Smaller house in penninsula or bigger in east bay
At same price, say ~1.5mil, is it better to get a townhouse in mountain view that does not have good elem/middle schools but very good high school Or does it make more sense to get a single family home in ardenwood/fremont area at the same price, good elementary school. Some pointers to consider: - We work in The peninsula region, so commute time - have a newborn - not sure on how school rankings change over 3-4 years
Why not buy SFH in redwood shores or San carlos for 1.7ish?? All schools are good and very near to office.
Peninsula. Commutes destroy quality of life
You do you boo
Commute is very poor if you both work in the peninsula. If it was just one of you and the other stayed local, then the bigger nicer home in the east bay would make more sense. You also do not want to schlep your newborn with you on your long morning commute for obvious reasons since drivers are generally poor and distracted and accidents happen every day. Which means you need to be home at a fixed time to pick up your kid. That adds stress. School ranks change. Rather look around your community. How many low income pockets is there? How many trailer parks? How many large apartment buildings? Lower income populations drag down schools and we donāt build new schools for the growing population so thereās no guarantee a top school remains a top school. Thatās why the South Bay and peninsula schools are such a mixed bag of nuts. But communities in the east bay have room to grow and add new schools so you donāt face overcrowding and bumps. So school quality remains less of a concern. My advice if you want to love where you live is find the most consistently nice area you can afford that has a reasonable commute. Iām what you would call a mega commuter but my wife doesnāt work and we live in a beautiful home in a very nice area with a top ranking school district. Itās worth the commute to come home to a place you really like.
We are looking into mountain view whisman district. Current assigned schools are bad. But there is a new school coming up next year. Not sure how that will play in the next 3-4 years
Yeah. I know the area. Schools arenāt good and difficult to say how the new school will play out unless you can see the school district lines and you can figure out if it overlaps with known trailer parks and lower income rental corridors. Thereās a reason why so many people put their kids in private schools. In terms of real estate investment, MV will beat anything in the east side. But itās up to each individual to define what they want in a home and a community. We couldnāt afford anything that met our very picky criteria under 1.5 in the South Bay, so we went to the TriValley area.
TC?
Are range is about 1.5 mil, tc doesnāt matter
Commute is only getting worse. But if you can work from home 2 days a week, I would say East Bay. You get some land to enjoy the outdoors in your PJ's. If it's 5 days at work and no break, get a townhouse by a nice park.
Donāt pick long commute. You are neither in office nor in home. Total waste of time.
Go for East Menlo Park or east Palo Alto. Great high school as well and would cost ~1mil for sfh
What are your needs from A space standpoint OP
Save as much money as possible and move to a cheaper area.