Tell me about Livermore??? (San Leandro, Alameda: homes, best schools, place to live)

[gigi1966]

Good place to live, good schools?

[tennis368fan]

South/North Livermore, yes! It is (the other) wine country with estates and smaller homes.

Stay away from the downtown area if you are looking for good schools. Check its school district website for a street drectory and use this link for school scores to match up homes you see with the attendance areas of good schools:

2007 Base API County List of Schools - ALAMEDA County

However, if you can afford $700,000, why not try Pleasanton or San Ramon? The school districts there are EVEN better than Livermore. Dublin is not bad, but if you choose Dublin, why not Alameda or Castro Valley to be closer to work? Their best schools perform at the same level, though not as well as Pleasanton or SR.

Is your husband working close to San Leandro or Bay Fair BART Stations? If not, driving during rush hour from these cities may be a pain, or at least from what I have heard.

[Yvonne1207]

I grew up in the Pleasanton/Dublin/Livermore (Tri-Valley) area.

In the simplest terms:

Dublin: Urban sprawl. No charm. Traffic! Schools not so great (I'm a teacher), but not bad either.

Pleasanton: Charming downtown, snooty-ville, expensive, excellent schools, no real bad part of town

Livermore: Very nice downtown though some say not as nice as Pleasanton, decent schools and bad schools - depends on the area, there are bad areas of town and very nice areas, wide variety of home prices

If I had to choose one of these to go back to, I'd choose Livermore.

[Taboo2]

It's just so darn hot out there. I used to live off N L and it was HOT.

[krudmonk]

It's really hot.