Need home buying advice: SF versus South bay versus East bay (San Jose: sale, renting)

[sonya1362]

My husband and I recently moved to bay area for job. We have been renting so far and never owned a home. At this point, we are staying in North San Jose. My husband works in south bay (sunnyvale area) and I got a job in the city (SF financial district). We don't really like the north san jose area, since it's too boring with not much to do, so we were thinking of looking for a house or condo to settle down in SF.
However, we are also ready to expand our family and we need a place with at least 3 bedrooms, so then we started to think about places like Fremont. With our budget we can get nice properties in Fremont, but we are worried that it is going to be too much commute for both of us and too suburban.

Given that our jobs are in SF and south bay where is the best place for us to be looking for houses?
Our priorities are good sale back value, lower commute time, nice neighborhood offerings, and amount of space. Is it a good idea to buy in SF, if we plan to move out to south bay in 5 years or so?

Our household income is around 360K/per year and budget for the house around 1M. We have only around 15% cash to put down.

[cardinal2007]

May I ask why the Peninsula was eliminated? I usually recommend people that can afford the peninsula and have jobs in the South Bay and SF to live in the peninsula, otherwise to consider the East Bay, even though it is a lot more suburban.

[sonya1362]

Originally Posted by cardinal2007

May I ask why the Peninsula was eliminated? I usually recommend people that can afford the peninsula and have jobs in the South Bay and SF to live in the peninsula, otherwise to consider the East Bay, even though it is a lot more suburban.

Thanks for the tip. I forgot to mention that we try to avoid driving for commute. Fremont has a bart station to SF and my husband's employer has shuttles back/to work from Fremont and SF.
If we live in South bay, I can take caltrain, and my husband will have to drive to work.

In peninsula are, we probably both have to drive to work for reasonable commute, unless there are better options and I'm not aware of.

Where in peninsula do you suggest?

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by sonya1362

Thanks for the tip. I forgot to mention that we try to avoid driving for commute. Fremont has a bart station to SF and my husband's employer has shuttles back/to work from Fremont and SF.
If we live in South bay, I can take caltrain, and my husband will have to drive to work.

In peninsula are, we probably both have to drive to work for reasonable commute, unless there are better options and I'm not aware of.

Where in peninsula do you suggest?

From the peninsula, you should be able to take Caltrain, but unless your husband's employer has a Caltrain shuttle that would require driving, as you said. The peninsula towns I suggest depends more on what you're comfortable with, but the most walkable, that are in your budget, and I'm ruling out Palo Alto here, are probably San Mateo and San Carlos, I haven't looked at prices in a while, but 3bd condos should still be under $1M for the most part (there are a few luxury condos in SM that are probably higher). San Mateo has the nicer downtown of the two IMO, but San Carlos is pretty nice too. Another suggestion would be Burlingame, I also haven't been there in years, but downtown Redwood City seems to be building up nicely, my guess is the schools might not be as nice as the other 3 so might not be a good long term play, but Redwood City would be more affordable, I would suggest going to each of these places to see if you like the atmosphere.

If you're willing to drive to the station Belmont is halfway between San Carlos and San Mateo, you would have to drive to downtown San Carlos or downtown San Mateo to enjoy the downtowns, Belmont doesn't have a downtown of it's own, but it is a lot more affordable than the downtowns in either city, there is certainly a walkability premium in the peninsula.

For SFH you would likely have to choose smaller older properties in most of the peninsula to stay under $1M, basically under 1800sqft, and probably over 40 years old. Townhouses will be newer, but similar sizes, less hassle though.

I understand the hesitation to move to the East Bay, I know that is one reason I never bought a place in Fremont, even as the prices dropped to around 200k for condos, it is very suburban, despite what others say about the South Bay being just a big suburb, here I am 7 minute drive from downtown San Jose, 5 minute drive to Willow Glen, and 8 minute drive to Santana Row. From Fremont, I would have to drive across the bridge to downtown Palo Alto or downtown Menlo Park to be in a similar area. (Niles is not really busy)