Work @ Santa Monica, please suggest a good place to rent closely work with good school districts (Manhattan Beach: move to)

[curiouschap]

My work is going to be in Manhattan Beach for some time and then move to SM, Please suggest a place to rent closer to both work places and good school districts

[jaypee]

With the amount of info supplied, I'm going to recommend Santa Monica.

[1200RT]

Yeah, SM will be fine, if you're doing the public school thing. Your MB commute will be ~35 mins in the mornings, ~45 in the evenings, until work switches to SM.

What is your budget? Size requirements?

[BRinSM]

35 minutes seems like a stretch to me. MB does not have easy freeway access and all side streets near the coast get totally jammed. 45-60 minutes each way sounds more like it. FWIW, i used to commute from MDR to SM and it could take nearly 30 minutes to travel less than 5 miles because of the traffic.

[1200RT]

I commuted from SM to El Segundo via 405 for years, s/b 405 normally isn't too bad in the mornings. It all depends on how bad the 10/405 exchange is, how far from 10 you are in SM, and how far from 405 you are in Manhattan. 45 mins is certainly possible, and 60 isn't impossible if there is an accident.

Hell, it can take 45 minutes to get from one side of SM to the other, if its congested.

[Cloudwalker]

I hear El Segundo has good schools and is roughly equidistant from both places.

Santa Monica schools are good too, but the initial commute to Manhattan Beach may not be too pretty. If you can deal with that in the short term, working, renting and being in school in SM will make life a lot easier once your job moves there. Not the cheapest place to rent though...