Thank you everyone for your posts and advice. We are hoping to visit the area at the start of August, which will be about a month before we move over there. Apart from Craigslist, though, I am having trouble finding many places, so I'm hoping once we are there and can visit real estate agents in person we will find it easier.

We have decided to stretch our search net a little wider too, and are considering areas up to an hour of Palo Alto. We quite like the look of Santa Cruz as well as Half Moon Bay.

Any more tips greatly appreciated, but like I said thank you for the info so far!

That's weird too.

I relocated to NYC after spending 4.5 years in LA, CA for college.

But i don't intend to stay here long! tired of having stuff everywhere. it's crowded!

FWIW I live in Santa Cruz and work in Mountain View - exactly 40 miles door to door and takes 40 to 45 minutes outside of normal commute hours.

If you have flexible working hours it isn't too bad - Highway 17 has a couple of bad days each year (although last Friday was *spectacularly* bad - big rig blocking one lane plus fuel spill cleanup that took almost 8 hours to completely clear), but in many ways Highway 85 is much worse for relentless, slow, heavy traffic.

Not sure what the rental market is like over here right now - Santa Cruz suffers from having an essentially fixed sized housing supply with no room (or desire) for growth, and a large student population. While you will be looking at homes in a higher price bracket than the students I am not sure how much is actually available. Definitely worth looking, though.

I think Palo Alto is the single best 'medium sized' city I've ever known in the US, all things considered. The central business district is great - blocks and blocks of walkable, tree-shaded streets with non-chain establishments with a very upscale flavor. And a short drive away is perhaps the best shopping center in the US - Stanford Shopping Center.

Funny thing is, I worked there for about 5 years but chose to live in San Francisco. The weather is as close to perfect as exists, in my book - much warmer than the city to the north, but not as hot as the east bay (where I now live, and enjoy). I worked on a business park next to 280, next to HP's headquarters - absolutely great.

Half Moon Bay is great if you want to be cool (as in, cold) - it's almost as bad as SF for summertime fog. It is also very isolated - not a whole lot to do there. But it is beautiful, and 'quaint'. Definitely test the drive on 92 during rush hour first - one lane in each direction, and winding. Beautiful, though!

I would suggest a look at San Mateo (city, not county). It too has a thriving downtown business district (I've only recently discovered this but it's very good!) and a variety of housing. Also check out Burlingame to see if it's in your price range. Basically, every inch you move from 101 towards 280 will cost you more (101 and 280 being the two parallel freeways that serve the entire peninsula). Redwood City has it's areas too. Redwood Shores and Foster City are 'modern', with lots of townhouses. Much of it is on landfill and of dubious earthquake preparedness ... .

You say your company may move to San Jose ... that's the fate my company suffered ... everyone eventually moves out of PA as it is just too pricey. Some parts of Mt. View are ok. Cupertino has some kick-ass parts, but not sure if they would fit the commute.

Good Luck, and I hope you enjoy PA as much as I did - what an introduction to the US, for me!