Good quality family accommodations (short-term) in/around Walnut Creek (Oakland: sales, apartments)

[whynot1986]

We will make the attempt to move to CA this year, after much soul- and wallet-searching . Our recent scouting trip revealed mostly good things, save for the obvious cost of housing. But we will suck it up and pay for what we need to with a combination of equity and savings. We will not be scraping the barrel and putting everything we own into this, so although it is a more expensive area, we are prepared for some ups and downs.

Here is a thread I started a few weeks ago:
//www.city-data.com/forum/san-f...s-welcome.html

This posting is to ask about short-term housing in/around WC. We will probably arrive sometime in the summer. Our rising 10th grader will need to enroll, and we would look for a good school as she attends a good one here in GA.

Rather than buying in haste and repenting at leisure, we thought we'd rent for 6 months, maybe more (but hopefully not more) while we gain a deeper understanding of the area and our tastes as they relate to each other. 'We' are wife, hubby and 16 y/o dtr. Our 20 year old will stay behind to finish college but we hope she visits often. Her eventual goal is to go to grad school in either Berkeley or Stanford, and she is on track so far academically.

Can those of you familiar with WC suggest according digs? We don't mind apartments as long as they are of the better variety, safe and in good areas with minimal hassles and good management. 2B/2Ba is a minimum and probably a good spot anyway for the temporary digs. Target is $2K or less if possible, but we are not going to compromise too much just to pinch pennies.

Walnut Creek is the choice for now because (a) we will probably buy either in Lamorinda, WC, Danville or (maybe) San Ramon. She will work in San Ramon, probably 2-3 days a week and telecomm the rest. I will telecomm for the foreseeable future but may at some point need to seek different employment, so proximity to BART is a plus.

One place we noticed was the Park Place apts on Alma Rd. Anyone familiar with these? The reviews are spotty, some good, some not so much.

Or would you recommend single-family housing more strongly? I guess one gets more for the money there.

[batransplant]

You should look at Craigslist.org. If you rent in Walnut Creek, make sure you are in the Las Lomas Highschool district. It is part of Acalanes, which is in Lamorinda, and one of the top in the state. Don't rent anything near the Concord border or in the 94597 zipcode. You are better off renting in S. Walnut Creek...but nothing right in the old part of downtown. I looked at some really sketchy rentals there on a few streets right near Broadway Plaza.

You may also want to consider renting a townhouse. They are less expensive than a SFH, and there are several in the area.

Feel free to email me if you have more questions.

[sav858]

Personally I do not like the location of Park Place Apts, all those apt complexes off Alpine Rd are just too close to the freeway to me. But you are right in the middle of downtown and can pretty much walk to everything.

The only areas I would avoid is N. Main St to the west of 680, Oakland Blvd, and Creeskside Dr area. They are not dangerous but the apt complexes can be somewhat dumpy. And any zip code is good in WC, not sure why anyone would ever suggest avoiding a whole zip code in Walnut Creek but 94597 is just as good as the rest of WC.

[tstieber]

I agree about Park Place and Alpine Road. Kind of a downtown-ish environment, a little loud, but close to infrastructure. I'd suggest maybe looking at townhomes or small houses. Not sure if you're looking at Las Lomas HS or Northgate HS (both are very good), but if you want to get a bit more for the money and stay in the Northgate HS district, then you may even want to look at the Crossings in Concord, just past the northeast WC border, which has suburban single family neighborhoods that still feed into the WC schools. Kind of getting the best of both worlds. Little longer commute to transit or freeways, however. Private message me if you have questions!

[bayarea-girl]

One of the zip codes to avoid in WC is 94598 because you won't be in the WC school district. I agree with all the mentioned recommendations above.

[whynot1986]

Just getting back to this...

Thanks for the replies so far. I like the idea of a townhouse - not an apartment (it's been too long since we lived in one) and not quite a house (do we need one? I don't know).

Honestly, I feel a bit overwhelmed by the logistics. We are going to put our house on the market here in GA in about a month to catch the peak sales season, although with this economy 'peak' is a relative term, I know. We will start at what we think the house should bring but also will be ready to get aggressive with pricing quickly.

What suggestions do you have, re getting housing figured out? Will 3-5 days be enough? (the hotel stay, although we can extend of course). When we were there in Dec, we looked at houses and the only apts were PP, and that not from the inside. I worry a little about finding accommodation, even though temporary, that satisfies all the requirements. Please reassure...

A good school (I hesitate to say top school, but I guess that's sort of what's in our minds) is paramount, and I suppose with that you get safe areas, etc. We don't need to be close to action, so Park Place may not do it if it is noisy, congested, etc. But neither do we want to be out in the boonies.

batransplant and tstieber, thanks so much for the offer. At the moment the questions I have are for general consumption :-) but I would like to contact you each in due time. I assume you live in WC? Likewise, feel free to PM me (although I'm the one with the questions!!).

I did check out CL and will certainly use it and probably find what we need via that... just doing some preliminary for now.

[Dulcinea_El_Toboso]

We are moving from the Midwest (husband is already in Alameda, looking for rental housing in WC) and are curious about the differences between Las Lomas and Northgate High Schools. We have already determined how important it is to contact the respective school districts regarding rentals addresses and to which schools they feed; I am curious about the differences between these two schools as far as 'culture.' My two teenagers currently attend a very good high school back home in the snowy climes; there is a predominance of high-achieving student population, with parents and support of the community to back them. We live near a top ten Midwest University, and our village is a 'bedroom' community for the same.

Is there a difference between these two schools (LL and NG) as far as academic prowess? At our current high school, the students are college-bound, and grade competition is applauded, which makes it 'great' to be an intelligent student. Is it a similar situation at these schools? I have looked both high schools (LL and NG) up on various school ranking websites, and they seem to be very similar. However, I know that the locals always have anecdotal evidence to support their views, of which I am eager to hear. We have also read about the 'LaMorinda' area high schools, which score even higher, but the rentals take us out of our financial comfort zone.
Moving into an area unknown to us in another part of the country is tough, and I feel as though the choice of high school will determine our living arrangement. Do you have any thoughts/comments?

Regards--

Originally Posted by batransplant

You should look at Craigslist.org. If you rent in Walnut Creek, make sure you are in the Las Lomas Highschool district. It is part of Acalanes, which is in Lamorinda, and one of the top in the state. Don't rent anything near the Concord border or in the 94597 zipcode. You are better off renting in S. Walnut Creek...but nothing right in the old part of downtown. I looked at some really sketchy rentals there on a few streets right near Broadway Plaza.

You may also want to consider renting a townhouse. They are less expensive than a SFH, and there are several in the area.

Feel free to email me if you have more questions.

[sav858]

Las Lomas is in the same school district as the Lamorinda high schools, which is the Acalanes High School Union District, which is one of the best in the state. Northgate is part of the Mt Diablo Union School District, which is pretty mediocre and has lots of relatively bad schools in it as it includes Concord. But that doesn't seem to affect the quality of students or achievement at Northgate imo from what it seems, but personally I still consider it somewhat of a negative to be part of that school district. I heard they actually might be trying to break away from that district.

I went to LL and all of my friends went to a 4 year college and as do most kids. Most kids I know from Northgate were the same, all upper middle class and went to college. I don't think it makes that much of a difference but personally I prefer the areas of WC that make up the WCUSD and Acalanes UHSD.

[Dulcinea_El_Toboso]

Thank you so much for your helpful comments; they were exactly the type of response I was hoping for. We were trying to make up our minds between renting a house in different parts of WC, and your opinion have swayed us to the house that feeds to Las Lomas. Best, -DET

[Beullah]

Originally Posted by batransplant

You should look at Craigslist.org. If you rent in Walnut Creek, make sure you are in the Las Lomas Highschool district. It is part of Acalanes, which is in Lamorinda, and one of the top in the state. Don't rent anything near the Concord border or in the 94597 zipcode. You are better off renting in S. Walnut Creek...but nothing right in the old part of downtown. I looked at some really sketchy rentals there on a few streets right near Broadway Plaza.

You may also want to consider renting a townhouse. They are less expensive than a SFH, and there are several in the area.

Feel free to email me if you have more questions.

Actually Walnut Creek is served by: Walnut Creek School District, San Ramon Valley Unified School District, Lafayette Elementary School District, Mt. Diablo (both NORTH and NORTHEAST Walnut Creek), and Acalanes Union High School District. One would want to stay away from Northeast Walnut Creek (Bancroft Elem is good, but the middle and high schools are Oak Grove and YV). Little to no apartments/townhomes in North Walnut Creek (Northgate). We're in the Northgate feeder pattern, and I can assure you, it's a perfect adequately school; similar to Las Lomas.