Mother retiring in East Bay or South Bay - need help comparing areas. (San Jose: real estate)

[skyao]

I am trying to get my mom to move out here from Texas and we are looking at some areas in the East Bay and South Bay.

We tried to narrow it down to somewhere she could get a condo/townhome for $300k or less, be in a relatively safe area, and be within 1 hour of San Francisco as we live there and want to be able to visit her quickly in case of emergency.

The three main areas are below, does anyone have general comments/feedback on those areas? My mom is Asian, so she does not mind heavily Asian areas, as long as they are nice enough. School district does not matter as much as she is retired; she is not interested in retirement communities like Rossmoor.

1 San Ramon/dublin/Castro Valley
2. Fremont/Milpitas/Hayward
3. Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/San Jose

We are realistic about price and area but wanted to know general differences and places to avoid. Any help would be appreciated and feel free to suggest areas which you may think are a better fit.

thanks!

[sonarrat]

1-bedroom for $300K means you have a fairly wide selection of areas. There are parts of Daly City where you could buy a house with that money, and you can't get much closer to San Francisco than that.

[skyao]

i thought she could get a nicer place if we looked East or South of SF. For example, Daly City has only 21 listings on Redfin for under $300K while Fremont has 150+.

Since my mom is from Texas, i thought the culture shock would be easier in a sunnier area, farther away from SF. I will look at Daly City again but would love to hear about the other areas listed.

thx

[sonarrat]

I can understand not wanting to settle for the quality of real estate you get in Daly City, but the convenience factor can be hard to ignore.

As far as the East Bay goes, anything along the 680 corridor is going to be nice, the 880 corridor not so much until you get into San Jose. Milpitas and Fremont have strong Asian populations and are quite safe. Pleasanton would be more convenient to SF and has a more middle-America feel to it. Coming from Texas, Pleasanton would probably feel fairly familiar.

[skyao]

thanks..do you know of any better sources of info besides Redfin?

Any areas of Daly City that we should avoid?

[sonarrat]

The part of Daly City close to the Cow Palace is pretty lousy.

Redfin is fine, Movoto is fine, any MLS-based service will be pretty much the same. I like Movoto because it lists the schools nearby the home; even if a stellar school district is not important, a very poor one is usually a sign of trouble.