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frenzyrider, IMO you're getting an easy picture in this thread. The reality, IMO, is that your difficulty involves family, time, and the need to commute to 2 different job centers. I think that on your budget, your only good choice for a non-life-harming commute plus schools and a decent "quality" of home is probably Castro Valley, or maybe Fremont, or something in that area. One of you will still have a long commute. BTW, BART is crush-loaded every morning and evening at regular times, standing room only. Not pleasant. Adding more trains is still several years away.
Generally, relocating a family to the Bay Area, needing to rent at max of 4k per month, and wanting a standard of home and access to public schools typical of the middle class to upper middle class of the other 49 states, to me means East Bay only (though commutes to silicon valley from the East Bay are mostly horrible). The best commuting balance by far is San Mateo or Santa Clara counties, but those are significantly more expensive than the East Bay.
Recently my family has begun looking at *2 bed* rentals in San Mateo, we can pay 4k-ish, I've watched the market for a few years, and we are very disappointed. What we really want (3 beds, non busy street, reasonably modern appliances) costs 5k, and we are doing reassessment on a lot of levels. We probably won't do it. Occasionally a single family home that is pretty nice, might need some updating, but whatever, pops up at 4k or 4500, and it disappears instantly. More often it's in areas close to 101, which IMO is much less nice, treeless, noisy, tiny lots. You Forget Burlingame, anything that comes up at 4k is likely to have a sub-par location, like next to the freeway, or on a main road. In San Mateo, your best bet is probably a newer-construction apartment, though for 3 beds I don't think 4k will suffice.
I hope you have also calculated good savings levels into that 4k. Because if you are stretching everything to get to 4k, just to get to the Bay Area, I very strongly do not recommend. Cost of living here - once you calculate the need to save money and other quality of life issues for a family - is much more brutal than anyone other than a resident of West LA, NYC, etc, can appreciate. Look before you leap, you may regret it.
Unfortunately, this doesn't currently apply to Walnut Creek's high school. I'm guessing it changes sometimes depending on availability and/or other factors. As it stands, only Acalanes, Campolindo, and Miramonte are accepting intradistrict transfers now. Just wanted to clarify for anyone interested.
You're right, I think it has changed from two years ago. I just looked and Las Lomas and Acalanes HS are not even accepting inter-district transfers. I still think the OP should look to other districts outside of Burlingame, San Mateo, etc. since there is such a concern. Not to mention it is much more expensive to live there.
Now your referring to high school . The San Mateo Union High School District (SMUHSD) includes high schools from San Bruno, Millbrae, Burlingame and San Mateo (9 high schools are in this school district including a middle college and one charter high school). They have priority registration where you can apply to your high school of residence or you can apply to another high school within the high school district. If you miss the priority registration period you can be assigned to any high school within the SMUHSD.
The only impacted grades are at the elementary level, and not all grades and not every year.
Yeah, you're right. I was just trying to let the OP know what even inter-district transfers can happen and were available as recent as two years ago. Still think the OP should look outside of the Peninsula.
OP, sorry if I missed your post about why and how many times you need to commute to San Jose. In my opinion, as a couple others have said, you should have an easier commute to SF since it sounds like that is 5 days a week. Pleasanton or Fremont may be the best if you have to commute to San Jose once or twice a week. It also depends on the commute time you would be driving to San Jose. If you have flexibility then it opens up other Easy Bay places. If you only have to go to SJ a few times a month and are ok with an hour and a half drive each way, then Lamorinda, Albany/Berkeley, Alameda works.
I agree with Chuck that your best bet for your budget is the East Bay.
Also, I wouldn't get so hung up on the number of NMSFs. When we were in DFW that's all people talked about. Funny, now that all their kids are in colleges and the ones that talked about it the most are not at any better schools than some of the other people we know. Maybe it is not as much a focus here in the East Bay and kids are attending UC schools and Ivy Leagues at the same rate as a couple certain HS in the DFW area. Maybe in Palo Alto, Cupertino and Sunnyvale there is that competitive nature, but certainly not where we live at least with the parents.
frenzyrider, IMO you're getting an easy picture in this thread. The reality, IMO, is that your difficulty involves family, time, and the need to commute to 2 different job centers. I think that on your budget, your only good choice for a non-life-harming commute plus schools and a decent "quality" of home is probably Castro Valley, or maybe Fremont, or something in that area. One of you will still have a long commute. BTW, BART is crush-loaded every morning and evening at regular times, standing room only. Not pleasant. Adding more trains is still several years away.
Generally, relocating a family to the Bay Area, needing to rent at max of 4k per month, and wanting a standard of home and access to public schools typical of the middle class to upper middle class of the other 49 states, to me means East Bay only (though commutes to silicon valley from the East Bay are mostly horrible). The best commuting balance by far is San Mateo or Santa Clara counties, but those are significantly more expensive than the East Bay.
Recently my family has begun looking at *2 bed* rentals in San Mateo, we can pay 4k-ish, I've watched the market for a few years, and we are very disappointed. What we really want (3 beds, non busy street, reasonably modern appliances) costs 5k, and we are doing reassessment on a lot of levels. We probably won't do it. Occasionally a single family home that is pretty nice, might need some updating, but whatever, pops up at 4k or 4500, and it disappears instantly. More often it's in areas close to 101, which IMO is much less nice, treeless, noisy, tiny lots. You Forget Burlingame, anything that comes up at 4k is likely to have a sub-par location, like next to the freeway, or on a main road. In San Mateo, your best bet is probably a newer-construction apartment, though for 3 beds I don't think 4k will suffice.
I hope you have also calculated good savings levels into that 4k. Because if you are stretching everything to get to 4k, just to get to the Bay Area, I very strongly do not recommend. Cost of living here - once you calculate the need to save money and other quality of life issues for a family - is much more brutal than anyone other than a resident of West LA, NYC, etc, can appreciate. Look before you leap, you may regret it.
That is some great input. I don't think we are stretching at $4K. However, we are visiting in a week to scout out the entire area. I will really try not to go to east bay initial year, if possible, and still continue to focus on burlingame, foster city, san mateo and millbrae area. Also, we are only looking for a year until we figure out the area well before we can make a determination what will be a good fit.
OP, sorry if I missed your post about why and how many times you need to commute to San Jose. In my opinion, as a couple others have said, you should have an easier commute to SF since it sounds like that is 5 days a week. Pleasanton or Fremont may be the best if you have to commute to San Jose once or twice a week. It also depends on the commute time you would be driving to San Jose. If you have flexibility then it opens up other Easy Bay places. If you only have to go to SJ a few times a month and are ok with an hour and a half drive each way, then Lamorinda, Albany/Berkeley, Alameda works.
I agree with Chuck that your best bet for your budget is the East Bay.
Also, I wouldn't get so hung up on the number of NMSFs. When we were in DFW that's all people talked about. Funny, now that all their kids are in colleges and the ones that talked about it the most are not at any better schools than some of the other people we know. Maybe it is not as much a focus here in the East Bay and kids are attending UC schools and Ivy Leagues at the same rate as a couple certain HS in the DFW area. Maybe in Palo Alto, Cupertino and Sunnyvale there is that competitive nature, but certainly not where we live at least with the parents.
It is good to know you are familiar with DFW. I think (at least my observation) is that in DFW, people and kids have overwhelming influence from Texas colleges that shields the kids from seeing other colleges that are far more reputed in other states. Not a big factor but we are hoping to have our kids get good exposure to good colleges in CA.
Redwood City is very very well-located. Problem is public schools; I'd say the long term outlook is good, but your kids are not that small, right? i.e you don't have 10 years to watch them get better. Schools are the problem on the peninsula at anything other than high-price points (i.e. anything other than $1.5m or like 4500/mo for a 3/2). In the East Bay, that number is more like $900k and...I'm guessing 3200/mo in a place like Castro Valley). I have not looked in the East Bay specifically in a while, but confident my numbers are in the ballpark. Main point is to illustrate the difference between peninsula and East Bay.
Google street view might help you get a sense of how nice a given building or neighborhood is. You can tell a lot just by looking re: if it's up to your standards or not.
Redwood City is very very well-located. Problem is public schools; I'd say the long term outlook is good, but your kids are not that small, right? i.e you don't have 10 years to watch them get better. Schools are the problem on the peninsula at anything other than high-price points (i.e. anything other than $1.5m or like 4500/mo for a 3/2). In the East Bay, that number is more like $900k and...I'm guessing 3200/mo in a place like Castro Valley). I have not looked in the East Bay specifically in a while, but confident my numbers are in the ballpark. Main point is to illustrate the difference between peninsula and East Bay.
Google street view might help you get a sense of how nice a given building or neighborhood is. You can tell a lot just by looking re: if it's up to your standards or not.
Did a visit this weekend and you are bang on the point on several posts you mentioned. I like to give you more reputation points but I can't for the limitation of the website.
Burlingame has very few, if any, homes opening up right now. But we still have a month and half to go, so I am hoping things will change in the new year.
We also looked at Fremont in the mission area and it did have little better homes and all elementary schools are good so in the middle of school year, it can be a safe bet.
However, it is far from SF downtown and will likely be hour and 15 minutes door to door.
San Mateo has a mixed pot of schools so likelihood of our DD getting zoned to a lower performing school is higher. Nothing in Burlingame and Millbrae. Likely wait out this holiday season to resume again in the new year?
It is likely that there will be much more competition for rentals after the holidays. January might be OK. But closer to spring, I would expect it to get much harder, and for the best places to go faster. This is based on recent history. Could 2017 be slower? maybe. Wouldn't take a chance if you have high standards.
I don't know what your exact standards are, but I have been looking lately. For a 3/2, closer to 5k and over for a house with a nice yard, fully updated kitchen and baths, refinished floors, newer appliances, attractive decor, on a good (not overly noisy or high traffic) street, etc. You can go down to near 4k, but one or more things from this list will be missing. You can go multi-family, modern, and pay less than 4300, but you will have a more urban environment (i.e. no yard of your own, etc.) Multi family could be a good way to go. I have been using apartmentlist lately.
That 5k number applies to San Mateo, Belmont, and even some San Carlos properties. I think Millbrae is closer in price to Burlingame -- a step above this. Parts of San Carlos are on par with Burlingame, and even higher if views are present. South of that is Redwood and then Menlo and Palo - forget those. You're not nearly rich enough
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Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
. The San Mateo Union High School District (SMUHSD) includes high schools from San Bruno, Millbrae, Burlingame and San Mateo (9 high schools are in this school district including a middle college and one charter high school). They have priority registration where you can apply to your high school of residence or you can apply to another high school within the high school district. If you miss the priority registration period you can be assigned to any high school within the SMUHSD. 
