Relocating To Mountain View: Traditional Forum Assistance Needed! (Sunnyvale: rent, house)

[Wintermomma]

I would say $3500 for a basic 3-4 bd single family house. Less is possible with patience.

ETA: SF bay area apts/housing for rent classifieds - craigslist Then check both Peninsula and South Bay areas for the neighborhoods mentioned. That should help a bit with an accurate picture.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

The absolute floor for a small good condition 3-br house in a nice neighborhood in Sunnyvale is $750.

Did we read that right?

[Wintermomma]

I'm thinking a preceding '2' must have been missing. And even then I find it hard to believe.

[capoeira]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

Did we read that right?

He obviously meant 750,000 as the low end purchase price for a house in Sunnyvale. This seems about right.

Sunnyvale Real Estate

[gone down south]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

Did we read that right?

$750 "k"

[OrangeSunset]

Commuting from Livermore to Mountain View will be painful. If you take the ACE train, the commute door to door in the morning would be 1:10 minutes and in the evenings 1 hour and 30 minutes, assuming you would live pretty close to the train station in Livermore. At Great America station in Santa Clara there are ACE shuttles (free of charge for train riders) and you will want to take the Orange shuttle into Mountain View. The train ride is about 45 minutes and the shuttle ride into MV varies depending on traffic (average is 20 minutes). The problem with the evening commute is the shuttle picks up 20 minutes before train departs so you end up waiting at the train station. You could leave a car at Great America and drive from there too. There is long term parking available. More information about ACE train here ACE | Altamont Commuter Express | Welcome to ACE Life!

Driving can be very hard! The roads out of Livermore get busy during commute hours so if you have a flexible schedule it could work well. I would say anytime after 9:30 AM and after 7 PM the traffic pretty much dies out. The commute during off peak hours would be between 1 hour and 1 hour and 15 min. If you brave to drive during commuting hours I would say it takes at least 1 1/2 hours.

If you decide to take the company shuttle, there may not be a shuttle directly to Livermore and only to Pleasanton. Either way you end up on the road quite a bit and traffic on 680 is terrible...and there is no carpool lane!! I still can't believe there is no carpool lane on 680 N, which makes the evening commute worse than AM. So you are looking at a 1 hour and 30 min average commuting time with the shuttle. On good days you might make it in a little over one hour and on bad days it might take you 2 hours...

If you want to live in a nice area in Livermore, you will be looking at home prices between $500 and $600 for a 3/4 bed house. My friend is renting her 3 bed house for $2700/month in a pretty nice area in North Livermore. The areas in south Livermore are more expensive and more desirable. The more affordable homes would be near downtown Livermore. The elementary schools near the center of town are not bad (API around 7) but the middle schools are not rated very well, thus the lower prices of home. And these are older homes too so you know.

Getting in and out of Mountain View is very hard from the east bay, so take that into consideration when negotiating your salary. Don't let them suck you in with the "free shuttle ride speech".

Good luck!

[Snatch Catch]

Wow, that is very helpful, OrangeSunset, thanks so much.

It's amazing how different the opinions on commutes are out there. I know multiple people that drive 2+ hours each way, each day out here (not that I would like to do it, but there are tons of people that do).

We're just waiting to find out if they give us some form of intermittent housing while we sell our house in NJ, because Mountain View rent + NJ mortgage - 1 income (until I find a job) = a non-starter

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by Snatch Catch

• Willing to have a commute of up to an hour to Mountian View (is this crazy?).

Look at Morgan Hill. Nice town. Much cheaper than Mountain View.

[TheGreatCurve]

Originally Posted by Snatch Catch

Ah, I think I mislead you guys a bit by not being clear.

I didn't expect that we'd be looking in areas like Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, etc. because they're significantly above our price range.

I had been looking at towns like Livermore, Los Gatos, and even Gilroy, because commuting is a way of life out here in the NYC area and the distances those places are from Mountain View were doable in my estimation, but it seems like the same commuting rules/guidelines may not be applicable to this area of California?

Los Gatos is an expensive, exclusive town with mostly million dollar + homes. So unless you're willing to live up in the remote Los Gatos Mountains and have a horrible commute, I think the town proper of Los Gatos is way out of your price range.

The distance between the towns you're looking at and Mountain View may not seem that far on a map, but the commute during rush hour is horrendous because their are millions of other cars on the road doing the same commute. It's pretty much stop and go traffic and gridlock all the way during rush hour. We don't have the convenient public transportation like there is in the NJ/NY area, so most people have to drive and deal with the horrible traffic. So you may want to keep that in mind.

[TheGreatCurve]

Originally Posted by Snatch Catch

It seems like the absolute floor on a freestanding home is $600Kish, in a decent neighborhood then? I'd been looking at real estate listings in towns within 30-40 miles of Mountain View, and there were plenty in the $400K-$450K range. The general consensus I'm getting is that those places wouldn't be areas to which I'd want to move my family - or am I misinterpretting things?

30-40 miles from Mountain View could take you over 2 hours to get there by car during rush hour. BTW, "rush hour" around here is 8 hours long (4 hour span in the AM and 4 hour span in the PM).