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where are the affordable areas in Sonoma County? Rohnert Park is probably the most affordable area and I don't think she would find a 3 bdrm rental for under $2200 a month and starting teacher salary for that school district is 42K
Affordable is a relative term... is Santa Rosa not much more affordable than most everywhere in the SF bay area?? Why must she have a 3-bedroom apartment? I got the impression that both her older kids will be out of the home - one of them attending college in CA - and that it will be just her and her baby boy starting next summer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by family_first
So by August 2017 it will be me and my baby boy currently 7 1/2 months old. I really am considering moving to CA and have been doing my research on different areas.... I guess I am looking for some feedback as to what parts of CA is more affordable than others, what parts is best recommended to raise my son, what parts is best for a single mother who would be living off of a teacher's salary? I know CA is very expensive place to live but like everywhere some cities are more costly than others. Thanks in advance to everyone's feedback.
She knows CA is an expensive place to live - she is from NYC originally so I imagine she's not a stranger to high costs of living. I don't know anything about her life and whether or not she has additional resources than a proposed teacher's salary to help with housing/kids education etc. Just thought I'd give her some additional ideas of places to look into that are close to SF but cheaper.
Affordable is a relative term... is Santa Rosa not much more affordable than most everywhere in the SF bay area?? Why must she have a 3-bedroom apartment? I got the impression that both her older kids will be out of the home - one of them attending college in CA - and that it will be just her and her baby boy starting next summer.
She knows CA is an expensive place to live - she is from NYC originally so I imagine she's not a stranger to high costs of living. I don't know anything about her life and whether or not she has additional resources than a proposed teacher's salary to help with housing/kids education etc. Just thought I'd give her some additional ideas of places to look into that are close to SF but cheaper.
Absolutely. OP will have to be very realistic if she wants to live in the Bay Area, anywhere. As a New Yawker she should know this. With a little luck, she could find a 1-br. place with a bonus "office" renting as a 1-br. That would give her a guest space for her college kids, and/or a room for the little one, when it's big enough to need its own room.
Affordable is a relative term... is Santa Rosa not much more affordable than most everywhere in the SF bay area?? Why must she have a 3-bedroom apartment? I got the impression that both her older kids will be out of the home - one of them attending college in CA - and that it will be just her and her baby boy starting next summer.
I have not spent much time looking at Santa Rosa rentals but we did look at homes for sale there and I didn't consider it an affordable area. There may not be a direct relationship between PSF and rent but it would be unusual to find cheap rentals in an area with high real estate sales prices.
(median price per square foot, Redfin data)
San Francisco..905
Santa Rosa.....303
Petaluma........353
Martinez.........329
Vacaville........ 221
Benicia...........264
Roseville.........198
Folsom...........231
S. Land Park...209
Chico.............189
Mill Valley.......739
Davis.............339
I only mention this because I have relatives who live in the East Bay and make over 70K in public sector jobs and are telling me that one more rent increase and they will try to find a job in the Sacramento area that will allow them to transfer their CalPERS retirement, it's that bad. Clearly Sacramento is not her only choice but with a starting teacher's salary of 42-50k it's unlikely that she will find housing in any of the more expensive areas unless she can get an income limited apartment like the one I mentioned in Vacaville.
I have not spent much time looking at Santa Rosa rentals but we did look at homes for sale there and I didn't consider it an affordable area. There may not be a direct relationship between PSF and rent but it would be unusual to find cheap rentals in an area with high real estate sales prices.
(median price per square foot, Redfin data)
San Francisco..905
Santa Rosa.....303
Petaluma........353
Martinez.........329
Vacaville........ 221
Benicia...........264
Roseville.........198
Folsom...........231
S. Land Park...209
Chico.............189
Mill Valley.......739
Davis.............339
I only mention this because I have relatives who live in the East Bay and make over 70K in public sector jobs and are telling me that one more rent increase and they will try to find a job in the Sacramento area that will allow them to transfer their CalPERS retirement, it's that bad. Clearly Sacramento is not her only choice but with a starting teacher's salary of 42-50k it's unlikely that she will find housing in any of the more expensive areas unless she can get an income limited apartment like the one I mentioned in Vacaville.
Those prices are insane! Our house in East Contra Costa was just shy of $120 per square foot when we purchased a brand new construction in 2014.
Those prices are insane! Our house in East Contra Costa was just shy of $120 per square foot when we purchased a brand new construction in 2014.
I just checked the PSF for Brentwood and Oakley, big increase since you bought, that's for sure:
Brentwood...221
Oakley.........201
My son is in Contra Costa County and he said that a good number of his co-workers are either buying or renting houses in one of those two towns because they have been chased out of all the places where they were living, Martinez, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek etc.
I really am considering moving to CA and have been doing my research on different areas. I have my BA in Child Developmet and currently working on my Masters in Education plus my teaching certification. I am currently a preschool teacher but would like to work with older children. I plan to find a job in my field in or outside the classroom working with children before I move any where.
I love Paris and had the same reaction you did to San Francisco the first time I visited: Gee whiz! I'd love to live in Paris! But, that doesn't mean that moving to Paris would be the right choice for me and my family.
Moving 3000 miles to California *may* be right for you and your family, but don't base the decision on one short visit, the fact that your daughter is going to college here, or the advice of strangers on the internet. Base your decision on reality, continue to do your research and create a long term plan for making it happen. As a single Mom, that plan should include having substantial savings in the bank in order to pay for your move and provide a cushion as you get established in California, just in case things don't go as planned. California can be a great place to live, but it can also be a tough place to live if you don't have a solid financial base or an established network here. Therefore, be sure to base your decision on something more than that "gee whiz!" love you felt on your first visit to San Francisco.
As a Mom myself, I know how hard it is to see that first baby leave the nest. It is SO difficult to let our children fly off on their own, and part of us naturally wants to go with them. I mention this because you may want to give some thought to whether your sudden love for California is perhaps somewhat tied to your fears about your daughter going 3,000 miles away for college. Subconsciously, moving with her may make it seem like you won't be losing her, but that should NOT factor into your decision to move to California. After all, in four years, your daughter may decide that she'd rather be living back in NY, or Chicago, or Miami. So, do give some thought to how your daughter's leaving the nest may be factoring into your sudden desire to move to California. (This doesn't mean that you shouldn't move to California, but be honest with yourself about whether you'd be thinking about this move if your daughter wasn't going to college here).
But, let's say you decide that California is the place where you've always been meant to live. Now, you need a plan for making it happen. It sounds like you're already doing research, so you may have already done this, but your first priority needs to be understanding and meeting the California teaching credential requirements for out of state teachers with less than two years of experience. California throws in some very specific requirements that many out of state teacher ed programs or other state credentialing requirements don't require, so you'll want to makes sure to complete those requirements while working on your Master's. So, step one to your plan is making sure you will have everything you need to get certified to teach here before you proceed with any move or start applying for jobs here. You may have already checked into these requirements, but just in case, here is the relevant information from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing: California Commission on Teacher Credentialing
Given the California job market for teachers -- especially newly minted teachers, assuming you don't want to continue to work in preschool --- I wouldn't target a particular part of the state for my job search, but rather the ENTIRE state of California. Where you move should be determined by where you can find a job that will allow you to support your family. Yes, inland areas may be less expensive, but they may also have less job opportunities, and the pay for new teachers may be less, negating any lower cost of living. So, you need to educate yourself on where the jobs are and what salaries are really like for folks with your level of experience before proceeding.
A good starting point is to go over to the EdJoin.org site and do some research on where job opportuntiies for your intended area of specialization (it's not clear to me whether you want to teach elementary school, high school, or continue as a preschool teacher) seem to be most plentiful. That will also give you a more realistic idea of what you can expect to earn in different parts of California. EdJoin doesn't list all jobs, of course, and what's listed today will likely differ next year, but you need to plan long range for this move, and you need more data points than random strangers on the internet can provide.
Once you have the above done, I'd recommend that you come visit California again and see more than San Francisco. California is a very diverse place and as a new teacher (assuming you don't want to continue working at the preschool level), it is highly likely that you will end up living in some place quite different than San Francisco, so you need to get boots on the ground and visit some of the areas that are most actively looking for teachers in your area of specialization in order to determine if you will be happy living in those locations.
Then, if you still are sure that California is the place you're meant to be, start sending out resumes. Do not move here without savings and a firm job offer in hand. It's one thing to take a risk and move cross country without a job or savings when you only have to support yourself; it's quite another when you have three kids depending on you. (And, yes, your two oldest will still be depending on you after they start college!)
Best of luck as you look to the future for your family.
The tech boom has made the Bay area among the most expensive places to live not just in the region but nationally. In San Francisco there are more rent controls in place than, say, than the Los Angeles or Orange County areas down South, but they need them because rents are significantly higher. Rent of $3K per month is not unheard of for an apartment*. In contrast, it takes a wage of $33 per hour or just under $70K per year in income to afford the average one-bedroom Los Angeles area apartment.** Average incomes in the Bay are purportedly ~$73K but in much of the area that's like trying to live off of ~$40K per year elsewhere.
You can learn your "rent" vs. "buy" options on Realtor.com or the like and see what kind of housing costs to expect. For many, if not most people, it's not possible to live comfortably on a single income in the urban areas of NorCal and SoCal.
Another thing to remember is that teachers don't always command "average salaries" until they are tenured, and you can be downright poor as a teacher if you're not.
There are also quite a few rough areas in the Bay area including the notorious Oakland, and correspondingly there will be a lot of variability in pay from school district to school district, too. (In other words, don't accept a job offer unless you know the district in question has a reputation for paying teachers better wages than other districts in the region.)
The other thing you need to expect is that you may have a VERY congested commute. It's often a shock to people coming from outside this state that a commute of under 30 miles can take well over an hour. Public transit ("Bart") is an option in the Bay area but either way you will need to account for your annual costs of commuting, too, and the fact that insurance rates, gasoline and food costs may run quite a bit higher than you're used to budgeting for, too.
You can find data on what teachers earn there and it is, indeed, about 33% higher in the Bay area compared to what teachers make elsewhere in the nation. Still, it's not high enough to offset the fact that the overall cost of living is high there, too.
For many teachers, living where they work has become nearly impossible thanks to housing costs, and with respect to the Bay area, specifically, two-hour commutes into work are not unheard of:
A far less appreciated danger of moving into an area you cannot *comfortably* afford is that it is possible to become "trapped in place". That's because it's difficult to save up enough money to pick up and leave — to move out of area or out of state — let alone save enough money for a downpayment on a house, if basic living expenses consume most of your take-home pay. In other words, if you don't already have a downpayment that is sufficient for a condo or a house there, you probably won't be able to scrape enough together to afford one later, at least not on a single income. That's because median condo/home prices are well over $600K in the Bay area.
"In the Bay Area, a buyer would have needed at least $166,500 in annual income to make the $4,160 monthly payment on a single-family home, priced at $841,560, the second-quarter median."
The other thing you need to expect is that you may have a VERY congested commute.
For many teachers, living where they work has become nearly impossible thanks to housing costs, and with respect to the Bay area, specifically, two-hour commutes into work are not unheard of/
This is an excellent point, since the OP mentioned she has a seven month old. Commute times become critical when you need to pick up your toddler by a certain time and you are the only parent available to do so.
Lots for the poster to weigh before making this decision for her family.
This is an excellent point, since the OP mentioned she has a seven month old. Commute times become critical when you need to pick up your toddler by a certain time and you are the only parent available to do so.
Yes, not to mention - child care costs. My step-son and his wife live in San Francisco and pay $1500 a month for childcare for their 3 year old and they call that a 'deal'. I have no idea what they would be paying if they weren't getting a 'deal'
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