Working in SF, where to buy a house for $550-650K? (San Francisco: tax lien, for sale)

[yuuki_chan]

My husband and I are newly married and looking to purchase our first home together to start a family. We both work full-time and go to school part-time in San Francisco, near Japantown (no BART close by) and are currently renting a small place in the Potrero Hill district in SF. We are looking for suggestions on where to look for our first home purchase. Our budget is around $550K - $650K for a house, and here are some criteria we are looking for, in order of importance

• Within 1 hour door to door commute time from home to work.
• Great neighborhood with top notch schools, low crime, easy access to shopping.
• Good weather. We grow vegetables in our backyard and have attempted to do so in both Pacifica and the Sunset District with abysmal results, too little sunlight was typically the problem.

As a reference, we enjoy the weather in the Potero Hill area we currently live at, as opposed to other districts of San Francisco (like Sunset), but think the neighborhood is not that great. I grew up in Mountain View and would love to purchase a home there or somewhere like it (such as Sunnyvale), but the long commute makes it impossible as well as the high cost of homes there. Other than San Mateo, we’re not sure where else to look. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

[18Montclair]

fyi-usually "Top Notch" schools are usually found in areas with "Top Notch" home prices.

And you'd really have to compromise if you really want to stay in the City. I was just perusing some of the city's single family homes at the top of your price range and they are almost all in the Sunset(which you've already stated you dont want to live in) or down by the 101/280 interchange, which Im guessing is not your cup of tea.

If you want excellent schools, and I mean par excellence, summer weather for gardening, very low crime then I think I found some very interesting properties on realtor.org

This is a $650,000 3bd fixer in Moraga...oh, and you get 1.42 acres
262 Rheem Blvd, Moraga, CA, 94556 - MLS #40465063 - Single Family Home real estate - REALTOR.com®

This fixer is a .5 acre house is up the street from the last one in Orinda and is only $645,000
105 Rheem Blvd, Orinda, CA, 94563 - MLS #40464395 - Single Family Home real estate - REALTOR.com®

This 3bd house on nearly a third of an acre in Lafayette is $645,000
3356 Betty Ln, Lafayette, CA, 94549 - MLS #40460427 - Single Family Home real estate - REALTOR.com®

Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda make up an area known as Lamorinda and they are among the most desirable towns in Northern California. Orinda and Lafayette have BART stations and Moraga is about a 10 minute drive from the Orinda BART. A huge chunk of the commuters here work in SF.

Anyway, Im not a realtor, don't have any personal stake in these homes but these are the first 3 places that came into my mind when you said you wanted 'top notch schools'.

You can't get much more top notch then Lamorinda when it comes to schools, safety and sunny weather for gardening. LOL

So Im sure others will have suggestions as well, but here's mine.

Good luck.

[mayorhaggar]

You're probably not going to much of anything in SF at that price in the areas you want, maybe a condo.

[ambient]

It's virtually impossible to find a house for $550-$650K around San Francisco in low-crime, top-notch school neighborhoods.

[Ceece]

Check out the Tri Valley area. It's got everything you want and I think the commute is about an hour. Too bad you can't use BART though because Pleasanton/Dublin is the end of the line. And housing prices are dropping so you could definitely get a single family home in your budget, nothing too fancy but probably just what you need.

[sonarrat]

18Montclair is on the right track, as usual. Lamorinda is the best compromise and has good access to San Francisco by both freeways (though 24 is a pain) and public transit.

[yuuki_chan]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! We are actually not opposed to living outside of San Francisco and would in fact welcome it. Given the housing options and prices around this immediate area, it seems almost an impossibility to find what we are looking for in SF itself. Suggestions for areas outside of San Francisco with good commuting options into the city would be fantastic!

[Mr. Fantastic]

Not going to happen. Ever.

[armyhero]

if you want to buy cheap house you can go website link [url=http://alturl.com/dmocq]Tax Liens Made Easy[/url] . it offer very very cheap house database. buy $1 Million Homes starting BELOW $100 to $3,000 each.

[CAVA1990]

El Cerrito real estate & El Cerrito homes for sale | Single family homes,Condos,Townhomes,Co-ops,3 Bedrooms - REALTOR.com®

I'll be honest, I know nothing about the schools there now but the houses in your price range looked pretty nice for the distance from SF.