27 y/o female moving from SoCal to Silicon Valley, where to live? (San Jose: apartments, to rent)

[electromantic]

Have a great opportunity at a tech company in Cupertino and leaving everything behind to pursue my career.

Lived in SoCal my whole life, as a kid I grew up in a low-income community with lots of crime. Went to college in Irvine (a suburb of Orange County) and have lived in OC since. That said, I have enough street smarts and don't care too much about luxuries, although I appreciate a nice area where I don't have to worry about going on runs, walking to the store, and ultimately my own home.

Ideal unit: Studio or 1 bd apartment
Budget: Under $2000 month if that's realistic anywhere. Not including utils, but the lower the better.
Will have a car

My priorities in terms of what I'm looking for:
- Safety. As long as I don't have to worry about using pepperspray every night from parking my car and walking to my front door, I think I'll be OK (haha).
- Demographics: Would be nice to live around grad students/young professionals around my age. Especially if in the tech industry as I'd like to dive into the culture. I do enjoy regular nightlife but after this move I'll be toning it down a few notches. However, living in Irvine for 6+ years, I can deal with streets upon streets of family homes too.
- Location: Preferably by a freeway, grocery/shopping center/strip mall
- Nice to have but not a dealbreaker: modern/contemporary housing w/ gym (or at least by a nice local fitness center)

I've been told that commuting in the bay area is horrible. I'm used to a 30-45 minute commute at my current job which isn't painful to me. What areas would be a realistic driving radius (10 miles? 15 miles?) from Cupertino?

All options/areas and advice of any kind considered. Would also like to know where I *shouldn't* live.

Thanks for your time!

[ccm123]

Mountain View, Los Gatos, Willow Glen (a suburb of San Jose), or Sunnyvale would be recommended. All are safe, and all have a nice downtown area (Sunnyvale has Murphy Street) with shops and restaurants.

Coming from OC, you will find that commuting here is a breeze compared to spread out Southern California (the Bay Area is more compact), although the South Bay (where Cupertino is) does somewhat look like Southern California.

You could look into Cupertino also, which is a very nice community.

[vadaseri]

>Ideal unit: Studio or 1 bd apartment
>Budget: Under $2000 month

Plenty of options. Santana Row near StevensCreek/San Jose if you want to be with 20ish crowd. Another option if you want to stay near young professionals / grad students is near Santa Clara University. If you can bear with 1 - 1.5 hour commute/one way, then SF is another option. If you work for Apple, they have shuttles to SF.

[bobby_guz_man]

How about San Fran-sh*t-co? Lovely place with just a few urine patches!

[electromantic]

Thanks for the responses so far! I'd love to live in SF but I think I'll try to stay more local.

How is Campbell? I've seen decent prices for very nice looking apartments but know nothing about the area.

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by electromantic

Have a great opportunity at a tech company in Cupertino and leaving everything behind to pursue my career.

Lived in SoCal my whole life, as a kid I grew up in a low-income community with lots of crime. Went to college in Irvine (a suburb of Orange County) and have lived in OC since. That said, I have enough street smarts and don't care too much about luxuries, although I appreciate a nice area where I don't have to worry about going on runs, walking to the store, and ultimately my own home.

Ideal unit: Studio or 1 bd apartment
Budget: Under $2000 month if that's realistic anywhere. Not including utils, but the lower the better.
Will have a car

My priorities in terms of what I'm looking for:
- Safety. As long as I don't have to worry about using pepperspray every night from parking my car and walking to my front door, I think I'll be OK (haha).
- Demographics: Would be nice to live around grad students/young professionals around my age. Especially if in the tech industry as I'd like to dive into the culture. I do enjoy regular nightlife but after this move I'll be toning it down a few notches. However, living in Irvine for 6+ years, I can deal with streets upon streets of family homes too.
- Location: Preferably by a freeway, grocery/shopping center/strip mall
- Nice to have but not a dealbreaker: modern/contemporary housing w/ gym (or at least by a nice local fitness center)

I've been told that commuting in the bay area is horrible. I'm used to a 30-45 minute commute at my current job which isn't painful to me. What areas would be a realistic driving radius (10 miles? 15 miles?) from Cupertino?

All options/areas and advice of any kind considered. Would also like to know where I *shouldn't* live.

Thanks for your time!

I think Mountain View is a good idea, plus you would be reverse commute to Cupertino. Areas around Stanford, though more Stanford itself would have grad students/young professionals around your age. I think you can do Mountain View in your budget, though maybe more of a studio for the nicer apartments. It doesn't sound like you really need to be that close to walkable downtown areas, so you may want to avoid them for the cheaper rent. Some complexes in Cupertino would work, but most likely Santa Clara or Sunnyvale. I don't know if this would be in your commute area, but there are a lot of newer apartments in Northern San Jose and over the border into Santa Clara.

Campbell is okay, but the commute would be with traffic, perhaps not so young though. Suburbs with houses tend to be older demographics, as it is not possible to buy a house on one income these days, so either they bought long ago, or are married and probably with kids.

SF would probably not be in your budget or you would need roommates.

[80skeys]

Any of the following towns in Silicon Valley fit the bill:
Cupertino
Mountain View
Sunnyvale
Santa Clara
Los Altos
Campbell

These are all within commuting distance to Cupertino and there aren't any safety issues at all to be concerned about in any of these places. This area is basically one big "upper middle class" suburb.

you'll definitely be able to find a studio or 1 bdrm in any of these places for under $2000

and really anywhere yo ulive around here is pretty close to shopping and such

[ccm123]

Campbell is nice and safe and has a nice downtown area. I would recommend it.

Originally Posted by electromantic

Thanks for the responses so far! I'd love to live in SF but I think I'll try to stay more local.

How is Campbell? I've seen decent prices for very nice looking apartments but know nothing about the area.

[ccm123]

Where you shouldn't live: pockets of San Jose are not the safest, such as East San Jose. You will know immediately once you are in these areas! Coming from Irvine (which is upper-middle class), you will know quickly!

[bobby_guz_man]

By the way, SF is doable if you are not looking to rent in the hot areas of SF. Think Outer Sunset, Outer Richmond, West Portal, Excelsior instead of Mission Bay, SOMA, Marina, Noe Valley.

Driving from the west and south of SF to the hotspots in the eastern side would be a pain, but there are always buses, make use of them. They're quite efficient.