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Old 09-18-2011, 05:55 PM
 
Location: pasadena, ca
8 posts, read 12,497 times
Reputation: 10

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Hi, I wanted to say these threads have been a saviour, you all are great!

My husband just got his first 'big boy' job in San Jose. I'll be doing some remote work until I can find something in SJ. El hub is classic Caltech- reads applied physics papers & plays video games in his spare time. My main hobby is to pretend to be an Indian version of Julia Child, but love to walk around, have dinner parties, and shop. We're childless.

Together we (barely) make 6 figures before taxes. I'm not sure where this allows us to live, but our only requirement is that it's in a walkable area. I've been stalking walkscore.com's heat maps and have narrowed it down to Campbell's downtown area, or possibly Sunnyvale's "downtown" area (it doesn't seem well-defined, but it's hard to tell from online). The big factor for me is being close to a Trader Joe's. It sounds lame but I just cannot do without, I'm there at least 5x a week. We are looking at apartments, not ready to buy yet.

Campbell & Sunnyvale both seem to be good for our intents and purposes, but am I missing something? What really differentiates the two or what do you all think would be the better choice for us? Downtown SJ seems to be mentioned a lot but the TJ's on Coleman seems inaccessible by foot. Again, it's hard to tell until we're there (we're going up Tuesday to look at places). Thank you!

Last edited by piakg; 09-18-2011 at 06:07 PM..
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Old 09-18-2011, 06:58 PM
 
954 posts, read 1,280,644 times
Reputation: 384
On bike, the trader joes / target on Coleman would be pretty easy to get to. there are bike paths that allow you to get there pretty easily along the Guadalupe river, you wouldn't actually have to take the main coleman/market street avenue to get there by foot/bike. Also, right near the shopping center are a lot of apartment complexes.

san jose, ca - Google Maps

I refer to the area around Ryland Park.
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Old 09-18-2011, 07:38 PM
 
Location: pasadena, ca
8 posts, read 12,497 times
Reputation: 10
thank you so much, I'm going to look into that tonight. I really appreciate it! Would you recc downtown SJ over Campbell or Sunnyvale for us?
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Old 09-18-2011, 07:40 PM
 
Location: Boulder Creek, CA
9,197 posts, read 16,839,999 times
Reputation: 6373
Quote:
Originally Posted by piakg View Post
Campbell & Sunnyvale both seem to be good for our intents and purposes, but am I missing something? What really differentiates the two
Sunnyvale's central shopping area/mall has been pulverized for a long time, and in no danger of moving forward with completing the revitalization that was started so long ago, as both the city and investors don't want to touch it.

Meanwhile, the Pruneyard shopping center, with Trader Joe's, and downtown Campbell are doing just fine.
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Old 09-18-2011, 07:54 PM
 
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
2,190 posts, read 6,850,403 times
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Have you considered Los Gatos?

Los Gatos CA

There's a Trader Joe's there.

If i had to live on the San Jose side of the Santa Cruz mountains i'd live in Los Gatos.
It's a really nice (somewhat upscale, true) community with a really nice and walkable downtown ... nice shops, restaurants, etc..
It's an easy drive to San Jose and from downtown Los Gatos, when there's no traffic, you can get to the coast (Santa Cruz county) in a half hour or so.

SF bay area apts/housing for rent classifieds "los gatos " - craigslist
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Old 09-18-2011, 07:58 PM
 
Location: East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area
23,527 posts, read 24,006,421 times
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Sunnyvale is a great area, safe and walkable.
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Old 09-18-2011, 08:09 PM
 
Location: pasadena, ca
8 posts, read 12,497 times
Reputation: 10
Thank you so much! Your thumbs up is too cute. I wanted to consider Los Gatos, but it seems like it would be out of our price range? We'll make $110 combined but that's before taxes. We also have $70k in student loans that we're working through. Do you think this would be possible?
Thanks again!
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Old 09-18-2011, 08:13 PM
 
Location: pasadena, ca
8 posts, read 12,497 times
Reputation: 10
Thanks, I really appreciate your response. I was concerned about Sunnyvale's downtown, I just don't really understand it. It seems like I have a lot of research to do if I'm interested in being there. My friends who grew up in SJ (and are also Indian) called it the "motherland," I'm hoping it's become more diverse since they've left (8-9 years).
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Old 09-18-2011, 08:14 PM
 
Location: pasadena, ca
8 posts, read 12,497 times
Reputation: 10
Thank you! I am going to spend some good time on walkscore and GoogleEarth to figure out where would be an OK place for us to live if we were to consider it!
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Old 09-18-2011, 09:24 PM
 
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
2,190 posts, read 6,850,403 times
Reputation: 2076
Quote:
Originally Posted by piakg View Post
Thank you so much! Your thumbs up is too cute. I wanted to consider Los Gatos, but it seems like it would be out of our price range? We'll make $110 combined but that's before taxes. We also have $70k in student loans that we're working through. Do you think this would be possible?
Thanks again!
On that craigslist page (link in my first post) you'll see a couple of pages with a number of rentals in Los Gatos.
Some are really pricey and some quite reasonable.
It just depends on what your monthly rental budget is.
I hope that you come up and explore the area before you take on a rental.
You're not planning to rent without seeing the area and the place first are you?
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