Moving from Long Island, NY to SF Bay Area. Advice? (San Francisco: apartment complex, rental)

[mayorhaggar]

Again check out Millbrae. You'll probably want a car to drive to Potrero Hill. I don't know where you work, if you could give a nearby major intersection I could see if BART or Caltrain would be convenient or not. The 16th Street or Civic Center BART stations would probably be quite a walk. Caltrain has the 22nd Street station which may or may not be close to your work. It might not seem that bad to walk a mile or two in summer, but what about in the middle of winter when it's raining hard and 40 degrees out. Plus the 22nd street station is in kind of a dumpy area, there are some techie condos right next to it but other than that it's kind of a desolate industrial area.

And public transit outside of SF is pretty spotty, other than a few areas like downtown Berkeley and parts of Oakland. I expect if you lived in Millbrae you'd want a car just to do errands.

[Fibus]

Looking at Google Maps, it seems that the 22nd St Caltrain station would be the closest public transportation option. If you put Potrero, San Francisco, CA into Google Maps, my office would be a few blocks NE from the marker. I believe the company provides shuttles from some of the nearby BART and Caltrain stations, but I'm not 100% on that.

I'll look a little more into Millbrae.

Just to round out the options, can you think of any areas where a car wouldn't be necessary but still fits into some of my preferences?

[mayorhaggar]

You say you want somewhere suburban and quiet but you also want somewhere urban enough to be walkable and have public transportation and have apartment buildings. The more suburban an area is in the Bay Area, the less public transit there is. I would imagine Long Island is like that--the further east from NYC the less public transit there is other than commuter rail. It's like that in the Bay Area. Yes you can use BART and Caltrain to get to SF but you can't really use them to get around to go shopping the way you can with a subway or bus line.

SF is really the only part of the Bay Area that has good local public transit. Outside of SF most of the Bay Area is very suburban and spread out and not very walkable and public transit is not great--there might be buses but they come around so infrequently that they aren't useful.

The only parts of the Bay Area that come close to SF in terms of walkability are downtown Berkeley and parts of Oakland like Rockridge. They don't have great local bus service but you can walk to whatever you need and ride BART to go further out. I live in Rockridge without a car and I get by. The AC Transit buses only come about every 15 minutes so I don't bother with them, instead I bike if I want to go to downtown Oakland or Berkeley or whatever. For most of my shopping there are grocery stores and other shops and restaurants on College Ave in Rockridge.

Most suburbs in the Bay Area actually have small little downtown areas with some shops and restaurants, but even if you lived near such a downtown strip you'd still need to go further out to go grocery shopping or to do anything that isn't limited to what's on that downtown strip, and you'd want a car for that. I've never lived in Millbrae so I don't know what life is like without a car there, but you'd probably want to live as close to BART/Caltrain as you can and to have a bike if you did, and you'd still probably want a car.

[Fibus]

Thanks for all the info so far mayorhaggar! I really appreciate it.

I am willing to ease up on the suburban thing, so I wouldn't prioritize that too much for now. Do you think I would even be able to get a decent apartment within my budget closer to the heart of SF though?

[mayorhaggar]

Check out Rockridge in Oakland if you want semi-suburban but walkable and 20 minutes from downtown SF on BART--if your office does have shuttles from BART then it might work out.

I posted some pics of RR on this page if you want to see what it looks like:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/san-f...l#post17053523

[twins4lynn]

Millbrae keeps coming up in this discussion, so I'll add my 2-cents. Millbrae has a nice little downtown area and loads of apartments close by and is also closed to transportation (train and bart, and bus). It is also very asian in population and establishments (loads of asian restaurants and stores). I don't know if you are really interested in that. Now, Burlingame might be more of what you're looking for. They have two nice downtown areas and loads of apartments and is very caucasion. Both Millbrae and Burlingame are very safe areas and if you live near the downtown areas (which are also near transportation) you really could get by without a car.

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by Fibus

Thanks for all the info so far mayorhaggar! I really appreciate it.

I am willing to ease up on the suburban thing, so I wouldn't prioritize that too much for now. Do you think I would even be able to get a decent apartment within my budget closer to the heart of SF though?

No. We were faced with the same dilema last month. I work in SF and thought it would be nice to live there. Our budget is the same as yours. We found nothing we liked. So we moved our search down to San Mateo and Burlinghame. Again nothing nice. I was told rents have risen by $200-$300 across the board in the past six months due to the tech market heating up.

So we ended up in Mountain View where we could get a nice apt in a pleasant neighborhood.

So you can definitely find what you want in the South Bay. But once you look north of Mountain View it is pricier.

[mayorhaggar]

The East Bay is cheeeep...you can get a 2br in Rockridge for around $1200-1300, and Rockridge is expensive for Oakland.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

The East Bay is cheeeep...you can get a 2br in Rockridge for around $1200-1300, and Rockridge is expensive for Oakland.

Well it depends. Some of the best neighborhoods in Oakland are like the best ones in SF. The apartments have lots of "charm." If you want something shiny and new you need to up your budget.

There is that one condo complex right by the Caldecott tunnel. I am sure some of those sellers are planning to convert to rentals since sales seem to be pretty slow. Otherwise the new stuff in Oakland is concentrated in downtown. And is pretty pricey. The Uptown/Broadway Grand/The Grand/The Bond/The Allegro all start at about $1600 for a studio or 1 bedroom and 2 bedrooms are $2000. They also have more amenities than the typical building.

Some condos/apartments in Adam's Point and Piedmont Ave actually have pools and stuff, but that is really rare in Rockridge. I think in Piedmont Ave and Adam's Point it is maybe 1/8 have a pool or something.

[mayorhaggar]

Those are luxury condo-style buildings, plus they're often in dumpy areas that have many years to go before being in the kind of urban yuppie playground they advertise themselves as being in. If you are ok with just a normal basic apartment, like I said you can get a 2br for $1200 in Rockridge. Even cheaper in places like Piedmont Ave, Temescal and Adam's Point. [I know you know this Jade, I'm just stating this for the topic creator so he/she gets more info on typical prices] That same 2br would be around $2000 in the Richmond District in SF.