Commuting from Mission San Jose (94539) and other relocation questions (Fremont: real estate market, to rent)

[relocate2013]

We are relocating to Silicon Valley and are looking to rent a house in the Mission San Jose (zip 94539) area. My husband will be commuting to Santa Clara near the Yahoo location (Great America). His hours are flexible (lots of working with people on the east coast). I'm an experienced software engineer (Java server side development) and will be looking for a job after we settle down a bit. We've done tons of research on the Internet, including looking at traffic patterns on Google. But I would like to have more feedback from those of you that actually live out there now.

1)What will commute be like for my husband on 680 from MSJ to Great America Ave. in rush hours?

2)What will commute be like for me if I start looking for jobs in the job centers of cupertino-mountain view-sunnyvale-santa clara etc.? Looking on Google, it seems to say about 35 minutes to Cupertino/Mountain View in rush hours but I don't know how true that estimate is. Or should I consider Pleasanton for a reverse commute?

3)Having done some salary research, I'm thinking $120k-$130k is what I can expect for the job market there for doing Java development. If that's the case, our family will be bringing in about $320k annual income. We can also make a down payment of about $500k. We are thinking of buying houses near/under 1.5 million after a year or so. How realistic do you think our plan is given all the craziness in the real estate market there? We do have excellent credit (close to 800 scores) and no other debt but taking one million dollar loan is still a bit scary to me.

Thanks and I appreciate your inputs!

[ccm123]

I commuted from Fremont to Santa Clara for a few years. I took 880 and then streets, and the commute was in traffic and not against. If you leave early enough (usually before 7:00 AM), the traffic is usually lighter in that direction. I don't know the 680 commute patterns, but I believe that they would be heavy also, since you have the Tri-Valley (Pleasanton, Dublin, etc) commuters taking 680 into Santa Clara/San Jose. I would say that the commute time in rush hour is 45-60 minutes, one way. The afternoon rush hour is also heavy and the 880/680 (Mission Blvd) area is usually pretty heavy with traffic. Pleasanton would be a reverse commute for you and if you want to reduce traffic, that would be the way to go.

[relocate2013]

Thanks for your reply. Anyone else?

[silverkris]

I concur that Fremont, though not far in distance from Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/San Jose job centers, is unfortunately not favorable in terms of peak traffic directions. I live in Palo Alto and have worked in Fremont & Newark - took me about 25-30 minutes. However, if you live in Fremont and work in Palo Alto or Mountain View, it will be about 45 minutes in peak traffic.

Have you also considered something in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara instead? It will put you in the center of things. Do you have children? I'm guessing that you chose Mission San Jose - Fremont for the schools. Probably an equivalent community to MSJ is Cupertino - in terms of demographics (large Asian community - mostly Chinese and Indian) but it's slightly higher in terms of housing costs.