Moving to Sacramento from San Francsico to purchase home, need to know what neighborhoods are safe (Roseville: for sale, real estate)

[angelinekm]

Hey All.
Our family (including young toddler grandma) are trying to find a home in the Sacramento Area. We are not familar with the Sacramento area, besides South Sac being kind of sketchy. We really enjoy Rancho Cordova area. Was wondering if the Sacrament/Rosemont or Sacramento/Arden area was safe and low in crime. I understand that crime is everywhere, but we would like to be in a safer neighborhood. Are there any other areas you would suggest? We are looking for a 4 bedroom house around the 220,000 price range. Thank you for your time and help.

[Majin]

Originally Posted by angelinekm

We are looking for a 4 bedroom house around the 220,000 price range. Thank you for your time and help.

You can't be serious?

[Marsh511]

Majin, it's not my usual style to bash a response, especially from someone like you who's given me good information along the way. BUT...from the perspective of a recent newbie, if I post a question with little knowledge of an area, the last thing I want to hear is "You can't be serious?". Even for me, I'm not sure what part of Angelinekn's question prompted that response. $220K for a 4-bedroom? The names of the neighborhoods she cited? Sorry - this was Angelinekm's first post, and she seems completely serious about getting a straight answer. Why welcome a newbie with that type of response? Not singling you out, Majin, but this whole electronic forum medium seems to elicit responses like this WAY too much. If you met someone at a party or a friend's house, and they asked a question that required a little 'normalization' to the facts, you would take the time to politely work through the facts instead of retorting "You can't be serious"....right?

Angelinekm, wish I could answer, but I know next to nothing about Sacramento...yet. Hopefully, in 4-5 months, I'll be moved there, too!

Marshall

[volleyballer]

Where will you be working? Are you looking for houses close to work, or do you mind a drive?

metrolist.mls.com is the best site for looking at houses for sale. And there are several in your range in the Rosemont area.

I can't speak for the safety of the areas, but it might be doable for you budget wise. I think the general consensus is that there are safe areas in Sac, yet they might be near an unsafe neighborhood. So if you are more specific with what you're looking for in a home/community/commute to work, then I'm sure you'll get valuable help.

[Majin]

This is why I said you can't be serious:

Arden:



As you can see you are very unlikely to get a 4 bedroom for under 220k, and if you do it's going to be a shack that was built in the 1950's in shecky neighborhood.

Rosemont is more doable but it's a trash neighborhood.

[wburg]

One thing to keep in mind is that the Rosemont and Arden/Arcade areas are unincorporated regions of Sacramento County, not part of the city of Sacramento or any city government. As such they are dependent on Sacramento County for services like police and fire, which can be less than responsive, especially in the rather disastrous state of Sacramento County's budget (cuts to sheriff's deputies and many basic services.) The up side is slightly lower utility fees.

[r0t]

Since you are familiar with the south side of Sacramento, would you consider Elk Grove? There's tons of homes in that price range, new, and good school district to boot.

[mattinsac]

The best way to know how responsive law enforcement is in a particular area is to look at the crime maps. If you see an area where there is a lot of gang activity that is probably a good sign that law enforcement in that area isn't effective enough.

Here is a crime mapping program for the Sacramento region. If you click on the advance search, you can creates maps of various crimes in the vicinity of the property you are looking at.

Online feature - Crimemapper - sacbee.com

You might want to also look at the Megan's Law database. While its a map of sex offenders, its also a pretty good proxy map for parolees. Both parolees and sex offenders have trouble finding places that will rent to them. If you see a neighborhood with lots of sex offenders, that is a pretty good indication that you have a lot of parolees as well.

California Megan's Law - California Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General

This is a map of schools by test score. What this allows you to do is to see graphically how strong the schools are in a given neighborhood. So if you are trying to compare Elk Grove v. Rosemont you can see real quickly how the schools compare.

California School Performance Maps

This is the craigslist classified ads in map form.

HousingMaps

This is the MLS in map form.

HotPads - Map Search for Real Estate, Apartments & Houses for Rent, Foreclosures and Homes for Sale

What these sites allow you to do is see how much it costs to buy a home in a particular neighborhood. So if you want to know how much it costs to buy a four bedroom home near Cordova High vs near Elk Grove High, you can compare the two schools test scores and then compare how much similiar housing in both neighborhoods cost.

Lastly this is the most recently published listing of home sales in Sacramento by zipcode. Pay particular attention to the price per square foot.

DQNews - Sacramento Bee Zip Code Chart

and this is a zipcode map for Sacramento.

http://www.norcalhomes.com/Zip_Map_Sac.pdf

While there are variations inside zipcodes this will give you a general idea of which neighborhoods are roughly at the same price point. Homes in Rancho Cordova and Elk Grove were both selling for about $118 a sqft. Natomas isn't too far behind at 113 a sqft, but homes in Granite Bay are selling for $208 a sqft, so you know that Granite Bay is probably outside your price range.

Lastly this is a map of the area by income. It will give you an idea of where people of various incomes in the area live.

EAOP - Outcomes - History of Success

[Archan]

You may want to look in the Lincoln area. It is a suburb of Sacramento, north of the city. Here is an example of a new home that I found that is for sale now.

Primrose

from $199,990
4br 2.5ba 2gr 2 story, 1997 sq.ft.
Lincoln, CA 95648
by Taylor Morrison


http://resources.newhomesource.com/Images/Homes/TaylorMorrison/large_5498013.jpg (broken link)



Key Features

• 2 story, 1997 sq.ft.
• 4 bedrooms
• 2.5 bathrooms
• 2 car garage
• Dining Room
• Family Room
• Living Room
• Master Bed Upstairs

Primrose (1997 sq. ft.) is a 2-story home with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and 2-car garage. Features include dining room, family room, living room and master bed upstairs.

[wburg]

Lincoln is a long commute from Sacramento: about 30 miles, in rush-hour traffic at least an hour from downtown. That's 60 miles a day, 300 miles a week, or about 15,000 miles a year just in commute travel--easily $2000-3000 in gas, plus extra auto wear & tear, childcare costs, etcetera. If your job is in Roseville, it could be pretty convenient, but from Sacramento you might be better off buying a place closer to work instead of dumping all that money into the commute.