Young family relocatin from the Bay Area- where to live? (San Diego: to rent, houses)

[lmack]

My husband and I (both in our early 30's)are originally from the East Coast (I'm from Boston and he's from NYC). We relocated to San Francisco 3 years ago for his job and we absolutely love it here. Unfortunately, we are on the move again. My husband just got a job in San Diego (Hillcrest area). I currently don't work-- I'm a stay at home mom to our 8 month old son. We are looking for a place to raise our son that is family friendly- we have done cities, so we are now looking for suburbia. We are also looking for a place where we'd feel comfortable being a jewish mixed family (i'm white and my husband is black, so our son is mixed and is being raised jewish). We are currently renting now, and will rent when we move to SD, but would like to rent in the same area where we will eventually buy a house (when we decide to buy, we're looking for something in the 600k range). Ideally, we'd like to find a place with a good school system that isn't a horrible commute for my husband. We went down to SD a few weeks ago and fell in love with Encinitas, but it seems pretty far from the Hillcrest area and I heard the traffic on the 5 is miserable. Is the train an option from Encinitas? We also heard good things about Point Loma, but I'm not too thrilled about hearing airplanes all day long. We looked at the Rancho Bernardo/Rancho Penasquitos area, and it looked nice, but we're not into the developments where every house looks exactly the same and the houses are right on top of each other. We also drove out to Poway since we were told the schools out there are great, but it was way too much of a culture shock for us. Any thoughts/suggestions/advice would be great. Thanks so much!

[tande1n5]

Going off of what you said: You may be able to take the coaster from Encinitas (closest thing SD has to BART), but that won't take you into Hillcrest itself, so you'll have to grab a bus or something into Hillcrest.

San Diego is tract sprawl in much of its suburbs, so Rancho Bernardo, although it has great schools, is what much of San Diego suburbia is like. Especially in North County, and ESPECIALLY on the 15 corridor, San Diego will be very white bread and quite conservative compared to the bay area. Although I find the people there to be friendly and accepting, I understand if you feel that it's too homogenous for your liking. There are significant Jewish populations in North Country coastal areas, like in La Jolla and Del Mar, but it's quite pricey and has that whole 5 traffic issue.

You might want to actually go have a listen in Point Loma (unless you have already) to make sure the planes are really that much of a bother. It's the departure end of the airport about 99 percent of the time that faces Point Loma, and airport noise is always more pronounced on the arrival end, so unless you have already, go into a neighborhood in Point Loma and sit and listen for about 15 minutes to see if it really is too much. for your liking. Luckily with San Diego's mild climate, and sea level altitude, most planes can take a good enough departure that they might not be as much of a factor as it seems, especially in the parts of point loma that aren't directly under the airport.

Another area that might be worth a look is the Del Cerro area. It's an older, midcentury developed place that's close enough in the metro area as not to offer the same amount of culture shock you may be experiencing, is older and therefore mature in it's "differentiated housing" look that you say is what you dislike about RB, and has historically been a big Jewish neighborhood (although most Jews that lived in the area have moved since, and it's now much more mixed). The schools are overall good to very good.

[lmack]

Thank you so much for your response. We will definitely look into Point Loma and see if the noise bothers us. Do you know what areas are "family friendly" and have the best school districts?

Del Cerro looks great too- thanks for the suggestion. We will definitely check out this area too when we go back down next week. I just looked at houses in this area and they look to be in our price range and are definitely unique (I don't think I could ever live in those planned communities- yuck!). Is this a nice area? It looks like it's right near SDSU...we lived right near Boston University when we lived in Boston a few yrs ago and i'm kinda over living near college kids.

Thanks again!

[NYSD1995]

Del Cerro is an awesome area. Great schools all the way to high school, no tract-sprawl, no HOA's, no planned communities, no gates, central, 10 minutes to hillcrest, and one of the largest Jewish populations in the city (nickname is 'Hannukah Hill')! There are some college kids here and there but generally the college kids are on the other side of the freeway. Based on your previous posts I think it's as good as you are going to get without compromising too much on schools. Point Loma would be another good choice, but I prefer Del Cerro personally because of the plane noise (and their High School is not so good anymore).

[kelb]

We just returned from a week in SD and spent some time checking neighborhoods. It is seldom mentioned here, but Tierrasanta struck us as a lovely spot for a young family. It is close to Mission Valley Shopping, Balboa Park, and even downtown, yet it has a remote feel that is very peaceful. It is adjacent to a huge park that we did not get to check out. We stopped at a shopping center at a time when the schools were getting out, and we were totally impressed with the kids in Starbucks - clean cut, well mannered, just really a nice bunch of kids. Fair diversity also.
From what we saw your $600,000 would buy a lovely property in the area.