Moving for Palo Alto for job - Where to look PA - San jose? (Santa Clara: apartments, rental market)

[cp212]

Hi,

Just married couple moving from Arizona for a new job in Palo Alto. My wife is a lawyer and likely will be moving without a job until she passes the bar, so we'll have to rely on my income. Would love to find a small house, cool neighborhood in the 3k range (or is that impossible?)- We're more interested in modern kitchens, cool area, shopping, dining than size of house or zip code. Thinking we'd like to be somewhere between Palo Alto (not possible) and San Jose.

Best case would be near CalTrain to avoid driving - Any suggestions? Thank you.

[dburbs1975]

not impossible to find, rent prices have come down now that the school rush is over. the areas around CalTrain stations tend to be decent with walkable amenities. If you want to be in a cool place and your job is in Palo Alto, you will be able to find a small place for two people in Palo Alto itself, the California St. station is decent and somewhat walkable. Near downtown Mountain View would be a great choice as well. There are new apartments at San Antonio and El Camino called 'Carmel The Village" within your price range with restaurants and lots of shopping on the 'campus,' these are higher rent than something in the same area just one or two blocks away, but are new, and very cool.

[vrhunski]

San Jose. Just check 95126 zip code. Next to the diridon station (west SJ)

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by cp212

Hi,

Just married couple moving from Arizona for a new job in Palo Alto. My wife is a lawyer and likely will be moving without a job until she passes the bar, so we'll have to rely on my income. Would love to find a small house, cool neighborhood in the 3k range (or is that impossible?)- We're more interested in modern kitchens, cool area, shopping, dining than size of house or zip code. Thinking we'd like to be somewhere between Palo Alto (not possible) and San Jose.

Best case would be near CalTrain to avoid driving - Any suggestions? Thank you.

Unless your job is near a Caltrain in Palo Alto, this is not going to work out that well, since Palo Alto doesn't have great transit within the city.

Having said that you can easily find such a house near the Caltrain in San Jose, but my guess is that you will find the demographics of the neighborhood a bit off-putting considering that you would prefer a place like Mt. View or Palo Alto. The area between the apartments/condos/townhouses by Diridon and the Shasta/Hanchett park neighborhood is nice, but does have a lot more middle class presence, and a lot more Hispanic people than either of those neighborhoods, and in comparison to Palo Alto it is a lot more diverse, similar places would be Delmas Park, and Sunol/Midtown. In truth San Jose doesn't really cater that much to a yuppie crowd, if you're cool with that then sure by all means look there, but if you prefer to live in a more yuppie place, you will not like San Jose downtown area and will want to move out quickly. Mt. View and Palo Alto have a lot more places catering to the yuppie crowd, but really if you want that you will have to look at SF.

Honestly the biggest issue in terms of getting a nice place to live is your requirement to live in a house, at that price range it will be hard. It may just be impossible to find what you're looking for.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Downtown San Jose or Santana Row are "cool" and will be less expensive than Mountain View or Palo Alto, I'm pretty sure.

The problem is that anywhere "cool" will cost more, as it will be more desirable. There are no secret, cool neighborhoods that are cheap, unfortunately.

If you want less expensive, but suburban and safe, look at Santa Clara.

[Local123]

No yuppies in SJ. Really? Not that I consider yuppies desirable but San Jose is crawling with them. Sometimes this forum is a real head scratcher.

[bobby_guz_man]

Originally Posted by Local123

No yuppies in SJ. Really? Not that I consider yuppies desirable but San Jose is crawling with them. Sometimes this forum is a real head scratcher.

Card is mentioning that SJ doesn't cater to yuppies as much as MV or PA does, and he is right. Now that doesn't mean there aren't any yuppies here in SJ, there are plenty, they're just not as "in-your-face" as the ones in MV and PA are.

Though I think the areas immediately surrounding the Alameda and Diridon could one day have the potential to be yuppie-ish. That's an area that is very reminiscent of a "main street" feel like PA and MV, coupled with the historic Rose Garden and Shasta-Hanchett neighborhoods offering some of the best early 20th-century architecture in the city, along with prestigious schools like Lincoln and Bell and SCU.

[zitsky]

Mountain View is nice and you can find some 2 BR / 1 BA houses that are a 10 minute walk from the Castro Street train station for maybe $3000-$3500.

[vrhunski]

@zitsky for that kind of money very very old one.

[zitsky]

Originally Posted by vrhunski

@zitsky for that kind of money very very old one.

Maybe old but possibly renovated. I know because I own one of the very very old houses, built in 1920, renovated in 1995. But I get your point. It's a very tight rental market and good houses are hard to find.