SF/SV - Where to live? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Any thoughts form locals or those in the know?

[Julio_El_Chavo]

just do Mountain View, bro

[KremeCheez]

Actually a big difference between the two...
IMHO (living in the North Bay) - if I worked in SF (with a healthy paycheck) I would prefer living somewhere in Marin.
I'm not as familiar with the South Bay - but commuting through SF to SV everyday from Marin would be a nightmare...

[Anonymous User]

Depends on where you are working and what type of place you want to live in.

I've lived in SF and commuted to a job in SV - wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but then again I didn't like the job. You can do Caltrain to not lose the ~1.5-2 hours of working time each day, but the commute will be longer unless you can catch the bullets (fewer stops). You'll have to leave your car on the SV side most likely, but it's only something like $2 a day.

Don't even think about living in the North Bay and commuting to SV.

If you are working in San Francisco it is conceivable to live in the North Bay (i.e. Marin, San Rafael, Mill Valley, Sausalito, Tiburon, etc). You're going to hit pretty bad traffic at most commute hours. I don't know how early you'd need to get in and late you'd have to leave to miss the worst of it, maybe it's not a big deal if you are working long hours and miss the prime commuting times anyway.

You can also look at using the ferry if you live near that on the North Bay side, or even just to avoid the drive over the bridge and into the city. I've never done it but have had friends that did, although I think the hours for the ferry are somewhat limited.

You can do East Bay and live near Bart, but I'd highly suggest not driving from the East Bay. You can find nice places in Berkeley and Oakland (or further) along Bart stops and you'll have some time on the ride to do work.

To be honest, I'd live near where you work. If you are in SF, find a place in SF that you like (there are places further out of the downtown area that are quieter if that's what you need). You can also live in Daly City or somewhere like Redwood City for SF and either make it to Bart (light rail Muni from far out would probably suck) to have more distance. If you look south of South San Francisco you can find some nice commutable places.

For Palo Alto/etc I'd suggest either living near a freeway onramp in SF (which is what I did when I commuted), near Caltain (if that's your deal), or really just live down there. Mountain View and Palo Alto are really nice places for the most part. You can easily get up to SF when you have some free time and you aren't losing a few hours of every day in a commute.

I guess alternatively you could even look into San Jose, although I never really ventured around there much, if you need more din around you but don't want to commute from SF, but the traffic in the SJ area can be pretty bad.


There are a ton of options, just depends on your expectations for commute. I'm personally going to minimize my commute time as I realize practice is going to be life-consuming. I can't afford to throw away 2-3 hours a day on a commute, I'd prefer to go to the gym and maybe have a bit more personal time.

[lawstudento]

Actually a big difference between the two...
IMHO (living in the North Bay) - if I worked in SF (with a healthy paycheck) I would prefer living somewhere in Marin.
I'm not as familiar with the South Bay - but commuting through SF to SV everyday from Marin would be a nightmare...

If you want a house and quiet suburbs, Marin/etc is really nice, but the commute isn't going to do you any favors.

San Francisco to Palo Alto is a solid 45-60 minutes each direction.

Traffic ain't fun.

[20160810]

One of the gentrified parts of Oakland or North Berkeley IMHO. You're going to be living in a nice area, surrounded by great dining options (only, unlike SF, they'll have parking lots), and paying 25-40% less than you would for a comparable place in SF or Marin. Living in the East Bay is a doable commute, and you'll pay off loans or save and invest money more quickly with the money you save on COL.

If you insist on living in SF (and there's plenty of reason to), my recommendation would be the Richmond. the commute downtown on Muni can be cumbersome, but it's a reasonably priced, safe, quiet, pretty chill residential area within the city.

[Anonymous User]

One of the gentrified parts of Oakland or North Berkeley IMHO. You're going to be living in a nice area, surrounded by great dining options (only, unlike SF, they'll have parking lots), and paying 25-40% less than you would for a comparable place in SF or Marin. Living in the East Bay is a doable commute, and you'll pay off loans or save and invest money more quickly with the money you save on COL.

If you insist on living in SF (and there's plenty of reason to), my recommendation would be the Richmond. the commute downtown on Muni can be cumbersome, but it's a reasonably priced, safe, quiet, pretty chill residential area within the city.

Richmond?? Maybe if he bought a Kevlar jacket. If he goes a little North of there (ie. Hilltop Mall/Pinole and up) he should be able to have a house/ great place to live for a good price.


If Silicon Valley, and the firm is in the Menlo Park area closer to 280, I would recommend commuting from Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay. You guys might think I'm crazy, but this may be the best option if you don't mind driving a bit.

[Anonymous User]

No hate yall, but THE Richmond is a neighborhood in SF and Richmond is a city in the North/East Bay.

[lawstudento]

One of the gentrified parts of Oakland or North Berkeley IMHO. You're going to be living in a nice area, surrounded by great dining options (only, unlike SF, they'll have parking lots), and paying 25-40% less than you would for a comparable place in SF or Marin. Living in the East Bay is a doable commute, and you'll pay off loans or save and invest money more quickly with the money you save on COL.

If you insist on living in SF (and there's plenty of reason to), my recommendation would be the Richmond. the commute downtown on Muni can be cumbersome, but it's a reasonably priced, safe, quiet, pretty chill residential area within the city.

Disagree (and to the poster who thought you meant Richmond, as opposed to the Richmond district, hah). If you want to live cheaply, look at the Sunset. You can commute on the N-Judah which goes underground in Cole Valley and skips a bunch of traffic. If you live in the Richmond you have to take busses, and if you work downtown even the 38-L (less stops) will require you to transfer busses or walk a non-negligible distance to get to the Financial District.Sunset can still be expensive near UCSF/9th ave, but if you go a bit further out you aren't adding too much to your commute and it can be a bit cheaper.

You can live in a nice area, in a nice place, and get in there for around $800-$1000 as long as you are willing to share a place. If you want a 1 bedroom, you're going to pay for it. However, it's still a norm for younger professional to share apartments, so it's very possible to find a good roommate situation.

[lawstudento]

If Silicon Valley, and the firm is in the Menlo Park area closer to 280, I would recommend commuting from Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay. You guys might think I'm crazy, but this may be the best option if you don't mind driving a bit.

Menlo Park/Mountain View/Palo Alto are all still pretty expensive. There really isn't much on the 280 side of those cities and what there is won't necessarily be very cheap. However, 280 is definitely going to be better for traffic in my experience.

I would think commuting from Santa Cruz would still deal with a lot of the traffic in the SJ area. Half Moon Bay I have no idea, but the 92 is windy and could easily get backed up, although I don't have any experience commuting on that. However, Half Moon Bay is also a bit isolated, so you'd have to be ok with that.

[jawsome]

One of the gentrified parts of Oakland or North Berkeley IMHO. You're going to be living in a nice area, surrounded by great dining options (only, unlike SF, they'll have parking lots), and paying 25-40% less than you would for a comparable place in SF or Marin. Living in the East Bay is a doable commute, and you'll pay off loans or save and invest money more quickly with the money you save on COL.

If you insist on living in SF (and there's plenty of reason to), my recommendation would be the Richmond. the commute downtown on Muni can be cumbersome, but it's a reasonably priced, safe, quiet, pretty chill residential area within the city.

As someone who spent weeks looking into living in the East Bay over SF, I am 100% positive it is only marginally cheaper with all costs included (unless you share a 1bd--they are strangely cheap in East Bay whereas everything else is roughly the same).

[Anonymous User]

One of the gentrified parts of Oakland or North Berkeley IMHO. You're going to be living in a nice area, surrounded by great dining options (only, unlike SF, they'll have parking lots), and paying 25-40% less than you would for a comparable place in SF or Marin. Living in the East Bay is a doable commute, and you'll pay off loans or save and invest money more quickly with the money you save on COL.

If you insist on living in SF (and there's plenty of reason to), my recommendation would be the Richmond. the commute downtown on Muni can be cumbersome, but it's a reasonably priced, safe, quiet, pretty chill residential area within the city.

As someone who spent weeks looking into living in the East Bay over SF, I am 100% positive it is only marginally cheaper with all costs included (unless you share a 1bd--they are strangely cheap in East Bay whereas everything else is roughly the same).

You must not have been looking in the right places. You can live blocks form Lake Merritt in awesome lofts by Jack London for 40% cheaper than comparable places in SF. Once you walk 5 minutes to BART, you are in SOMA 11 minutes later. This is what I'd recommend to anybody working in SF.

For Palo Alto, the half moon bay idea is interesting---I'd be curious what others think about that. Otherwise, you will probably have to pony up to live in Palo Alto or maybe save a little bit by living in Foster/Redwood City. Santa Cruz seems like a stretch.

[Anonymous User]

One of the gentrified parts of Oakland or North Berkeley IMHO. You're going to be living in a nice area, surrounded by great dining options (only, unlike SF, they'll have parking lots), and paying 25-40% less than you would for a comparable place in SF or Marin. Living in the East Bay is a doable commute, and you'll pay off loans or save and invest money more quickly with the money you save on COL.

If you insist on living in SF (and there's plenty of reason to), my recommendation would be the Richmond. the commute downtown on Muni can be cumbersome, but it's a reasonably priced, safe, quiet, pretty chill residential area within the city.

As someone who spent weeks looking into living in the East Bay over SF, I am 100% positive it is only marginally cheaper with all costs included (unless you share a 1bd--they are strangely cheap in East Bay whereas everything else is roughly the same).

You must not have been looking in the right places. You can live blocks form Lake Merritt in awesome lofts by Jack London for 40% cheaper than comparable places in SF. Once you walk 5 minutes to BART, you are in SOMA 11 minutes later. This is what I'd recommend to anybody working in SF.

For Palo Alto, the half moon bay idea is interesting---I'd be curious what others think about that. Otherwise, you will probably have to pony up to live in Palo Alto or maybe save a little bit by living in Foster/Redwood City. Santa Cruz seems like a stretch.

Maybe its because I am a local and have driven it enough not to care. However, stay away from a lot of those beaches (especially Monterey)-- they get pretty territorial in terms of surfing territory.

[20160810]

The new luxury loft buildings near 12th and Broadway in Oakland are really the only apartments comparable in price to SF (some of them range from $1450-2000 for a 1br), but elsewhere in Oakland or Berkeley you can find a killer place for a good deal less. Lake Merritt is definitely a good place to look.

[Omegared179]

If you want to live in SF, I would recommend the sunset, inner sunset, the richmond (someone else already mentioned this) or ingleside terrace (don't really know about the availability of ingleside terrace rentals though). All of these areas are very foggy (inner sunset is a little better), but they are nice, safe, and not insanely expensive for the most part, and are all near MUNI train lines which can take you to downtown or the embarcadero very quickly. I took the L train from the sunset (23rd and taraval) to downtown everyday for two summers, and it was fine, rarely took longer than 40 minutes door to door. There are plenty of great restaurants (predominantly asian food) in these neighborhoods as well.

[20160810]

If you want to live in SF, I would recommend the sunset, inner sunset, the richmond (someone else already mentioned this) or ingleside terrace (don't really know about the availability of ingleside terrace rentals though). All of these areas are very foggy (inner sunset is a little better), but they are nice, safe, and not insanely expensive for the most part, and are all near MUNI train lines which can take you to downtown or the embarcadero very quickly. I took the L train from the sunset (23rd and taraval) to downtown everyday for two summers, and it was fine, rarely took longer than 40 minutes door to door. There are plenty of great restaurants (predominantly asian food) in these neighborhoods as well.

+1 all of this, and I'll add that if you can't deal with fog you really shouldn't be living anywhere in the Bay

[Anonymous User]

Folks that want to live in the east bay -- it can be cheaper, but will (1) will require a car and the costs associated with that and (2) will require significant commuting expenses. Roundtrip from Berkeley to Embarcadero is up to $7/day I think. You might not end up saving that much money.

However, there are some really nice areas - Elmwood in Berkeley, Temescal, Lake Merrit, downtown Oakland.