Potentially Moving to SF (San Francisco: apartments, rent, house)

[gone down south]

$1200 for a house? That would put you at least an hour outside of SF, in a sketchy neighborhood.

[DocGoldstein]

$1,200 would put you in Oakland, Vallejo, Richmond, Tracy, or Patterson.

[bentobox34]

Originally Posted by -=enforcer=-

Fair enough. Were going to check out both for sure. As far a SF, how far away from the bay area would you need to be for the rent to begin dropping?

To get a place with a yard in a safe neighborhood for under $1200, you will probably end up somewhere like the far east/northeast Bay (Fairfield, Vacaville, Brentwood, Antioch, etc.) or the far South Bay (Gilroy), or the Central Valley (Tracy, Mountain House). If you work in technology your job will probably be in SF, the Peninsula or northern half of the South Bay and the commute from any of those places will be more than an hour each way, maybe up to 2 hrs. There are some mass transit options that may cut some stress from your commute but they won't cut the commute time (ACE train, BART, Caltrain). There is also commute cost - for example, an ACE monthly pass from Tracy to San Jose is $233, and taking BART from Pittsburgh/Antioch to downtown SF daily would be about $225/month. That will end up less than gas/maintenance on the car, but might be an expense you haven't considered in your rent budget.

[ssmaster]

vallejo and martinez have safe areas but i don't know the areas

also the commute to most IT jobs would be hell

martinez
Houses for Rent in Martinez and Single Family Homes for Rent - Zillow

vallejo
Houses for Rent in Vallejo and Single Family Homes for Rent - Zillow







hercules and pinole are a little more and closer
Houses for Rent in Hercules and Single Family Homes for Rent - Zillow


Houses for Rent in Pinole and Single Family Homes for Rent - Zillow


edit:sorry i don't think most of these areas are in your range. bentobox is right you will likely need to be further out like "far east/northeast Bay (Fairfield, Vacaville, Brentwood, Antioch, etc.) or the far South Bay (Gilroy), or the Central Valley (Tracy, Mountain House)."
as others have pointed out $1200 is not close affording to a house in a desirable area but you can find acceptable areas if you compromise on commute,walkabilty or housing stock.people do it all the time

[DocGoldstein]

The commute from Vallejo isn't that bad compared to say "Tracy", but Vallejo has a lot of crime problems and municipal issues.

West Oakland IMO gives you a good commute, but that neighborhood is like a battlefield.

[bmw335xi]

I wouldn't recommend Oakland unless you can afford a nice part, which will cost more than $1,200 for a house or townhouse with a yard. Check it out for yourself and decide though. I'd rather live in SF than Seattle or Portland, but would much rather live in Seattle or Portland than Oakland.

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by bmw335xi

I wouldn't recommend Oakland unless you can afford a nice part, which will cost more than $1,200 for a house or townhouse with a yard. Check it out for yourself and decide though. I'd rather live in SF than Seattle or Portland, but would much rather live in Seattle or Portland than Oakland.

IMO

1. San Francisco
2. Seattle
3. Portland
.
.
.
Oakland

[mayorhaggar]

You have a really unrealistic notion of housing prices in the Bay Area. I can't imagine there's many parts of Florida where you could get an entire house for $1200. $1200 would get you a 1 bedroom APARTMENT if you're lucky, and it would pretty much have to be in Oakland. In SF it would be more like $2500 to $3000 for a 1br apartment (again that's APARTMENT, not HOUSE). Oh, and most landlords in the Bay Area are really anti-pet, so that really reduces the number of places you could even look at. SF is the worst and is almost impossible even to find landlords that allow cats.

Honestly if you get a halfway decent tech job and your wife has a good income you should be able to afford way more than $1200.

Originally Posted by DocGoldstein

IMO

1. San Francisco
2. Seattle
3. Portland
.
.
.
Oakland

mod edit

[-=enforcer=-]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

You have a really unrealistic notion of housing prices in the Bay Area. I can't imagine there's many parts of Florida where you could get an entire house for $1200. $1200 would get you a 1 bedroom APARTMENT if you're lucky, and it would pretty much have to be in Oakland. In SF it would be more like $2500 to $3000 for a 1br apartment (again that's APARTMENT, not HOUSE). Oh, and most landlords in the Bay Area are really anti-pet, so that really reduces the number of places you could even look at. SF is the worst and is almost impossible even to find landlords that allow cats.

Honestly if you get a halfway decent tech job and your wife has a good income you should be able to afford way more than $1200.


mod edit

Well you don't have to imagine..... $1200 for a house in Florida is reality. Being one of the hardest hit states in terms of the real estate market, housing prices and rental prices are way way down. 200k Condo in 2007? Not anymore.... Try 34k for the same one in 2012.

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by -=enforcer=-

Well you don't have to imagine..... $1200 for a house in Florida is reality. Being one of the hardest hit states in terms of the real estate market, housing prices and rental prices are way way down. 200k Condo in 2007? Not anymore.... Try 34k for the same one in 2012.

Exactly. Some people simply don't keep up with real estate trends other than the areas they immediately live in.

As investors, places like Phoenix, Florida, Vegas, are big money makers at the moment.

I bought two 4 bedroom/3 bath homes in Phoenix in April for $80,000 (both together). Suffice to say the ROI is a lot better than what I would get putting that cash into a money market account.