New York : Jersey city as SF : ?? (San Jose, San Francisco: real estate, mortgages, home)

[ArthurDent]

So we drove around parts of Oakland, Piedmont and Berkeley for a few weekends. Observations follow.

Places close to Grand or Lakeshore are walkable with good elementary schools, still not car free because you have to drive to Rockridge BART to get to work. (*) Houses close to Rockridge BART within Chabot school's borders sell within days of hitting the market for ~30% over asking, around $700/sq ft, which is almost SF prices.
(*) Yes there is casual carpool, but being mugged by strangers is not for us, thank you.

Piedmont schools are great. The best schools in Berkeley are 9, on a scale of 1 to 10. Oakland has a bunch that are good, but we are yet to figure out if there are any houses zoned for good elementary, middle AND high schools - so in Oakland, expect to move every 4 years.

To be fair, Jersey City schools are terrible. So asking for good public schools makes this a problem with no solution in NY metro as well as SF metro areas. Living in Orinda, CA is like living in Short Hills, NJ - good schools, rich people, 45 min commute.

Some links to see what the public schools are for any given address:
California school ratings by API scores: California School Ratings, rankings, test scores

Best schools in Oakland: California School Ratings, ranking, test scores - Search Results
School district borders in Oakland (PDFs of maps):Map Center & School Finder / Printable Maps

Online school finder by address:Map Center & School Finder / School Finder

[ArthurDent]

Originally Posted by jade408

In the Bay Area you need to pick two out of three: schools, location, home quality/size. Unless you are really really really well-off.

Where would this hypothetically really really well-off person find three out of three on your list?

[04kL4nD]

500k/year +

Nice houses, in desirable locations, with great schools typically cost 2m and up. A lot of people send their kids to private schools and pay 30k for tuition, even when they live in nice homes. Welcome to the Bay Area.

[ArthurDent]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

500k/year +

Nice houses, in desirable locations, with great schools typically cost 2m and up. A lot of people send their kids to private schools and pay 30k for tuition, even when they live in nice homes. Welcome to the Bay Area.

That's fine, but WHERE?

[04kL4nD]

Piedmont/Oakland Hills, Inner East Bay (Alamo, Danville, Blackhawk) or Peninsula.

[jade408]

Also BART isnt the only commute choice. The transbay buses are more convenient and pleasant than taking BART for many people. I rarely BART for commute. And the bus ride to BART ifrom my place is 10 minutes. I take the P which is really frequent in the PM commute and the latest commuter bus.

Generally car-free living with true walkability doesn't correlate well in the Bay Area.

[ArthurDent]

So after quite some investigation, we have narrowed down to the following areas.

• San Francisco (Noe, Telegraph Hill, South Beach, Duboce Triangle, Dolores heights, Potrero Hill)
• North West Piedmont
• North East from Lake Meritt
• Rockridge east of College Ave
• Elmwood
• North Berkeley

The criteria we used were:

• low crime, family friendly
• good weather
• between 1 and 2 MM, preferably less than 1.5 MM
• within a less than 30 min commute radius from SF financial district
• walkability (more so to parks than to shops)

[ArthurDent]

Originally Posted by ArthurDent

So after quite some investigation, we have narrowed down to the following areas.

• San Francisco (Noe, Telegraph Hill, South Beach, Duboce Triangle, Dolores heights, Potrero Hill)
• North West Piedmont
• North East from Lake Meritt
• Rockridge east of College Ave
• Elmwood
• North Berkeley

The criteria we used were:

• low crime, family friendly
• good weather
• between 1 and 2 MM, preferably less than 1.5 MM
• within a less than 30 min commute radius from SF financial district
• walkability (more so to parks than to shops)

Got an IM from someone trying to make a similar choice and thought I'd update this thread.

In light of the "we aren't making any more land in SF" housing bubble fed by the social media tech bubble and foreign (Chinese) buyers in the above listed areas, we decided to live in Walnut Creek, it's about 35 min from SF downtown. Bought a duplex well within our budget, and if we decide to rent one unit out, that will probably cover the mortgage on both units! It took us maybe 5 months of looking at 10+ houses a week, and if there is a tech crash in the next 5 years, we'd happily snap up a property in any of the places listed above!

[Chuck5000]

Originally Posted by ArthurDent

Got an IM from someone trying to make a similar choice and thought I'd update this thread.

In light of the "we aren't making any more land in SF" housing bubble fed by the social media tech bubble and foreign (Chinese) buyers in the above listed areas, we decided to live in Walnut Creek, it's about 35 min from SF downtown. Bought a duplex well within our budget, and if we decide to rent one unit out, that will probably cover the mortgage on both units! It took us maybe 5 months of looking at 10+ houses a week, and if there is a tech crash in the next 5 years, we'd happily snap up a property in any of the places listed above!

5 months? I have friends who looked for well over a year. Congrats! Now you can go buy up more property and be the equivalent to us that Chinese-national and tech industry deca-millionaires are to you. (insert sad smiley here.)

BTW, I work in tech, I think a correction will happen, but it won't be associated with a crash in public markets because most of the troubled companies won't even have gone public yet. I'm confident that the impact on housing will be relatively minimal, maybe 10% in some city neighborhoods at most, and probably higher in lower income markets outside the city. Not enough to make a real difference for people with real money.

Many people are also sitting on the sidelines praying for some kind of drop, so I think it would take at least a couple of years to clear the demand overhead. Inventory right now is very low.

[ArthurDent]

Agree with you that stock prices probably wont crash as this round of the bubble has been privately funded rather than IPO driven like in 2000. That said if VC money dries up there will be a pause in the supply of deca-millionaires buying up any and all housing at 40% over asking.

Inventory really is low, and I am told that's because rents are sky high and a lot of potential sellers are instead renting out and sitting on the sidelines waiting for yet another year of crazy appreciation before they list. So when rates go up, startups stop hiring AND tech deca-millionaire demand dries up, esp if these happen together, the marginal buyer will disappear and there will be a relative glut of sellers. There won't be massive price drops but it should get easier to find relative deals. At least that's the theory. In 2-5 years we'll see how this plays out..