Good areas to rent on pennisula? (Sunnyvale, Richmond: apartments, for rent, crime)

[Choco23]

I am a 25 year old female looking to move halfway up the pennisula to either San Carlos, belmont, or San Mateo into a one bedroom or studio. I recently accepted a job offer in SF and will earning around 75k. My boyfriend is in grad school in south bay and will be contributing minimally to rent. We have been renting in Sunnyvale and the rent was reeasonable for a spacious studio in a safe area. We are reluctant to move, but the commute will be 1.5 hours for me with public transportation. It seems like the same size studio/1ba is going for 1600-1700 and I read poor reviews on apartmentratings for numerous properties. I thought the pennisula was safe because of the high prices, but are there certain areas to be avoided? How are the areas near Caltrain? If anyone has any recommendations, that would be appreciated. We would like to live somewhere halfway between his school and my job.

[MosX]

Originally Posted by Choco23

I am a 25 year old female looking to move halfway up the pennisula to either San Carlos, belmont, or San Mateo into a one bedroom or studio. I recently accepted a job offer in SF and will earning around 75k. My boyfriend is in grad school in south bay and will be contributing minimally to rent. We have been renting in Sunnyvale and the rent was reeasonable for a spacious studio in a safe area. We are reluctant to move, but the commute will be 1.5 hours for me with public transportation. It seems like the same size studio/1ba is going for 1600-1700 and I read poor reviews on apartmentratings for numerous properties. I thought the pennisula was safe because of the high prices, but are there certain areas to be avoided? How are the areas near Caltrain? If anyone has any recommendations, that would be appreciated. We would like to live somewhere halfway between his school and my job.

I don't have much to add since I don't live in the area yet, but I was looking around the Belmont area and it seemed nice. What I do know for sure is that apartmentratings is always negative. It's very rare for me to find a highly rated place there. I wouldn't trust it very much.

[humboldtrat]

Originally Posted by Choco23

I am a 25 year old female looking to move halfway up the pennisula to either San Carlos, belmont, or San Mateo into a one bedroom or studio. I recently accepted a job offer in SF and will earning around 75k. My boyfriend is in grad school in south bay and will be contributing minimally to rent. We have been renting in Sunnyvale and the rent was reeasonable for a spacious studio in a safe area. We are reluctant to move, but the commute will be 1.5 hours for me with public transportation. It seems like the same size studio/1ba is going for 1600-1700 and I read poor reviews on apartmentratings for numerous properties. I thought the pennisula was safe because of the high prices, but are there certain areas to be avoided? How are the areas near Caltrain? If anyone has any recommendations, that would be appreciated. We would like to live somewhere halfway between his school and my job.

I once lived in an apt. near downtown San Carlos within walking distance of the Caltrain station and the downtown area. It was nice and it's still a safe area. The apartment buildings are not of recent construction if you are looking for a fancy new apt complex with ameneties but they are OK.

[thecooler]

Concerning "bad" areas, Belmont and San Carlos don't really have any, so anywhere is perfectly fine. San Mateo is mostly nice, the area east of Delaware Ave (from Burlingame to downtown) is less desirable, and has occasional crime (particularly East of hwy 101), but its not what i would consider dangerous for the most part.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by Choco23

I am a 25 year old female looking to move halfway up the pennisula to either San Carlos, belmont, or San Mateo into a one bedroom or studio. I recently accepted a job offer in SF and will earning around 75k. My boyfriend is in grad school in south bay and will be contributing minimally to rent. We have been renting in Sunnyvale and the rent was reeasonable for a spacious studio in a safe area. We are reluctant to move, but the commute will be 1.5 hours for me with public transportation. It seems like the same size studio/1ba is going for 1600-1700 and I read poor reviews on apartmentratings for numerous properties. I thought the pennisula was safe because of the high prices, but are there certain areas to be avoided? How are the areas near Caltrain? If anyone has any recommendations, that would be appreciated. We would like to live somewhere halfway between his school and my job.

Downtown San Mateo and downtown Redwood City offer two of the best downtowns on the peninsula, and each have fairly affordable (by peninsula standards) apartments very close to the downtowns (and by extension, close to Caltrain). You'll find the other cities with good downtowns to be pretty overpriced (Palo Alto/Menlo Park and Burlingame).

In San Mateo, there are a lot of good places around downtown. I live there and am walking distance to the San Mateo caltrain station (couple blocks). I pay ~1600 for everything (current prices in my building are around that). It's a great location if you need to commute north and south, and has a great downtown for most things. I enjoy living there a lot.

Main areas to avoid are areas east of 101. Areas east of the train tracks are ok, too, but not as good as areas west. Best areas are west of train tracks. The closer to downtown the better...but there are plenty of places along El Camino that are decent, as well. That being said, I wouldn't consider anywhere in San Mateo dangerous. I walk/bike though those areas I mentioned above often and never feel unsafe. They're just not as nice as the other areas.

I'm not as familiar with Redwood City for renting, but I have had friends that lived in the downtown area and liked it a lot. I'm sure others can chime in. Redwood City is further south, so you'll have a longer commute to SF.

[sonarrat]

If you are looking for someplace that is convenient for commuting to both SF and SJ, then look at the apartments in Burlingame along El Camino Real. You can take the bus together to the Millbrae station and then get on either Caltrain or BART. Nice, safe and pretty area.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by sonarrat

If you are looking for someplace that is convenient for commuting to both SF and SJ, then look at the apartments in Burlingame along El Camino Real. You can take the bus together to the Millbrae station and then get on either Caltrain or BART. Nice, safe and pretty area.

Burlingame is definitely a nice town with two nice downtowns (Burlginame Ave and Broadway). But, it is more expensive than the surrounding towns of Milbrae and San Mateo (mainly because of schools), and the quality of apartments is pretty much exactly the same. I looked at apts in downtown Burlingame and consistently found it to be 100-300 dollars more for comparable housing in San Mateo or Milbrae. As well, it only gets 1 Caltrain per hour in each direction (Milbrae and San Mateo get many more, including Baby Bullets).

The OP could definitely look at it, but it's kind of overpriced for what it is and doesn't offer many distinct advantages over San Mateo or Milbrae (although I don't think I'd personally want to live in Milbrae since there isn't a nice cohesive downtown like in SM and Burlingame...).

[thecooler]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

The OP could definitely look at it, but it's kind of overpriced for what it is and doesn't offer many distinct advantages over San Mateo or Milbrae (although I don't think I'd personally want to live in Milbrae since there isn't a nice cohesive downtown like in SM and Burlingame...).

Millbrae has a nice little downtown. Its smaller then Burlingame's and San Mateo's but it has the basics-restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores, drug store, and some tiny retailers. For labor day weekend it has an annual art and wine street festival. I lived in Millbrae for 3 years and loved it. Very convenient place to live to get transportation - Bart, Caltrain, Samtrans and the airport.

[twins4lynn]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

Burlingame is definitely a nice town with two nice downtowns (Burlginame Ave and Broadway). But, it is more expensive than the surrounding towns of Milbrae and San Mateo (mainly because of schools), a.

Millbrae and Burlingame both have very good schools. Millbrae's Mills High has rated higher than Burlingame consistently in the past, and in 2012 they had the exact same API score. Mills' Taylor middle school has a higher API than Burlingame Intermediate. Elementary - Burlingame has more elementaries in the 900 range while Mills has one. The rest of the elementaries for both schools are in the high 800's.

I wouldn't say Burlingame is more expensive because of the schools, academically they're just too similar. But the schools, as well as the cities, have a very different culture.

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

Burlingame is definitely a nice town with two nice downtowns (Burlginame Ave and Broadway). But, it is more expensive than the surrounding towns of Milbrae and San Mateo (mainly because of schools), and the quality of apartments is pretty much exactly the same. I looked at apts in downtown Burlingame and consistently found it to be 100-300 dollars more for comparable housing in San Mateo or Milbrae. As well, it only gets 1 Caltrain per hour in each direction (Milbrae and San Mateo get many more, including Baby Bullets).

The OP could definitely look at it, but it's kind of overpriced for what it is and doesn't offer many distinct advantages over San Mateo or Milbrae (although I don't think I'd personally want to live in Milbrae since there isn't a nice cohesive downtown like in SM and Burlingame...).

As someone with local and first-hand knowledge, Burlingame is more convenient to the Millbrae station than Millbrae itself if you're going on public transit. Millbrae is almost all single-family houses, and much of it is hilly. The one long block of multi-family along Richmond Drive is not convenient to the rail lines or any public transit for that matter. In Burlingame, pretty much all of El Camino Real is lined by apartments and it's just steps to the nearest bus that takes you to Millbrae station.