Is san carlos, ca, a hilly town or relatively flat town?

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by neo_xo

Wondering anyone familiar with San Carlos area?

Yes, very familiar.

Which part of San Carlos is flat?

The closer to the Bay you get the flatter it gets.

Considering moving to bay area ... before go to take a look at the area, want to make our list as short as possible. We don't want to consider hilly areas to live...

I trust you know anywhere on the Peninsula is going to be sky-high, hilly or not.

If I were just coming to this area and had knocked over a bank or two, I wouldn't choose San Carlos. I'd go there from time to time but I wouldn't live there.

It does have a defined downtown on Laurel Street, one block off El Camino, with a shopping/restaurant district and it gets a lot of foot traffic. If you're one of those people who like to walk to dinner, it's a good choice. The Thursday "Hot Harvest Nights" farmer's market should be starting up soon. (It is a zoo. Literally. There are signs all over the place telling people dogs aren't allowed. They bring dogs anyway. See "sociopathic behavior" below.)

But no, I would not live there. The people are nuts. I can be doing 25 mph down a quiet residential street and I will be honked at, flipped the bird and passed at high speed. My office was situated in San Carlos right on Laurel Street for two years (above The Refuge, fantastic restaurant), so I got the full range of their sociopathic behavior. In San Carlos, rules are for other people. And you'd damn well better get out of the way.

[dburbs1975]

San Carlos beats almost all of the penninsula cities in one respect which is why I have considered it to buy. There is 70% owner occupancy rate.

Palo Alto is around mid-fifties. You will find the difference in expensive neighborhoods with homes that are blighted in areas with low owner occupancy. San Carlos does not have this issues like some of the more pricey cities.

Look at owner occupancy when you consider buying, it is quite eye-opening.

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by dburbs1975

there is a part of san carlos in the south west hills that is zoned to Redwood City school, so watch the school districts carefully.

sonorrat, RWC north of Whipple is still zoned to RWC school, I am not aware of any part of Redwood City zoned to San Carlos.

My mistake, I had outdated information. Roy Cloud is a very good elementary school though.

[Chuck5000]

Where do you find your owner occupancy stats? I live in Palo Alto, in Old Palo Alto, the most expensive part (I rent, I'm not rich) and I can tell you that while owner occupancy is low in this part of town, it is definitely well above 50%.

So I think those numbers you have are not close to correct - but yes, investor areas will have lower occupancy rates, and I could believe 70% in this part of PA and maybe 85% overall - this city is large.

[dburbs1975]

chuck,

The data is from the US census.

you can believe what you wish, I did not make these numbers up. I am in the market to buy, and have a limited budget. We can get a beautiful condo in PA, but when you look for a mortgage one of the questions always is the percentage of owner occupied units, this is a measure of the stability of the complex. I am being surprised by the answers. In Mountain view the highest we have seen is 65%, the city overall is just under 40% owner occupied. Though I am certain some areas are higher, like the areas that border Los Altos, as a whole, that is what the city stats are.

I am not surprised that ownership is high in the nicer areas of PA where you live, but closer to 101, and in Ventura area, homes are not always in good condition. There are lots of condos in PA as well, people buy, then move up, and hold the condo to rent ad infenitum or maybe until one of their children needs their own place. We have made friends here who are in their 30's and own at least four nice houses in PA, just bought them up with bonus money over the years and rent them out. They only live in one of them. I am sure they are not the only ones like this.

[jk88cal]

Originally Posted by Chuck5000

Where do you find your owner occupancy stats? I live in Palo Alto, in Old Palo Alto, the most expensive part (I rent, I'm not rich) and I can tell you that while owner occupancy is low in this part of town, it is definitely well above 50%.

So I think those numbers you have are not close to correct - but yes, investor areas will have lower occupancy rates, and I could believe 70% in this part of PA and maybe 85% overall - this city is large.

I saw this on Wikipedia and the data is from US Census. I'm also surprised by this number. Just based on my limited experience, I don't think this number is correct or reflect true situation.

The description of the data says housing units, which can be apartments, condos, SFH, etc. So it is possible that PA has more condos and apartments than other nearby cities. Plus also, I suspect proximity to Stanford University also adds bias. So maybe more high density housing are made available to renting due to demand.

If you have data on breakdown of different types of housing (low density vs high density, SFH/TH/condos/apt), that will be interesting to compare if that is the reason.

Also, just thinking about financials, it would not make sense to own a property to rent out in PA. In other parts of California, SFH GRM (gross rent multipler) is around 12. Bay Area, it is around 20. PA is around 28. You can look up GRM on Wikipedia on details of this metric. But basically, as investor, it is much more expensive to own rental in PA and get much lower return in rent. GRM is for cash flow and does not consider appreciation.

In any case, I don't think this reflects the reality for SFH.