. We are considering a move from the Midwest to Tracy, CA. I would be working in Tracy, and my wife would be commuting to Modesto. Can someone, preferably from Tracy, give us a fair assessment (growth, economy, crime, lifestyle) of the town? Also, please recommend a neighborhood to live in and which school system (public vs. private, Tracy Unified vs. Jefferson) is better.

The couple of times I have been in Tracy, I really like how new it is. Even the downtown area is being renovated. Like elsewhere, the Tracy housing market is cooling down. The close proximity to SF and San Jose is a big plus. We looked briefly at Mt. House and Manteca but I need to be in Tracy. I'm hoping that the commute from Tracy to Modesto is not too horrible since it is opposite of the Bay Area commute.

Thanks.

I have lived in Tracy for the last 5 years. Mountain House is in Tracy. It is a community they have been building since I moved here and it is 5 minutes from downtown Tracy. Manteca is not very far from Tracy and if you did decide to move to Manteca it would cut down on your wife’s commute time. The traffic does go in the opposite direction so your wife’s commute should not be that bad. There is a nice side to Tracy and a not so nice side. The downtown/older area is pretty run down and they experience a good amount of crime. I work for a Real Estate company and the general consensus among our agents is that Tracy real estate is declining. Home sales are declining East of Livermore.
Tracy has a lot of stores and more shopping centers are built all the time. We have a mall, but the stores are not the greatest. There are not a lot of good restaurants to go to. They are putting up a Chili's soon and I think that will probably be the best restaurant that we have.
Tracy has grown a lot in the last 5 years. Tracy can be very windy at times. The Altamont Wind Farm is on the edge of town and causes that side of Tracy to get a lot of wind.
If you still have any questions about Tracy I would be happy to answer them, Good Luck.

[namx]

We actually have given Mountain House a second look. We may decide to settle there instead of Tracy (Central). Thanks so much for the thorough review, wilkermoo. I've been to that mall you're talking about. Not much there except for Target. I may have to shop at Pleasonton or the outlets. Do you know anything about the fertilizer smell in Mountain House? I met two realtors from SF/Tracy on the plane one time. One told me that the wind blows the fertilizer smell toward Mountain House and residents are complaining. The other realtor said she had never heard of that problem.

[cdrobert]

Yes mountain house will smell worse than tracy until all the farm land is replaced with tract homes. Mountain house is considerably more expensive than tracy. Most homes start at around the low 600,000's and town homes in the 400,000's from what ive heard. Not quite as pricey as livemore but at the same time a bit more expensive than tracy.

[bas123]

Hi all as a current resident of Tracy, I'll throw in my two cents. I've lived here for 7 years now and have seen it change from 50k population to around 80K population. As any location there are good and bad things with Tracy.
If looking for K-8 grades, look into the Jefferson school district. test scores seem to be higher, more small town mentality within the school district. south tracy is abit quiter (less traffic) than the area's north. Most of the traffic comes in through 11th street and the 205, this area can get very heavy during rush hour time and on weekends (everyone heads to the mall I guess). You can take a train into the Bay area for work via ACE, which picks up in tracy by the airport (very south part of Tracy). So you may want to stay north of Valpico if you are sensitive to noise. I would stay clear of Mountain house, its at the base of the hills and it is seems be al;most always windy, plus you still have to drive to Tracy to do any shopping. If you home school, check out the Lammersville school district (Mountain house area). Linne estate is not really in the city of Tracy, its county, you may not get much city services from that area, also its very close to the path of the main train (again, the thrill of a train whistle at 3 am is not always pleasant). Good luck, At first when I moved in, I was not impressed, but now, I do enjoy the relative isolation compared to the overlapping crowed cities of the bay area.

[cdrobert]

Mountain house has been a real bust. especially since they projected the city to have 40,000 by 2020. HAHA! the failure of mountain house is almost the same as the failure of discovery bay. You cant build houses that expensive that far inland.

[namx]

Originally Posted by cdrobert

Mountain house has been a real bust. especially since they projected the city to have 40,000 by 2020. HAHA! the failure of mountain house is almost the same as the failure of discovery bay. You cant build houses that expensive that far inland.

I found that some Tracy developments are as expensiive as Mountain House. Examples would be Hidden Lake and Rosewood. So there won't be enough interest in Mountain House by 2020 to attract the 40,000 people? How many are there now?

[cdrobert]

Yes some tracy developments have homes that exceed 700,000 dollars. But those homes are pretty much on the Far south and far western portions of town. The median home values in tracy i believe are hovering some where around 500,000. And thats what the vast majority of homes are worth.

[cdrobert]

mountain house does not even have 1000 registerd voters, which is required for an area to incorporate itself and form city services.

[namx]

Originally Posted by cdrobert

mountain house does not even have 1000 registerd voters, which is required for an area to incorporate itself and form city services.

Please forgive my ignorance. I'm a little bit confused because I don't know where I should live. I have heard people suggesting but Tracy and Mountain House. A previous poster in this thread stated that Mountain House is part of Tracy. From what I understand from reading the various online sources, Mountain House is supported by SJ county right now until it can become its own entity. It is also supported by several services from Tracy also. So I'm not too concerned with the city services as long as it can grow and become a functional city. I'm just not too sure why you guys think that it is a bust.

On another topic, what cell phone carrier would you recommend for Tracy and the Bay area?