San Francisco Area - Affordable Nice Family Neighborhoods? (Oakland, Berkeley: apartments, for rent)

[DigitalNomad]

Looking to move to SF area for a job and want to know if anyone knows any nice affordable nearby family-oriented neighborhoods with good schools. Our budget is prob very close to $2500/mo for rent.

Thanks!

[Ruth4Truth]

How big a place do you need for that money? (=how many kids need to squeeze into it?)Where's your job location?

[04kL4nD]

Not a lot to choose from, especially on that low budget, unless you're cool with at least a 60-90 min commute each way.

[mstnghu2]

Originally Posted by DigitalNomad

Looking to move to SF area for a job and want to know if anyone knows any nice affordable nearby family-oriented neighborhoods with good schools. Our budget is prob very close to $2500/mo for rent.

Thanks!

The Bay Area is a big place that covers 9 counties. You're not giving us enough information to give any kind of useful information. You could start by telling us what city the job is in...otherwise there's no point in trying to recommend any places. We can't just guess at what you want. There are family friendly neighborhoods all over the Bay Area but with the limited information you've given us, there's not really any way to give you recommendations.

[ssmaster]

Oh look! A unicorn!

[Electrician4you]

Originally Posted by ssmaster

Oh look! A unicorn!

Lol. I don't know why but this had me rolling so hard I was snorting. Great post

[codefreek]

Originally Posted by ssmaster

Oh look! A unicorn!

Hello.. I bid $100 HIGHER than you for the unicorn.

[DigitalNomad]

Hi. As I thought I made clear, the job is in SF. Practically downtown. It's my wife and our daughter, but we're looking for a three bedroom small house if possible in a quiet, orderly, safe neighborhood. I just know it's way expensive to live inside SF city limits or Marin County. Thanks to all who ventured info. Very helpful!

[04kL4nD]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

Not a lot to choose from, especially on that low budget, unless you're cool with at least a 60-90 min commute each way.

Did you ignore my earlier response because you didn't like the idea of a commuting for long distances, or did you think I was being dishonest?

$2500 won't even get most people a 'decent' 1BR/1BA apartment anymore in Oakland, let alone Berkeley or 99% of SF.

In the Bay Area, you usually have to choose between safety, location, and size, and weigh them against affordability. Let's break this down further so you can understand it better, shall we?


Affordability

Everyone enjoys getting a 'deal' on the things they pay for, and given your carefully researched, yet exceptionally thrifty price point of $2500 a month for a three bedroom house, it's clear that you get more of a thrill out pinching pennies than just about anyone I've ever met. To make this home hunting experience more time efficient, let's keep this number in mind as we examine the other factors in relation to it.

Safety.

It varies from person to person, but most individuals don't want to hear gunshots on a daily basis or have to worry about being robbed at all hours of the day while they are at work or doing leisure activities. You've already said you want 'quiet' and 'family friendly,' but would you be OK with drug dealing, prostitution, or gang related activities, so long as the place fits your budget and it still had a homey vibe to it? Does the phrase 'out of sight, out of mind' make sense to you? While they say you can't put a price on the safety of your family, $2500 a month is the maximum amount of money YOU wish to spend each month, so clearly you CAN put a price on safety, and a fair one, at that!

Location

The Bay Area is a somewhat large area geographically, and most people have to travel to their places of employment. As a result, people often pay a hefty premium to avoid spending hours upon hours either idling away in gridlocked automobile traffic or packed to the gills on public transit that regularly smells like urine and feet. Since downtown SF happens to be a major job center and hundreds of thousands of people work there, it's quite a desirable location. A 3 bedroom house that's under $2500 and 'close' to downtown San Francisco does not, unfortunately, exist for at least 50 miles in any direction the crow files, aside from some undiscovered, yet inhabitable island in the Pacific Ocean west of the city. However, If you have access to a time machine, you could try and go back to the 1990s and see if there any homes at that price point still available.


Size
If you have ever wondered: "does size really matter ?" I'm here to tell you that in the Bay Area, the answer is a resounding: Yes! Human beings generally want to have a fair amount of personal space, mostly for purely selfish reasons, and they are often willing to pay quite a bit more money to live in a three bedroom house, than say, a tool shed in someone's back yard. You have insisted that your new dwelling contains THREE separate bedrooms. While it may come as a shock to you, by San Francisco standards, that's an enviable amount of personal space, given the fact that grown adults with graduate degrees sometimes share rooms with other adults in an apartment that has 4-5x more people than individual bedrooms on the premises. I hate to keep harping on the location aspect we discussed previously, but if you wish to have all that glorious space for you, your spouse, and your child will all need to live and learn this mantra: "less is more!"

So, as you can see, at $2500, a 3BR house that's in close proximity to downtown San Francisco, CA might prove difficult to find. Since you're unwilling to compromise some of your requirements to keep within your reasonable and round figure of $2500, perhaps it's time to think more seriously about that off shore island or using that time machine I brought up earlier.

[evening sun]

You might be able to get a 2 bed for that price in Pacifica or Daly city.

Pacifica, CA Apartments for Rent | Apartment Finder