Bay Area Moving Advice?

[skier666]

Got stabbed near the alley in front of Indian Oven.

Yeah, I live on Waller down the street...definitely gentrifying as I now live there

Waller has a lot of remodel projects going on and at Waller & Buchanan the old UC building that sat unoccupied for years is nearing its redevelopment completion. That will finally open up a nice walkway/stairs down to Laguna so we can avoid the hill when we want to walk down to Hayes Valley.

[bodywhomper]

there are definitely opportunity times of day for people to fall as prey to muggings, but ime and observation, there is an element of randomness, too. my experience living in berkeley and oakland was that getting caught up in shootings was an element of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, i.e. a bystander. the use of a gun in muggings is a different thing, imo.

When I lived in north oakland (near alcatraz/telegraph) from 2001-2005, muggings and shootings were at all times of day except maybe during morning commute times: violent mugging while getting out of ones car on a residential street infront of their house during the evening, mugging of a mother pushing a stroller down the street in the middle of the afternoon in a residential neighborhood, bystander shot at night at the laundrymat, mugging of people walking the few blocks home from the BART station after work. the only shooting that i witnessed was in the middle of the day in downtown berkeley, behind the ACE hardware.

[54-46]

Yeah, I live on Waller down the street...definitely gentrifying as I now live there

Waller has a lot of remodel projects going on and at Waller & Buchanan the old UC building that sat unoccupied for years is nearing its redevelopment completion. That will finally open up a nice walkway/stairs down to Laguna so we can avoid the hill when we want to walk down to Hayes Valley.

Way to go - you invader you! 27 years later...at least Nickies and Indian Oven look like they're still there...been back many times to that hood since being stabbed (mostly to go to Toronado or Mad Dog in the Fog), but not recently...

[mcski]

Way to go - you invader you! 27 years later...at least Nickies and Indian Oven look like they're still there...been back many times to that hood since being stabbed (mostly to go to Toronado or Mad Dog in the Fog), but not recently...

Dodged many a sketch situation in that very block back in the eighties. Now when I'm in that area I look around and the scariest thing is getting run over by a stroller or a fixie.

[skier666]

I still go to Indian Oven haha...

They just opened Black Sands Brewery on Haight & Pierce a few weeks ago...good burgers and beer made in house. Whole Foods also opened last year across the street from Safeway...so yeah, the neighborhood is changing.

[LightRanger]

Mad Dog had/has a solid trivia night.

[TahoeJ]

When I lived in north oakland (near alcatraz/telegraph) from 2001-2005, muggings and shootings were at all times of day except maybe during morning commute times: violent mugging while getting out of ones car on a residential street infront of their house during the evening, mugging of a mother pushing a stroller down the street in the middle of the afternoon in a residential neighborhood, bystander shot at night at the laundrymat, mugging of people walking the few blocks home from the BART station after work. the only shooting that i witnessed was in the middle of the day in downtown berkeley, behind the ACE hardware.

Sounds more like South Berkeley to me. ;-)

I lived on Prince Street from 2000 - 2004. Yeah, there was just a lot of random shit going on in that fringe neighborhood at random hours of the day. My parking space was shielded by our building and I routinely had to call in hot cars that had just been stolen a few blocks away (usually on Hillegas it seemed) and stashed for pick-up by someone else (usually I'd just look up the owner and tell them to walk over and get it while it was still there - haha). I felt pretty safe for the most part but it was crazy how different it was going towards Ellwood and College ave compared to just a few blocks west. Telegraph had a lot of incidents during that time even pretty close to the UC campus - that football player who was in a mugging and runover by a car, etc.

[GBB]

Mad Dog had/has a solid trivia night.

Good to know.

[bodywhomper]

regarding the rental with a dog, a coworker of mine just moved into a 2bd house in richmond annex that is dog friendly. maybe, i'm wrong, but i'm under the impression that many homes there are pet friendly. the entire house rents for less than her single bd condo in the oakland temescal neighborhood. parking is generally no big deal, either.

Sounds more like South Berkeley to me. ;-)

I lived on Prince Street from 2000 - 2004.

we were neighbors. i worked at marmot during part of your stint in south berkeley.

from 98-2008, i lived in lakeshore area->crocker-amazon-> backyard tent in central berkeley->south berkeley->north oakland->central berkeley basement. in south berkeley (california and harmon), the violent/crazy crime never felt directed towards me, though it felt like a much higher probability of being a bystander. consistent and violent drug-related crimes. it was pretty sad observing some of the kids in south berkeley quickly growing up.

[LightRanger]

Good to know.

Word.

The Bitter End on Clement (Inner Richmond) has a good one as well. Good amount of free time and nerdy, Jeopardy-addict friends in law school.

[Steven S. Dallas]

http://catherinehendricks.com/IDX/22...9_REIL/0004010

Pending.

Took all of four days from listing 'til pending, good to see the market is slowing down.

[LightRanger]

Makes you wonder if it was a dual-agent or same brokerage (which is the same, legally).

E.g. Buyers said to their agent, "Hey, you have any upcoming listings that fit our criteria?" Agent, "Yeah, I have a seller about to list such and such." List, boom, pending.

[char]

This thread is blowing my mind. Holy crap.

[LightRanger]

Yep. We were visiting friends in Burney and at a BBQ some dude's wife was saying something about buying some huge house in that area. My wife just rolled her eyes. People really just don't under how crazy shit is here.

[SchralphMacchio]

This thread is blowing my mind. Holy crap.

What, you don't want to pay $2500 a month to share a house with a hot chick w/ frou frou doggie, and watch your back walking down the street a block from your gentrifying but charming place in fear of getting shanked ... so that in return you get to drink the most amazing $4 espresso and drink the most amazing $9 pints of beer and scoff at the most amazing $90 parking tickets and sport climb in tight jeans and a cutoff T in the most amazing(ly crowded climbing gym you have ever seen) and hook up with the most amazing Tinder dudes and chicks, all in the most amazing City in the known universe, like every other tech worker and young mid-20's aspiring go-getter drawn to the area wants? You don't want ALL THAT???



Bay Area can be a pretty damn fun place to live - the weather is amazing, and if you like to eat and are into art, performances, whatever ... it's a tough place to beat. But you gotta pay the price and share a few things (freeway and transit included) with 10-million of your closest friends. I'm not a fan of some of those friends, not because I don't like transplants, but some the newbies with money really throw around entitlement in a whole new magnitude and have no idea that there are entire strata of economic layers beneath them who don't have the same opportunites. Like, young white people listening to headphones who don't give up bus or BART seats for old Chinese ladies. Yes, I am playing the race card, because - guess what, the overwhelming majority of complaints filed via the BART transit smartphone app are about people with black skin. San Francisco is actually pretty segregated and racist for such a large West coast city. From my personal experiences, and from what I take away from reading the leftist press, Oakland and Los Angeles are much better overall in that regard.

Okay, so I guess I've now beat the dead horse about 100 times regarding why I live in the East Bay and not the city ...

[Deebased]

What, you don't want to pay $2500 a month to share a house with a hot chick w/ frou frou doggie, and watch your back walking down the street a block from your gentrifying but charming place in fear of getting shanked ... so that in return you get to drink the most amazing $4 espresso and drink the most amazing $9 pints of beer and scoff at the most amazing $90 parking tickets and sport climb in tight jeans and a cutoff T in the most amazing(ly crowded climbing gym you have ever seen) and hook up with the most amazing Tinder dudes and chicks, all in the most amazing City in the known universe, like every other tech worker and young mid-20's aspiring go-getter drawn to the area wants? You don't want ALL THAT???



Bay Area can be a pretty damn fun place to live - the weather is amazing, and if you like to eat and are into art, performances, whatever ... it's a tough place to beat. But you gotta pay the price and share a few things (freeway and transit included) with 10-million of your closest friends. I'm not a fan of some of those friends, not because I don't like transplants, but some the newbies with money really throw around entitlement in a whole new magnitude and have no idea that there are entire strata of economic layers beneath them who don't have the same opportunites. Like, young white people listening to headphones who don't give up bus or BART seats for old Chinese ladies. Yes, I am playing the race card, because - guess what, the overwhelming majority of complaints filed via the BART transit smartphone app are about people with black skin. San Francisco is actually pretty segregated and racist for such a large West coast city. From my personal experiences, and from what I take away from reading the leftist press, Oakland and Los Angeles are much better overall in that regard.

Okay, so I guess I've now beat the dead horse about 100 times regarding why I live in the East Bay and not the city ...

Its not a dead horse. You're dead on. There's hundreds of thousands of people who've never ridden Bart and look at public transportation like its leprosy. The magnitude of paychecks combined with benefits is unreal. Wanna make 200k as an average developer with no experience? No problem. The talented fucks are signing multi-year contracts with bonuses that would make some 2nd round NFL rookies blush. The racial stratification is INSANE with no hope of change but that suits the most liberal city in America just fine.

[54-46]

I realize that this is basically a ski forum, but the segregated and racist part depends on who you are and how you look at things.

There are a bunch of SF natives or Bay Area natives who can "pass for white" but are actually part of the diversity statistics.

80% of the natives that are my relatives and friends are part Mexican, Filipino, or Chinese. For example, if you saw a picture of my close high school buddies, you would have seen: 2 Hawaiians, 1 Ecuadorian, 2 Mexican-Americans, 2 African Americans, 1 Finn, 1 Filipino American, 1 Filipino/Italian American, 1 Italian, 1 Irish/Dominican, and one Irish/Cherokee. All the girlfriends were white or Mexican.

We're still around. Maybe the imports are all white? Dunno, I see a lot more Indians now...

[Steven S. Dallas]

San Francisco is actually pretty segregated and racist for such a large West coast city. From my personal experiences, and from what I take away from reading the leftist press, Oakland and Los Angeles are much better overall in that regard.

San Francisco more racially segregated than Los Angeles? Assuming you're including the west side, I don't see that at all. Then again, I take public transportation here way more than I ever did when I lived in LA. There is certainly less diversity here, though.

Not to go too political, but- the wealth issue (rich techies squeezing out lower income, or long time, residents) and the diversity issue are mostly the same issue, now that redlining and those types of practices are no longer permitted (there are still discriminatory and segregationist public housing policies, for sure, but *most* people don't live in public housing).

[El Chupacabra]

When I lived in north oakland (near alcatraz/telegraph) from 2001-2005, muggings and shootings were at all times of day except...

I lived at an apartment at Alcatraz/ Racine around 1992-3....

Sounds more like South Berkeley to me. ;-)

I lived on Prince Street from 2000 - 2004. Yeah, there was just a lot of random shit going on in that fringe neighborhood at random hours of the day. My parking space was shielded by our building and I routinely had to call in hot cars that had just been stolen a few blocks away (usually on Hillegas it seemed).

.... and on Prince near Shattuck around 1993-4. And on Hillegass near Parker around 1991-2.

Small world.

[Maximus Gradient]

Gonna bump this one!

The wife just accepted a position in the SFO area and we'll be relocating in November. We're really stoked but there's a lot to coordinate! I'm still tracking down promising positions in the biotech industry and really hope I don't go out there unemployed. Her company is paying for relocation and offering help tracking down places to live which is great.

Coming from MD (and a fairly expensive part of MD just outside DC, for that matter) the rental prices in SFO are insane so we're looking somewhere in East Bay. She's in sales and her schedule is going to be pretty flexible regarding working from home and not traveling during peak rush/commuter times, but I'm gonna be the one with the M-F, 9-5. I could end up working anywhere from South SFO, to Foster City, to Berkely, or even Fremont. Literally everywhere.

So what say the Bay Area Mags? Where would be some good places to look on the east side of the bay that won't run us a bazillion $$$ in rent each month while still allowing decent access to the peninsula during the week if I end up landing a job over there? I know it's a tall order, so feel free to tell me we're hosed if that's the case

[Tahoe Bromide]

Berkeley/Oakland south to and including Castro Valley. Scope neighborhood before pulling the trigger. There is a lot of variety in safeness in neighborhoods. I would try to avoid an 880 south or 580 west commute. If she doesn't have to commute then your location should be based on where your job is and you should aim for a very short or reverse commute. You might want to do something temporary until you figure this out.

[Maximus Gradient]

Good call on 880 and 580...was watching those around rush hour today and they were solid red! Yeah, the temporary thing is something we're considering. The only issue is we'd have to stick our stuff into storage 'til we found something that fits my job situation, and at that point moving out of storage and into the new place is on us; not her company. Not a huge deal since they're getting it to CA from MD for us, but still kind of a pain compared to renting a place right off the bat...

Any thoughts on further south than Castro? Like Union City or even Fremont? Haven't spent much time down that way so I'm just trying to get a feel.

[4matic]

Good call on 880 and 580...was watching those around rush hour today and they were solid red! Yeah, the temporary thing is something we're considering. The only issue is we'd have to stick our stuff into storage 'til we found something that fits my job situation, and at that point moving out of storage and into the new place is on us; not her company. Not a huge deal since they're getting it to CA from MD for us, but still kind of a pain compared to renting a place right off the bat...

Any thoughts on further south than Castro? Like Union City or even Fremont? Haven't spent much time down that way so I'm just trying to get a feel.

You're hosed.

Commuting and where to rent in Bay Area is complicated and expensive. How much do you want to spend? Will you both commute together or separately? Do you need culture nearby? South of downtown Oakland to San Jose in the 880 corridor is a vast wasteland of suburban nothingness unless you like Afghan, Mexican, or Asian food. There are some nice areas in the Fremont Hills near Ohlone. If you both work on the Peninsula consider South San Francisco or San Bruno.

[54-46]

San Bruno, south of San Bruno Ave, has better weather than SSF and other parts of San Bruno. The 1 mile actually makes a big difference. Grew up there - trust me...

[JAREDS]

Been in San Francisco for ~7yrs. Richmond district half block from ggpark. Rent control. Landlords always sending us flyers for homes so he can up the rent when we move.
We love it here but are ready to bounce.

What's the word on truckee/auburn? I can prob commute in 1x/wk and then work from home - anybody here do that?