if you have 3k a month to work with you can def find a decent place in or around san mateo, I def wouldnt want to commute everyday from halfmoon bay, its a 1 lane mountain pass that quickly turns into a parking lot durring commute hours and pretty much the entire weekend :/

 

Well, shoot! Ocean living sounded nice.. haha.

Obviously being in San Mateo would be the best for both of us, as I need to attend college and there just so happens to be one next to GoPro haha. Seems like we'll have a good chance of finding what we'd like there.

Excited to meet you all!

 

Mountain View is very nice, but past the train tracks (farther from El Camino Real) and it's a bit sketchy IMO, but not dangerous.

Sunnyvale is a very nice neighborhood, and doesnt cost a fortune like MV. AFAIK, my friend has told me a few areas of sunnyvale are pretty "sketchy". Just forgot which areas.

 

pacifica is really nice but it's foggy as hell.... all the time.

Half Moon Bay would be pretty cool. Commute can be pretty rough but you'd have nice coastal living. I moved back to santa cruz for just that reason. LOL!

Maybe look for something off Skyline. Wouldn't be to far from work/school or the coast and mountains. And you can take back roads to pretty much anywhere you want for some good driving.

 

Yup we were looking at around the same exact time if you remember as well, we didn't see anything like that (maybe it's just the pets thing). The apartment we settled for a few miles from your place was $2250 when we moved in, and much cheaper than anything we had found in this direct area. At the time my wife was not working, and was 100% focused on spending time finding us a place to live. I think it's the dogs that does it for us though - that really eliminates a bunch of options sadly.

There is a 2br unit in our place right now on CL for $2600. Ours is a 3br. Just nuts. I would never recommend this place to someone.

That sounds pretty crazy. The lady they had on when I was listening was a retired teacher who had been paying $1500 for her place in NorthBeach. New rent was going to be $3700 which was more than her fixed income.

It sucks that poor landlords have to deal with the ups and downs of the market they invested in, but it also sucks when someone on a fixed income hears that they suddenly need to pay 3x their rent because that is what the market will bear now. I guess this just goes to show that different situations affect different people differently. People that grew up here but get forced out by investors probably hate the investors more than the rent control. Who's fault is it? What do we do to fix it? Hard to say for sure.

The topic of the news program I was listening to was also covering another development in the Mission that was set to rid 3 blocks of people of their homes so that new high-dollar developments could move in. I remember years ago when the last SFFD resident fire fighter was on NPR saying he had to move out of the city because he could not afford the new rent.

Ah well. Progress is $11M condos I suppose.

Yep for an apartment, but it may be tight looking for a detached house with a 2 car garage. It's also important to factor in utilities. After living in Half Moon Bay for a year and a half, totally agreed. A lot of times people say "parking lot" to describe a traffic jam but this is no exaggeration. On a sunny weekend day, the road is backed up so far it's actually hard to get onto 280 from 92 because the cars go past the freeway onramps.

There are a few different kinds of Sunnyvale. You are probably thinking of anywhere in Sunnyvale between El Camino and 101. I lived right near Homestead and De Anza for around 5 years and it was a great place. It might suck to commute to San Mateo from there though. 280 has been getting jammed like crazy through Palo Alto lately at the weirdest times.

Yep. My commute was not so bad when I left around 10AM but all it would take would be one car on the road messing up and it's done. AWESOME place to live for sure - I loved it out there. On the weekend if I needed to go into town, I absolutely had to ride my bike. Not a bad thing, but, sometimes it's nice to take a car.

Pacifica/Daly City off Skyline and such is a good spot, but it can be a bit isolated in places depending on what side of HWY 1 you are on. Also, good options with 280, 1 and 35 all right there in case traffic gets messy. Pretty much right there with CSM as well.

My advice to the OP would be to come down here and spend a weekend at least, find a place that you like "enough" as close to the work as possible, and plan on living there while you figure out where you want to live. It's really hard to choose from afar! It's a fun place to explore and cruise around, so that is what I would say.

 

Cool! I go to the College of San Mateo and the CSM network is one of the best junior colleges in the state.

 

I was stuck on the 84 for an hour this morning. Don't live in the East Bay if you're going to work in San Mateo.

 

Much appreciated! The boyfriend will be going down in December with his father to scope it out.

It's definitely hard to choose from afar! You can only see so much in those Craigslist house photos haha. "Oh, here's the bathroom in five different angles, but we won't show you the the outside"

 

The traffic out of here isn't too bad as ling as you done end up clashing with Tuesday early starts wr the high school.

 

You can also consider Milpitas area, but 237 is a biotch!

 

whhhhhhaaaat?? i live in oakland and work @sfo takes me 25 to get to work at 4am...... and then just under an hr to get home around 3pm... and oakland is cheaper then over there

 

I live in Union City and drive 84 (Dumbarton Bridge) everyday to Mountain View and have been for over 7 years.

Yeah, sometimes it can be a PITA. The other day there was a fatal accident and they closed University off. That was a 1.5hr commute to work. But usually it's only about 40mins to work. Coming back can be 45-75mins. Just depends on accidents and things like that.

Overall, it's really not THAT bad. Rent in our area is probably $2400 for a 3/2 or 4/2 detached home with a 2 car garage, usable side and back yards.

San Mateo would warrant crossing the San Mateo bridge since GoPro is right off 92 at the top of the hill.

If he's a 8-5, I'd probably live in Hayward at Eden Shores or in Union City and commute. Sometimes it will suck, but most of the time it will just be a 45min-60min drive.

 

yeah try doing that round trip sometime during the regular hours that everyone else has to commute and tell us again how good of an option you think that is

 

 

That is regular hours...for those of us with real jobs.