Melbourne family moving to San Fran....advice needed pls! (Los Angeles: real estate, to rent)

[diana05]

Hi there,
We are a young family from Melbourne (Malvern East) moving to San Francisco in the next 3 months. We have 3 children (5, 3 and 1 yrs) so are needing advice on good family suburds to live in and schools etc. My husband will be working in the heart of SF but will just travel to work each day.
Can anyone recommend a relocation consultant/company for our move? If so, can you please forward me their details.

We are currently living in Malvern (& have lived in Glen Iris) & we love the community feeling and friendliness and family focus here. Can anyone recommend some good suburbs in SF for me to check out.
Parks to go play in, excellent primary schools, and easy for me to get around with 3 little ones.

Any advice/tips/websites etc, you can give me on this SF move would be fantastic!
Cheers!

[mayorhaggar]

a) people here distinguish between the city of San Francisco, which is quite small, and the rest of the Bay Area. The term "the Bay Area" is used to refer to the larger area surrounding SF. I'm just letting you know so you don't get confused when you hear "San Francisco"--it's not like LA where people say "LA" when they refer to the whole Los Angeles area. Also people here don't really say "San Fran"...

b) Anyway picking a place to live will depend on a lot of things. Your budget, what weather you want (there are a lot of microclimates here), whether you want to do public schools or private schools, and whether your husband wants to take public transit to work or drive. I'm assuming he'd be working in downtown SF, which isn't really in the "heart" of SF, it's by the shoreline in the NE area of the city. It is VERY expensive to park in downtown SF so unless you guys are gazillionaires or he gets parking from work I would look into public transit. As for moving consultants, I don't think people really use them, unless you mean what we call a real estate agent.

I'd look at these suburban areas and then when you decide on one you can look at their individual suburban cities and pick a specific area to live in.

- Marin County. The Southern part tends to be really expensive, but further north it's cheaper like around Novato or San Rafael. Lots of former hippies who grew up and turned into zillionaires. Weather tends to be warmer than SF but still pretty mild. Getting to downtown SF isn't great, you can either take the ferries or buses or drive, look up Golden Gate Transit for public transport info.

- The East Bay. The western part along the Bay (Berkeley, Oakland, Albany, Alameda, Fremont, etc) has cooler temperatures than further east and has older buildings and is denser than areas further east. Lots of cool walkable neighborhoods but public schools tend to be poor, though Albany has a good public school reputation I think. If you can afford it you could send your kids to private school and live in Berkeley or Oakland which have really nice areas but schools that range from iffy to just bad. The eastern part of the East Bay tends to have newer housing and has much warmer weather in summer--90's and 100's (F) are common. Many burbs here have good school districts--Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda, Pleasanton, etc, but some parts are kind of crappy for schools and crime like Concord, Martinez, Antioch, etc. BART runs throughout the East Bay and is a pretty convenient way to get to downtown SF, also you can take AC Transit buses which might be more convenient in parts of Berkeley or Oakland. Just make sure you're somewhere that is convenient for getting to SF, parts of the East Bay are pretty remote and far from highways or BART. Prices are generally cheaper than other parts of the Bay Area and range from pretty high around Lafayette and Albany to more moderate around Oakland or Walnut Creek or Pleasanton.

- the Peninsula, i.e. San Mateo County. Generally pretty ritzy and expensive because it's between SF and Silicon Valley, though there are some gritty industrial parts. Driving to SF is pretty convenient though traffic is usually heavy. You can take Caltrain but it's not really as convenient as BART because its last station in SF is about a 20 minute walk to downtown SF, whereas BART runs right under downtown SF and has several stations there.

[18Montclair]

Well, I looked online at pics of the East Malvern area of Melbourne(11 kms from Downtown Melbourne):


Some Homes in East Malvern:
USD $808,000


USD $577,000


USD $1.155 Million


If want something extremely similar to this^^, then I recommend searching in Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda & Albany.

[diana05]

Thanks so much for your quick reply, I really appreciate it! especially you saying "no one calls it San Fran", I think that must be my lazy Aussie speech. Anyway your info. is fantastic and I will start doing research on those areas you mentioned now.
Cheers!

[OrangeSunset]

You probably want a relocation company to handle the move for you. Companies here usually provide this service so check with your new employer before start making plans. We have used Allied before on our move from CA to NY and then back CA. They were very professional and nothing got really broken or lost. But I am not sure they do international so check with them Allied Van Lines - Get a free Allied Van Lines moving quote today!
You really want someone who specializes in international relocation. Maybe somebody else here has better information regarding reliable international relocation companies.

Also, you can check the greatschools.org website to get information on schools. They provide test scores and some parent feedback. Just remember that test scores are not everything so you need to figure what kind of school you want for your kids. In any case, it is a good starting point: GreatSchools - Public and Private School Ratings, Reviews and Parent Community

There are several family friendly areas in the bay area. There is no shortage of excellent parks and activities to do with the kids, especially if you enjoy outdoor activities. This is a great place to raise a family! We just need to know more about your preferences, needs and budget so we can help you narrow things down a bit.

[diana05]

Thanks for you information. I have been doing some research on the Greatschools website...a very handy website to know about.
I'm pretty much looking for a 3 to 4 bedroom single level house with hopefully a backyard/garden for the children. Budget no more than $4000 a month. It would be pretty amazing if it was walking distance to a good primary (elementary school) as I think I'd be pretty nervous driving (on the wrong side of the road than Oz) to school each day in peak traffic..anyway I'll get over that..ha. I also need to look into renting furniture, or if the $4000 budget will get us part furnished. I will start contacting realestate agents soon.
A friend has mentioned the suburb Piedmont. Is this a nice area? Family friendly...?

[mayorhaggar]

Piedmont is nice, great schools, lots of old houses set up in the hills, but it's expensive. Also you'd go into Oakland for pretty much all your shopping, and the parts of Oakland it's near are nice too (just lousier public schools).

[jade408]

Piedmont isn't necessarily walkable unless you live on the edge of town closer to Oakland. (The houses are generally cheaper too, as that is considered the "bad part of Piedmont" (Off of Oakland Ave, below I believe the street called Highland or along Grand. ** the Bad part of Piedmont is lovely! The homes are a little closer together on treelined streets. The "estates" are more on windy roads further up in the hills. Anyway it is very pleasant, family friendly and an easy commute to SF via the transbay bus. The P, and I also think the C or CB go to Piedmont, they are commuter buses -- it is about a 20-25 minute ride from the end of the route to the Transbay Terminal at the southern end of downtown. If you are in the carpool lane the drive is about 25 minutes. BART would be about a 10-5 minute drive from most points of Piedmont, but there aren't that many transit options to a BART station (I thnk just the 11 or 12 buses go to Piedmont).

[diana05]

Thanks for your advice! I definitely think we'll have a good look around Piedmont when we come over for a quick trip in 2 weeks. I want to run a few other area's past you and get your thoughts:
Area's around Golden Gate Park (I can imagine these will be expensive)
-Richmond, Sunset and InnerSunset - are these family friendly and easy to get around.
and also what about Noe Valley? Is this an OK spot with children?
I will be pushing a pram around most days, so don't really want to be living in really hilly area's.

Cheers!

[mayorhaggar]

I would only look at SF if you want to send your kids to private schools, the SF schools are not very good in general--lots of big city problems. Same with Oakland.

Noe Valley is pretty nice and there's a lot of moms pushing around young kids in strollers, though once the kids get older the family often moves to the suburbs for better public schools. Also the weather is pretty decent usually.

The areas out west by Golden Gate Park, like the Sunset or the Richmond, are generally chilly and windy and cloudy/foggy most of the year. Often in the middle of summer it will be 58F and cloudy in the Richmond District, 65 and sunny in Noe Valley, 72 in Oakland, and 85 to 90 somewhere like Walnut Creek. The Sunset/Richmond tend to be a bit cheaper than areas in the eastern part of the city like Noe Valley or the Dolores Park area.