Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just make sure you understand the culture difference.

As just one example, intelligence is really valued in the bay area. There were some idiots on DCUM arguing several days ago that Elon Musk wasn't that impressive, didn't do much, "just" did this or that, is a fraud, etc. Those types of fools wouldn't last long in California. (And in case it doesn't go without saying, absolutely nobody in California would care that you went to "an ivy". )

If you're smart, not a lawyer or someone in "policy" or politics etc, then you'll probably like it.

It's true about the wildfire risk though, and associated issues.

Oh, and by the way, no. MONEY is valued in Bay Area. HBOs Silicon Valley is spot on.

What is sad is that there are plenty of very intelligent people, but so many are working really hard to sell us ads and steal our private information or give us conveniences our mom used to handle.

There’s a lot of cultural differences between the peninsula/SV and the outer east bay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weather is unbeatable in the Bay Area. Outdoor activities are fantastic. Kids play soccer year round and the weather is gorgeous.

Everything else sucks. Home prices are redivision’s and dumpy. You can buy a 2.5 million dollar dump here on the peninsula.

Traffic is horrendous. Try to live near where you want work.

Ca public schools are not great...

My impression was school in Mnt View, Sunnyvale, Contra costa wee actually quite good.

It's all relative. Some of these areas have good schools for California. (In Contra Costa, it depends hugely on which district.) If you are coming from a strong East Coast district, though, you'll likely be disappointed. California woefully underfunds schools. The districts that do excel generally do so because of demographics and significant parent contributions of time and money. (In many of the "good" districts, it is expected that families contribute $1-2K per child each year, usually on top of additional property taxes for schools.) The Bay Area has many assets, but strong, well-funded schools (absent parent contributions) are unfortunately no longer among them.

The demographic is quite good academically. I would just say in general that test scores are great. I wouldn’t necessarily credit to the school that’s all.

Anonymous wrote:Weather is unbeatable in the Bay Area. Outdoor activities are fantastic. Kids play soccer year round and the weather is gorgeous.

Everything else sucks. Home prices are redivision’s and dumpy. You can buy a 2.5 million dollar dump here on the peninsula.

Traffic is horrendous. Try to live near where you want work.

Ca public schools are not great...

My impression was school in Mnt View, Sunnyvale, Contra costa wee actually quite good.

Weather is unbeatable in the Bay Area. Outdoor activities are fantastic. Kids play soccer year round and the weather is gorgeous.

Everything else sucks. Home prices are redivision’s and dumpy. You can buy a 2.5 million dollar dump here on the peninsula.

Traffic is horrendous. Try to live near where you want work.

Ca public schools are not great...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming you are talking about more San Ramon than Brentrwood (the road to Brentwood is terrible and known as "blood alley" because of the accidents), the google estimate is between 55 min and 1 hour 50 min to get from San Ramon to the NASA Ames. It will be unpleasant to do this drive regularly. Yes, people do it. It is not great though. The thing about the big tech companies is that they 1.compensate well, 2. have benefits like free food 3. run big commuting luxury buses with wifi.

I don't know if NASA runs buses from the Amtrak/ACE station called Great America Station (Santa Clara) but if it does (and some tech companies in that area do) then that would open Pleasanton and other stops on the Altamont Corridor Express.

Not during rush hour, though--if you change the departure time to between 4 and 6 pm, you get 1 hour 15 min- 2 hours 20 min. And if you leave between 7 and 8 am, you get 1-2 hours. That's the issue--outside of rush hour, the two aren't that far apart. But it's a beast of a commute if you have typical working hours. If you can timeshift to arrive quite early and get home late (or go in late and get home late, perhaps) you can make it more workable, but it isn't a lifestyle I'd choose voluntarily, especially not on $135K.

You are right. The departure time for the 50 min - 1 hr 50 min was at 7 am using google. Going back home has a lot more variability and can be much longer. I have friends who do the reverse commute (going against traffic) and even then it is long, and they leave at 5 am to do it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is thinking of moving there, working at Ames as civil servant making $135k. Plan is to buy TH in contra costa county and commute. Insane?

Yes! Yikes. I cannot imagine voluntarily choosing to commute from anywhere in Contra Costa County to Ames--people do it, but it's generally because they already lived there when they got the Peninsula job, or because a spouse is commuting in another direction. Tell him to look in Fremont or San Jose--there are townhouses there that are doable on $135K.

Schools in San Jose are pretty so-so unless you have a lot more money than is needed in Contra Costa. Fremont maybe okay, I think schools are okay and prices not crazy? He has a few kids so private school is a bad deal versus public school and commute.

In Fremont? Hahahaha...

I honestly would advise him not to do this depending on where he's moving from.

He probably will get down payment from our parents, they live close by and part of moving their is to help them as they age.

Fremont seems to have some homes for around $1M, with decent schools, so he could make that work, and commute won’t be as bad as San Ramon?

This would be a much better plan. Also, do your parents already own a home there? If so and they might want to purchase a new home where they could live with your brother and his family, they may be able to carry over the Prop 13 tax status. (Check details on this as there are lots of rules!) And, of course, not sure they want to live with your brother or vice versa! As far as prices--crazy is as crazy does. Fremont is a lot pricier than it used to be, but not as nuts as some parts of Contra Costa County. And I'd pay more to have a shorter commute, too. Fremont hits a sweet spot in terms of access to both Silicon Valley/Peninsula jobs and to SF/Oakland jobs, IMO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is thinking of moving there, working at Ames as civil servant making $135k. Plan is to buy TH in contra costa county and commute. Insane?

Yes! Yikes. I cannot imagine voluntarily choosing to commute from anywhere in Contra Costa County to Ames--people do it, but it's generally because they already lived there when they got the Peninsula job, or because a spouse is commuting in another direction. Tell him to look in Fremont or San Jose--there are townhouses there that are doable on $135K.

Schools in San Jose are pretty so-so unless you have a lot more money than is needed in Contra Costa. Fremont maybe okay, I think schools are okay and prices not crazy? He has a few kids so private school is a bad deal versus public school and commute.

In Fremont? Hahahaha...

I honestly would advise him not to do this depending on where he's moving from.

He probably will get down payment from our parents, they live close by and part of moving their is to help them as they age.

Fremont seems to have some homes for around $1M, with decent schools, so he could make that work, and commute won’t be as bad as San Ramon?

Anonymous wrote:Assuming you are talking about more San Ramon than Brentrwood (the road to Brentwood is terrible and known as "blood alley" because of the accidents), the google estimate is between 55 min and 1 hour 50 min to get from San Ramon to the NASA Ames. It will be unpleasant to do this drive regularly. Yes, people do it. It is not great though. The thing about the big tech companies is that they 1.compensate well, 2. have benefits like free food 3. run big commuting luxury buses with wifi.

I don't know if NASA runs buses from the Amtrak/ACE station called Great America Station (Santa Clara) but if it does (and some tech companies in that area do) then that would open Pleasanton and other stops on the Altamont Corridor Express.

Not during rush hour, though--if you change the departure time to between 4 and 6 pm, you get 1 hour 15 min- 2 hours 20 min. And if you leave between 7 and 8 am, you get 1-2 hours. That's the issue--outside of rush hour, the two aren't that far apart. But it's a beast of a commute if you have typical working hours. If you can timeshift to arrive quite early and get home late (or go in late and get home late, perhaps) you can make it more workable, but it isn't a lifestyle I'd choose voluntarily, especially not on $135K.

I would suggest that anyone commuting in the bay area fly out and stay in a hotel in their target area and then do the commute at least one or two days at the times they think they will try and see if they can do it. You probably won't catch the big gigantic traffic jams that make a 45 min commute become 2 hours but you will see the regular. It seems like traffic is lighter on Mondays and Fridays, so I would not try those days. Try a Tuesday or Thursday.

Assuming you are talking about more San Ramon than Brentrwood (the road to Brentwood is terrible and known as "blood alley" because of the accidents), the google estimate is between 55 min and 1 hour 50 min to get from San Ramon to the NASA Ames. It will be unpleasant to do this drive regularly. Yes, people do it. It is not great though. The thing about the big tech companies is that they 1.compensate well, 2. have benefits like free food 3. run big commuting luxury buses with wifi.

I don't know if NASA runs buses from the Amtrak/ACE station called Great America Station (Santa Clara) but if it does (and some tech companies in that area do) then that would open Pleasanton and other stops on the Altamont Corridor Express.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is thinking of moving there, working at Ames as civil servant making $135k. Plan is to buy TH in contra costa county and commute. Insane?

Yes! Yikes. I cannot imagine voluntarily choosing to commute from anywhere in Contra Costa County to Ames--people do it, but it's generally because they already lived there when they got the Peninsula job, or because a spouse is commuting in another direction. Tell him to look in Fremont or San Jose--there are townhouses there that are doable on $135K.

Schools in San Jose are pretty so-so unless you have a lot more money than is needed in Contra Costa. Fremont maybe okay, I think schools are okay and prices not crazy? He has a few kids so private school is a bad deal versus public school and commute.

In Fremont? Hahahaha...

I honestly would advise him not to do this depending on where he's moving from.

Anonymous wrote:Just make sure you understand the culture difference.

As just one example, intelligence is really valued in the bay area. There were some idiots on DCUM arguing several days ago that Elon Musk wasn't that impressive, didn't do much, "just" did this or that, is a fraud, etc. Those types of fools wouldn't last long in California. (And in case it doesn't go without saying, absolutely nobody in California would care that you went to "an ivy". )

If you're smart, not a lawyer or someone in "policy" or politics etc, then you'll probably like it.

It's true about the wildfire risk though, and associated issues.

I live in the Bay Area. DH and I both work in tech/IT jobs. The bolded is not true.

He should be aware that shifting commute hours only helps a little in the Bay Area, unfortunately--more if he can shift late than early. (Traffic does tend to clear after 7 pm in most areas.) Rush hour starts very early compared to other parts of the country in both the morning and afternoon, though, which makes early in/early out tricky. Telecommuting would help a lot more if that's an option. Some people do negotiate several long work days instead of five eight-hour days, too. Over the past 10-15 years, there's just been far more job growth than housing growth, especially in Silicon Valley, so housing prices have been pushed higher and higher and people move farther and farther out to afford housing, leading to gridlock. It got better briefly during the recession, but now is worse than it's ever been.

Whether this is a wise move for him depends largely on what he's doing now. If he would be making a big career/salary leap (or isn't currently employed), that might be worth it. But if it's a lateral move and he's pretty happy wherever he is now, I'd think long and hard before making a move like this (especially if there isn't a second income involved).