Where to live in the SF Bay Area? [TIPS FROM A BAY AREA NATIVE]

where should you live in the Bay Area perhaps you're moving from out of the bay perhaps you're also considering trying to buy a place I'm going to be going through a screenshot so you can see all the pros and cons of each of the areas in the Bay Area so that you will know in this video alone where your next stop should be okay let's give you an overview of the Bay Area now when people think of the Bay Area there's a few main counties people are considering you go from the top which is the small population wise which is Marin County you then go let's say south of San Francisco which is gets all of the press these days in terms of headline and news and demise and things like that I will give you my take on that south of that you have San Mateo County which is otherwise known as the peninsula you have Santa Clara County which is AKA known as the South Bay you have Alameda County this is all considered the East Bay places like Oakland but even the Tri-Valley of Dublin Pleasanton Livermore areas and you have Contra Costa County places like Walnut Creek Concord uh those are all considering that region these are the main areas I'm going to be going over today now of course some people may include the surrounding counties but these are to be fair pretty far so I'm not going to include these as the counties I'm going to be governing over today but if you're deciding where you want to live it's going to be pretty simple and this could be for if you're coming uh to rent if you're coming to buy a place I'm going to give you all the things that you need to know about these general areas and what I will also do in the future and leave in the comments below with what you want to see first as perhaps the best cities to consider for your situation and your situation may vary for a lot of cases it could be budget it could be a lifestyle it could be um activities that you want to do right so it could be weather related right there's all these different things that can be impactful as to which areas you want to start from now let's talk a little bit about maybe let's talk about the center first I don't know Center to start which is San Francisco because it gets so much headline articles right now and so much press so at the end of the day San Francisco is still a very big city and a very big area so when people say oh there's so much homeless here there is a lot of homeless make no mistake but it's not all of this area all this region that's not even possible they do tend to be more concentrated and they have been ex like expanding and going more outside the usual perimeters so the history was tenderloin area had had significant challenges and so I would say in the in the peak of San Francisco days like when the tech boom was in place there wasn't as much construction things were just uh rent was just going through the roof uh tenderloin a lot of it got pushed through the tenderloin area right because it couldn't then move to some of these other areas they were just getting pushed more concentrated to tenderloin but over time especially with covet things gotten worse and things got more expansive so now like Union Square has gone running through a lot of challenges right places like the Civic Center has always had challenges but it continues to expand it's been expanding down and towards Mission Street in different areas there too so it's not all of San Francisco but it's important to know like it is there it's I'm not saying it's not there it has been expanded a whole lot more now than before the drug situation is not good but to be fair that's also just one kind of region one place more than others now there are a few here and there in other places but this is like the main sections so what does that mean why do people still come to San Francisco there's many reasons one is the lifestyle if you were single or a young couple like you probably want to be there because there's a lot of a lot of things to do all day every day especially at the night time whether it's walkability the bars just general people willing to go out late at night clubs right like these are all activities that people love to do or it could be simply going out to some of their public parks right many of their public parks all throughout will have lots of people there so it's a great way for those with pets it's a great way for picnics it's a great way to meet other people people are generally pretty friendly and pretty social when it comes to this right so that's all uh there when you are in the city of San Francisco the other thing that's important about the city of San Francisco is a lot of startups are there so a lot of younger companies whether they're especially right now with AI but a lot of younger companies tend to be also based in San Francisco because then those people to be fair they are working a whole lot more than those let's say in big Tech so they're spending a lot more time together or spending a lot more time working and if someone was recruiting for talent there they tend to be in that area too now for those that want to still be pretty close to the lifestyle of activities um most people will then be looking at mainly apartments or condos I would say kind of in the Northern parts so in barcode not as much but obviously the Northern parts like Russian Hill Knob Hill Park Heights Marina still very very active there like this whole region is still extremely active just go out for a night and you will see for yourself still extremely busy but you also have the places in the surrounding perimeters around the downtown that are still doing just fine there's lots of things going on in Dog Patch Mission Bay is not doing as well as before but there's still lots of things going on Mission always has things happening Dolores Park is very popular so like these are the the perimeters when it comes to apartment rentals now if you're looking at more single family which will bring your cost of your ownership side of things you may be able to buy a place that's comparable to a condo or let's say you're sharing a room with others in a house that's going to be more in the perimeters and so generally the way that it works is like the perimeters out here if they're single family so places like I went to the places like here this parameter or perimeter these will be some of the more expensive single-family homes there'll be some of the nicer single family homes and then for those that are more affordable for single family homes I've been talking about affordable between let's say 900 to 1.6 would be this outside band here right these will also be single family that is doable and so that's the thing like you have options to consider now it may not it's not going to be as Central as all those different things that I just brought up right up being walkable or not needing a car and that's why a lot of people tend to be living in these areas but let's say you have a small family or you want to own a single family home or you're you're wanting to be a little bit more in the outskirts of things then these are all great options to consider uh for you right so that is San Francisco in a nutshell and I'm not going to be going over every area because it will take too long for this video but I'm going to go over the high level things to do next let's go over the Northern parts which is Marin County now Marin County tends to be a lot more single family and the people that tend to be living there are a lot more families maybe they want a slower pace of things there's also a whole lot more boating I'm not a big fan of boating but there is a ton of that so people that love sailing they love boating there is no shortage of options here it is a lot cooler here too so people do in enjoy the more mild temperatures a lot more fog that rolls through right but it's quite nice it's very very pleasant way quieter um it's fantastic when it comes to biking there's a lot of people that tend to bike from San Francisco over to Sausalito that's a very common trail you bike across the Golden Gate Bridge so you do have a lot of excellent things and places to go but it's just a lot quieter so um the benefit of here too is it's going to be a lot closer to Wine Country right so for those that may want to consider Napa Sonoma Santa Rosa there's a lot more opportunities there um that's a whole lot closer and they also but most people here they they still do tend to still work in the city and there's still ways to get there they can either drive there or many actually take the ferry because there's Ferry stops to get from Marin County out to San Francisco it's gonna be a little bit shorter because not as much to go through but it is it is still a popular space it's a huge landmass but the population wise is actually not that big relative to all these other counties next let's talk about San Mateo County so Santa Mateo County ultimately is from Daly City and it's even the areas on the west side which is on along the coast which are really small cities all the way down to Menlo Park this whole section here so the beauty of people choosing San Mateo county is what a lot of the jobs are along this Corridor so whether somebody's working in San Francisco or someone's working in big Tech which is usually down in the South Bay it's very Central so you can either uh you can just be in the middle located with it with them you can use the Caltrain to get up and down the the peninsula or you may just personally um enjoy the proximity and the diversity here it's also quite frankly not that crowded relative to like the East Bay and Santa Clara County and so that's also a part of the reason why people like it what's really interesting is all this space here when you actually drive down 280 you may be wondering damn there's a lot of land on the side there that literally has like no housing that's that's because they're all protected now I don't know how hard or or if there's ever any situation that they can do something about this area I doubt it because it hasn't been done in decades but it's all there's no housing here so all the housing is typically east of 280 at least in the immediate next of 280. and so you have lots of fantastic options here and all the housing here is very different right to give you an idea some of the most affordable housing in San Mateo County because San Mateo county is the most expensive County in the Bay Area is going to be the the Northern parts here the houses tend to be a little bit larger but the lot sizes are smaller it does tend to be very foggy in this area and because the lot sizes are small and houses are decent size street parking is a little bit tighter for I'm talking about in general so that's the Northern parts but a lot of people love the middle parts of San Mateo County now so San Francisco as you may know and there's a famous line by Mark Twain right so he wrote The Coldest Winter I've ever spent was a summer in San Francisco and that's because of the location of it you have the fog that continues to roll through you have just lots of natural Breeze now San Mateo county is able to take advantage of a lot of that so this section is a lot cooler not cooler than San Francisco nothing is cooler than San Francisco but it's a lot cooler than the rest of the Bay so that's also a very fascinating interesting to see next let's talk about Santa Clara County Santa Clara County will be pretty much from Palo Alto all the way down to like even Gilroy now most people will be considering these regions of of Santa Clara County mainly because this is a lot closer to a lot of the jobs I will go over how traffic typically works and why uh at the end of the video but a lot of people choose this area because all their jobs are here big Tech is mostly here right and so big Tech is running from Menlo Park with meta you have Google LinkedIn Amazon Apple uh and video which is in Santa Clara AMD Cisco broadcom there's a there's just a ton of big big companies that are out here and they're all based here right and so a lot of people choose this area it's also just so it's convenient for a lot of jobs but also it's much more suburb land right it's a lot more space for people um now you can see it's not really green in a lot of these places versus like even the peninsula is a whole lot more Greenery especially on the sides but you will get everything that you need to get there's still enough public parks all around there are still enough uh outdoor things that you can do like golfing hiking tennis those are all plentiful in this area especially in San Jose so these are some of the reasons why people choose this area now people here are more settling down while there is a Downtown San Jose there is also a downtown Sunnyvale Downtown Mountain View Downtown Palo Alto uh even a strip in Cupertino there are things to do even downtown Campbell there are things to do at night but nowhere the kind of density right so everybody here that chooses to live in the South Bay needs a car I mean it's it'll be miserable getting around the South Bay without a car uh and in San Mateo County you could kind of get by with it but especially in the South but you're gonna need a car and you will want a car and it's okay to have a car there's plenty of street parking all around right so this is a place to consider for those that want a little bit more space they work around big Tech though that would be typically the place for them next let's go to East Bay now East Bay is so it's going to be the most diverse County of them all right and why is that you have a place like Oakland which is has has quite a bit of charm Oakland's a very very big city to give you an idea let's take a look at the size of Oakland Oakland is a very big city so when people talk about some of the bad things about Oakland which there are certainly problems in Oakland just like there's probably in San Francisco it's not certainly all of Oakland there are some places in Oakland especially like Rock Ridge or like Montclair that are easily over two million dollars for houses so it's not uh all the same however Oakland is very big so it can be it can vary drastically you look at the places around the Coliseum those single family homes are like 500 600 thousand dollars right so it's a very very big broad but because Eastbay is so big you have some charming places like Berkeley which has I would say for most even for even compared to San Francisco the density of of shops of um commercial plazas of coffee shops there is very few places in all of the bay area that are going to be as walkable and as nice as Berkeley Mel Berkeley is a very small City and is home to UC Berkeley which is one of the best universities in the entire country but you can see that's kind of one atmosphere right one situation right so that Tri Valley a lot of these have excellent schools Danville Alamo San Ramon Delta Pleasant excellent schools right and newer cities newer homes so you're going to get a lot more for your money there so very very diverse right and a lot of people also know three months Fremont has gone has done very well over the last decades and so because Fremont has done well it had overflowed into places like Newark and Union City right and as they have continued to increase in prices then places like Hayward is going through major changes Hayward is going through some of the biggest changes that you will see in all cities of the Bay Area and that is mainly Around Mission Boulevard there's a lot of new development that has been there and a lot of rezoning there used to be this trip on Mission that was more like commercial strips they have like the bowling alley game torn down but they're all turning into mixed-use space so we will see how this ultimately plays out but it's cool to see that a city is going through lots and lots of changes and improvements right so that is the East Bay which is AKA Alameda County and last but certainly not least it's going to be Contra Costa County let me see if we can just highlight Sierra so Contra Costa county is also very very large now it's going to be the outskirts of the bay but you can have all sorts of interesting places from the Northwest part you have El Cerrito Richmond Richmond has some very nice places by the water in the Richmond Marina like how homes there are quite nice you can still get it for under a million dollars for like say some uh town homes and it's by the water is quite nice you have even views of potentially of the city not very known and then you have lots of places lots of kind of small cities across the top and then you go with the mate the larger cities here and culture cost accounting what you also have is many areas have excellent schools so you have places like Orinda Lafayette Alamo Danville Pleasant Hill these all have very very good schools and they're quite spacious in terms of the homes and we'll talk about momentarily why that is the case so this is some of the more affordable places for people to choose to choose for also a much larger home you also have newer areas a lot of people go to Brentwood because of the cherry picking and the Cherry Farms out there Brentwood has some huge homes that you can get for even today under a million dollars right so you can see Contra Costa County does open up a lot of options the people that tend to choose here would be one if they want to be in the closer parts of Contra Costa counter which is these sections here Arena Lafayette Alamo Danville San Ramon Blackhawk that's because of excellent schools and a big home but you can also get very affordable single family homes out in these external regions so this gives you an overall lay of the land of the bay area of what you can expect and where you should consider now let's talk about why are prices what they are at the end of the day the number one driver of prices is not school in the Bay Area it's actually location of proximity to work now the main job hubs even though there's a lot more remote work is still San Francisco you have quite a bit of activity in Downtown Oakland still but you have most of the high paying jobs in the peninsula you think about South San Francisco this whole area here is all biotech and they keep adding and adding more and more and there is no housing there it's pure commercial and it's pure high paying commercial jobs you have lots of other more established companies like snowflake out here you have Visa in Foster City you have Gilead you have alumina as you keep going down as I mentioned in in Menlo Park you have meta which has taken this entire region here meta also has a spot in Burlingame on the East parts of Berlin game right when it comes to other tech companies you have obviously Google you have apple you have Amazon you have Microsoft these are all expanded here so high level what it is it is what it is most of the high paying jobs are along this Corridor and so because of that what you really need to factor and understand is realistically how often are you going into the office and you can use places like Google Maps to calculate that so for example let's say you work at meta and you were trying to figure out uh let's say you lived in Hayward a really helpful way for you to help do your planning is don't do it like leave right now because right now is nobody there's no traffic but when you normally apply it and it's generally pretty accurate right so from you to get from and you plug in the middle of the week middle of the week is best because that's going to be the peak traffic Monday Friday is actually a little bit slower but you can see right if you went from Hayward to meta you can see it takes about 20 to 40 minutes and let's say you were to go from I don't know let's see going really far Richmond and you're going to Meadow 50 minutes to an hour 20. now let's say you there was no traffic which is like right now it'll be quite a bit less right usually you can kind of think about maybe traffic ads uh uh 50 more time I think that's a kind of an okay rule of thumb fifty percent more time right um it could uh but yeah I think that's a good amount but either way the idea that I want to share with you is this as you go further out the houses tend to be cheaper now there are obviously outliers of that but typically the rule of thumb is that and because all the traffic all flows the same direction in the morning and all flows the same direction outside so whether you're living in Gilbert Morgan Hill it'll all flow like this in the morning up North and I'll flow all it'll flow South right if you're living in the East Bay it all flows West that's why the bridges are very busy that's why especially these intersections are incredibly busy right and then after work it all flows outside but typically on the weekends you're not going to experience too much traffic there are a few corridors that are just it's always going to be bad uh and there's nothing you can do about it and you can see even right now right this Corridor is always bad and why is this example always bad of this 580 because it branches off into three main highways Engineers on 580. okay merge under 880 can go across the bridge to San Francisco so of course when you're having that it's kind of like LA right if you have three huge intersections it's gonna be absolute disaster and so that's why some regions are always going to have traffic but you always can simply do that quick exercise to determine are you okay with that commute distance right are you okay with that and if you are then you may want to consider that because both housing prices but also rent will be accordingly right the rent in Walnut Creek is way cheaper than San Francisco and there you still have the public transit line to get around so that's something to be mindful of the last thing I'll bring up then is let's just show you like the main public transit line for those I want to consider it so you can see we covered all these areas so the BART covers most of um Contra Costa County and most of all the way to San Jose so Milpitas and San Jose are the most southern parts that it has expanded to and it really expanded the last couple of years so you can see there's the most southern parts that run through the East parts of the bay you have Dublin Pleasanton that are also in the East parts so that's as easy as it gets it goes pretty far north you can see even all the way to Antioch you saw briefly Brentwood is even next to Antioch so it does even go all the way out there and then up to the Northwest through Berkeley you have the Richmond area now it doesn't actually go through all the way south on the peninsula side so the peninsula side is a little bit different the peninsula site will be taking what they call as a Caltrain so that calendar you're going to see kind of intersects where the the BART ends up and that was by Design so you can see the barcos can go all the way to San Francisco Airport but the main stops is Daly City like you just have the most stops there but it still goes all the way down to Millbrae but if you look at the country map it can still go to some of those areas so there is some little intersex but then it goes basically along the peninsula all the way down to South San Jose and then you do have a little bit of connection so some of those parts here it's not very used but you have like the VTA which is a rail system they'll connect you from like Milpitas by the Great Mall just much more West I think even past Mountain View area uh it's not as commonly written but uh it is a way for public transit to be used if needed so what do you think which of the areas do you plan to move to which areas are you living in right now I love to hear it in the comments below and of course if you want me just to narrow it down for you within a matter of minutes I can tell you exactly where you should be considering depending on your budget and the type of home that you are looking for my contact details are below give me a call send me a text or send me an email and I will personally be the one that will be responding to you within the same day by the way leave it also in the comments below which video do you want me to do a deeper dive on should I do San Francisco county should I do Alameda County should I do Santa Clara County I love to hear from you as I will do it more in-depth look as to the different cities in these different counties and what are the pro and cons with all of them appreciate you watching as always be sure to like this video subscribe and I'll see you at the next one bye now

Channel: Living in the Bay Area - Spencer Hsu, MBA, Realtor

Views: 10,913

Keywords: where to live in Sf Bay Area, top places to live in bay area, bay area housing, life in the east bay, bay area real estate, bay area commute, SF Bay Area, san mateo county, santa clara county, alameda county, contra costa county, bay area home prices explained, spencer hsu, bay area lifestyle, east bay schools, commute to san jose, largest bay area homes, where to live in sf, palo alto, bay area cities, best cities for tech jobs, san francisco, marin county, sf living

Id: RkXHcXWZ3R0

Length: 23min 53sec (1433 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2023