lcl_sutherland

I am moving with my husband and cat from London to San Francisco. Yay! Jamie will be working in the Mountainview area, and we really want somewhere to RENT that is well connected, that we can have a garden and that is relatively safe (don't mind if it is a bit more on the quiet side as a result), but that also has quite a nice community feel if possible...not much of an ask I know! Does anyone have any recommendations on neighbour hoods?

Also, please let me know if you have any info on Land agents fees and bond etc.

Thanks

Claire

Jerseygirl

Hi there are been several threads on SF recently. If you use the Search Function located in the pink bar at the top of the page...you should be able to find them. Go to 'Advanced Search' and put something like 'San Fransisco' in the 'Search Title' box.

Bob

Should be able to look down a bit and find a few threads, might be on the second page though.

lcl_sutherland

Hey! There are a lot of threads to do with San Francisco, and I even found this article in from a Wiki post:

http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/

But it doesn't seem to say anything about the Bay Area...and a lot of the other posts are to do with once you are living there. Any ideas?

Clare8781

Hi,

We just moved from the UK to the South Bay Area. We lived in mountain view for a few months in 2011, it's a really nice area and ticks all the boxes you have listed, rents are quite high though and you might struggle to find something with a garden. I'm not clear on whether you'd rather live in San Francisco (in which case I know nothing useful!) South Bay Area though, I know fairly well having spent hours and hours looking at neighbourhoods and rentals!

Clare

N1cky

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=784027
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=mountain+view
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=mountain+view
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=mountain+view
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=mountain+view
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=mountain+view

Here are some of the recent threads. MV is a lovely place to live, although rentals can be hard to come by as property moves very fast here, and it is expensive.

Depending on what you want to pay Downtown MV, Waverley Park and Cuesta Park are all nice areas, the last two are mainly single family homes, and Downtown is a mixture of SFH, townhouses and apartments. We live in Whisman Park which is a community with small parks and a couple of swimming pools, along with the little tram to get you into Downtown for drinks It is a mixture of SFH and Townhouses.

Don't automatically rule out anything you see listed as a Condo, they can often be SFH with gardens, and not a condo as you would imagine.

We've been here nearly 3 years now, so give me a shout if you have any questions I can help with.

Katsu

Hi Claire

We moved out 6 months ago with our cat and rent a 'single family home' in the Twin Peaks/Glen Park area of SF. It's about 3-4 miles from the centre but it's a nice neighbourhood with shops, restaurants and good public transport links. We do have a garden but we don't let our cat out - there are coyotes in the area so it's not too safe (the number of missing pet posters in the area is telling). It seems to be the same in other neighbourhoods near parks and open spaces. Had we known this we may not have chosen to live in this neighbourhood but, having said that, it's good rental value in SF terms, safe, has parking, good public transport, and is close to the I280 for my husband's commute to Santa Clara each day. And the cat has adjusted to living indoors just fine!

We were limited in the choice of properties as we have a cat and were new to the area, but it's not impossible to find something. We found the listing on Craigslist - it was posted by an agency. The deposit was 1.5 times the rent, plus we had to pay an application fee (about $50 I think) and a pet deposit for our cat (I think $150 in total). We also had to show a bank statement (savings account) and write a biography about ourselves and why we would make good tennants.... Very cheesy but several people applied for the property and they used this to help select people. We also provided copies of our UK credit reports.

We are glad we chose to live in SF as there is so much to do here, and my husband's commute is 45-55 mins each way (what he was doing in the UK) which he doesn't mind. If you look at places in SF then avoid areas that would involve commuting down the 101 - it is stop/start driving in rush hour and the 280 is much better. Many Silicon Valley employers provide buses to transport staff who live in SF to/from work, while this limits your flexibility somewhat it might be worth looking into. Also, don't underestimate the value of getting a property with free street or garage parking as otherwise you may have to pay significantly extra for this each month.

Good luck with the move and let me know if you have any specific questions about areas to live

SalopianFunk

If you want to live in the city itself, Glen Park, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights and the Sunset would be your best bets. That being said, to live in the city itself is very expensive - although I'm a broke student so pretty much everything is very expensive in my opinion. That being said, you could probably find a good deal on a place where people rent out the lower level of their houses. My friend does this with his place in the Sunset, and he and his roomates pretty much have full control over the back yard.

Alternatively, you could look towards neighbourhoods that are slowly succumbing to gentrification. Another group of friends are renting a house in Bayview, which is still pretty seedy, but the five of them are paying around 500-600 each, another of my friends pays about the same amount with his two flatmates at his place. Both places have spectacular views, and the former has a very good sized back yard, whilst the latter has roof access at least, and is well illuminated and next to the police station. Again, however, this is a seedy neighbourhood.

Zenith Blue

I'm based in Mountain View, and it does tick the boxes you're looking for. I'm in an apartment, which I found through Padmapper.com, the other site I used quite heavily to look for places to live was Craigslist. If you combine Craigslist and google maps streetview you can get a really good idea of the size of the house/garden etc. you're looking at. Looking on craigslist right now, there are some really nice looking houses for rent, particularly in the 'google' area, Whisman School park.

We paid half a month's rent as our deposit, and no land agent or application fees or anything as we came direct to the landlord of our apartment.

md95065

I think that describing the Bayview as "a seedy neigbourhood" isn't really fair to "seedy neighbourhoods" - becoming "a seedy neighbourhood" is something that the Bayview still aspires to ...

"Succumbing to gentrification" won't start to happen until it first manages to acquire that status.

Either way, I don't think that it quite meets the OP's requirement of:

Middlemore

For seedy neighborhood, read Oakland.


Walnut Creek is a nice place, MIL lives there but its still ok