Moving to Watsonville with young kids (Santa Cruz, Aptos: real estate, apartment, rentals)

[PDXActive]

Hello all,

I would love some feedback from all of you that live near Watsonville, CA. I will be transferred there for work at the end of the year and am trying to figure out where to look for housing. I have two young girls (4 & 8), so both availability of daycare and decent schools are important. I won't have the means to purchase a home (will be hard giving up my nice spacious home here in the Pacific Northwest....), so would look for an apartment building that is safe with 2-3 bedrooms. Commute time is important as well since I'll be dropping off 2 kids prior to making it to work on time. I hear that Watsonville is not the place to live. Is that true? Or are there decent areas with schools worthwhile around? Any help you could give is much appreciated.
Thank you all.

[Snort]

You'll find the better schools in Aptos and Soquel. Corralitos is a bit closer, but I don't know what the school option would be like there. The places you'd consider living in this area are very pricey, unfortunately. There's not a lot of good value for housing here.

[sonarrat]

What you've heard about Watsonville is pretty much the truth. It's not a great place to live unless you're a rancher or day laborer. There are some nice enclaves, but you'll definitely want to pay extra for private schools.

On the other hand, Soquel or Aptos would be great areas to live close to Watsonville where you could feel safe with the public school system. This would be closer to Santa Cruz. The only problem is the Hwy 1 traffic, so there is a tradeoff, but the rent is about the same for a 3-bedroom (1800-2000ish for a 3-bedroom apt), so that would be your best choice.

[coolwaves]

You do not want to live in Watsonville with young daughters. Aptos is closer, they do have nice elementary school and jr. high, but the high school is questionable. I think Soquel has better school options but it is about 5 minutes further than Aptos. Traveling south in the morning will put you in reverse traffic so it's not bad.

[sms1967]

I've researched much of California real estate, along with schools because of my kids, and Watsonville schools are rated among the absolute worst. On a scale of 1 to 10, greatschools.com consistently gives them a 1. Now, some here suggest Aptos. I'm thinking if you can afford Aptos, you wouldn't be looking at Watsonville. Also, Watsonville feels like it's about 80% Hispanic... take that for what it means to you but there's an abundance of farm labor living in the community.

[nr5667]

Watsonville has about a 20% unemployment rate, lots of gang crime, lots of illegal immigrants, it's sort of turning into a mini-Mexico, not somewhere you really want to live. Aptos High is in the Pajaro Valley School District (Watsonville's), however, since they opened a new high school in Watsonville, I'm not sure they bus up students anymore. My sister in law goes to Aptos high, she's taking honor courses, etc, and it seems to be working out okay. The elementary and middle schools are in a different school district.

[coyoteskye]

Like other posters have said, Watsonville is not optimal and the parts of it that are fine are generally more expensive and roughly equivalent to rentals in the more expensive Aptos and Soquel.
But then, even if you found an affordable place in the better parts of Watsonville, you'd have the issues of the Watsonville school system.
So, if you can afford it Aptos (or Soquel) would be a better option.
Here's a link to Craigslist / Santa Cruz so you can get an idea of prices.
There are, on an almost daily basis, spam but people flag them pretty quickly and if you see anything that is well below the average rental, it's probably bogus.
santa cruz co apts/housing for rent classifieds - craigslist

[camom2]

No to watsonville, esp if you have little ones. Not a safe place to raise a family, IMHO! Ditto to what Sonarat said above.

[MtnSurfer]

Yep,

Go a little north to Aptos. I have a friend who is a school teacher there. He also has 4 children and really like Aptos a lot. It is worth the price difference especially with two young daughters. Their education, surroundings and safety are worth much more the price difference and shorter commute to work IMO. So count the cost carefully before you decide if you want to put them in harms way. Forget those cheaper rentals in shady areas and terrible school districts.

The PNW is a beautiful place. Maybe there are other opportunities there which may present themselves to you while you are planning your move. The reason I say this is that I work with someone from the PNW and he is trying to figure out how to get home. Jobs (or lack thereof) are the biggest deterant for he and his family right now.

Derek