Folsom, Placerville, Granite Bay, Auburn...where to live?

[kruledent]

Folsom, Fair Oaks, and Orangevale would be your best bets.

[tc_408]

I am retired single (Law enforcement/Military) Black male. I Like the Sacramento area (Rocklin). My preferences are in the 850K-1.3Mil range. What area would this forum reccommend. Note: I am Catholic and my roots are from Aruba.

[zen_klown]

At that price point, you can probably buy into most neighborhoods in the region. You said you liked Rocklin, so why not Rocklin? If you wanted a bigger more expensive house you could probably find that in Granite Bay or Loomis. But if its just you, do you need all of that space? If you were looking for an upscale neighborhood with a higher density of wealthy black people, you might look at Greenhaven/the Pocket Area or possibly Anatolia.

If there is a community of people in this region from Aruba, I am ignorant of it.

[MrsRG]

My husband and I just took a trip up to Northern California for several days. I would suggest the Pittsburg area for you. This is between Concord and Antioch. North of Oakland, but south of Vallejo, just north of Walnut Creek. Pittsburgh has a good sized African American community (has a great jazz fest every year) and it's close enough to the coast so you don't get all that heat in the summer from the San Juaquin Valley. The town fathers are starting to fix Pittsburgh up, especially around the dock areas with shops and restaurants. I think they are also building lots of new homes in the area that look really nice. You may check out Pittsburg at: City of Pittsburg. In 2006, Money Magazine listed Pittsburg, California as one of the 10 ten best places to live in America:
MONEY Magazine: Best places to live 2006: Pittsburg, CA snapshot

My husband's cousin lives in Livermore which is south of Pittsburg and she has a business associate who lives in Pittsburg and he loves it. He is a very complished African American doctor. Pittsburg is about an hour and 20 minutes south of Sacramento.

As far as the Sacramento area goes, my husband and I weren't impressed. Downtown is not the place to be after dark and many areas just outside of downtown seems "tired" and really needed a facelift. If you want to drive half an hour east of Sacramento, there are two communities that my husband and I like enough that we will be moving to one of them sometime within the next year: Folsom and El Dorado Hills. They are very nice upscale suburbs. I really did not see a large African American community in Folsom or El Dorado Hills, but I'm sure there are African Americans there. Now if you really want upscale, the nicest homes are in a gated community in El Dorado Hills called Serrano.

Another area I like, but it's too far a drive from my husband's family in Placerville, is Lincoln, California. I'm not sure of the demographics there, but I would assume like all communities there are some African Americans. Lincoln has some of the nicest new homes and at really good values for California. Lincoln is half an hour north of Sacramento and 15 minutes north of Rocklin and Roseville. I was looking on the Internet and found some brand new 1600 sq. ft. 3 br/2ba homes starting at about $250,000! You can't get a decent home in Southern California for that, you can't even touch a one bedroom condo for that in Southern California where we currently live. So I was really impressed with the home values in Lincoln.

A word of advice...unless you like rural mountain small town life, stay away from Placerville and Pollock Pines. I did not like these areas...way too "sleepy" for my likes, but my in-laws love these areas and are moving to Placerville within the next two weeks. To each his own. If you do like the mountain lifestyle and want snow, I suggest looking in Truckee or Tahoe. There are some very nice higher priced homes in those areas.

There are some older Victorian type homes just outside of downtown Sacramento that are pricy, if you want to live in a historical home and be near downtown.

You might want to do an Internet search for luxury homes in the Sacramento area. One web site that came up for that is:
Sacramento Luxury Homes and Real Estate - Luxury Homes Magazine

And Livermore where my husband's cousin lives is very unscale and nice. We are talking $800,000 for a "starter" home. But, hey if you are in the high price range for a home, then Livermore might be the ticket for you. Also those really huge nice "mini" mansions as I call them up on the hill in the Serrano gated community of El Dorado Hills is extremely nice! Also, Granite Bay has some very nice higher priced homes and you are near water which is nice for boating, fishing, water skiing, etc.

Some areas to consider for more upscale homes:

Empire Ranch in Folsom
The Ranch at Sheldon Hills
The Promontory in El Dorado Hills
Monte Azul Estates at Verdera in 12 Bridges Lincoln
Serrano in El Dorado Hills
Chateau des Reves at Sierra de Montserrat in Loomis
Winchester Country Club in Meadow Vista
And there are luxury homes not far from Whitney Oaks Golf Club in Rocklin

All these homes are in the $1 million and up range. Also, downtown San Francisco has it's fair share of pricy homes if you want to live in a more hip urban area you might want to consider San Francisco.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by tc_408

I am retired single (Law enforcement/Military) Black male. I Like the Sacramento area (Rocklin). My preferences are in the 850K-1.3Mil range. What area would this forum reccommend. Note: I am Catholic and my roots are from Aruba.

[MrsRG]

Originally Posted by tc_408

I am retired single (Law enforcement/Military) Black male. I Like the Sacramento area (Rocklin). My preferences are in the 850K-1.3Mil range. What area would this forum reccommend. Note: I am Catholic and my roots are from Aruba.

Oh, by the way...some other areas that have black communities in Northern California are Oakland and Richmond. Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County and is located in the East Bay part of the San Francisco Bay area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco. I don't know if there are any higher priced homes in Richmond. Although Oakland doesn't have the reputation of having luxury homes, there are some higher priced homes in Oakland. One place to check out homes in the Oakland area in your price range on the Internet is here:
Real Estate at Homes.Com for OAKLAND, CA
or just go to www.homes.com and type in Oakland and the price range and you'll get a lot of listings.

In Oakland try looking in these areas of the Oakland Hills:

The upper Rockridge area located just off Highway 13 and lower Broadway Terrace; near the Sequoyah Country Club about 10 minutes from Montclair; pretty much the area of Oakland Hills not far from Montclair Village which is centrally located near highway 13, highway 24, i-580 and i-880. These homes range in price from about $1,100,000 to $2,849,000. This area is about an hour and 15 minutes south of Sacramento.

You also might try contacting the Sacramento Black Chamber of Commerce and see if they might have area information about housing and neighborhoods: Sacramento Black Chamber of Commerce

Good Luck!

[MrsRG]

Originally Posted by tc_408

I am retired single (Law enforcement/Military) Black male. I Like the Sacramento area (Rocklin). My preferences are in the 850K-1.3Mil range. What area would this forum reccommend. Note: I am Catholic and my roots are from Aruba.

Sorry I keep posting, but I keep thinking of stuff...

South Berkeley is also the center for Berkeley's Black community with a population of roughly 52% Black. I have no idea what the homes are like there since I have never been there, but you might want to check it out. It is about an hour and a half south of Sacramento.

Just for fun, here is a list of Black communities in America:

List of African American neighborhoods - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://higley1000.com/about-this-sit...ology/top-25-b

Also just for fun here is a list of the most elite neighborhoods in America:

http://higley1000.com/archives/44

I noticed on this list that the highest concentration of upscale Black families is located in Fremont Place which is a gated community in Los Angeles: Fremont Place and the homes start at around $3,000,000.

I also like this web site: Affluent African American Communities

My paternal cousin who is African American and has her Ph.D. in African American Women's Studies lives and teaches in New Orleans and although New Orleans has had a rough time of it, she still wouldn't consider living any where else. Anyway, I digress...here's a really cool web site with just about everything you ever wanted to know about Sacramento and the surrounding areas: Sacramento: Information from Answers.com

Hey, move to Folsom or El Dorado Hills and maybe my husband and I could be your neighbors!

Good Luck