I am moving back to the Bay Area, can anyone direct me to good listings for rentals. I have a pretty good plan in place that @TyffaneeSue knows how I can pull it off. My budget is about 3000. I can probably win 3200 at the most not including utilities. Please let me know. I am looking to move in possibly Late December or January, no later then February. Which means some of you are going to get to deal with my potty mouth and bad attitude in person mwahahaha.
"Bay Area" is quite large, can you narrow your preferred area(s) and size requirements? Studio,1 bed, 2bed etc.
That Tracy! Kind of a long haul to SJ. Maybe Morgan Hill or Gilroy? What do I know? I haven’t lived down there in more than 20 years. Good luck!
One idea is to live in a relatively quiet/nice area of a less expensive town. For example there are some apartments and homes on the west side of 101 between Menlo Park and Palo Alto which technically are situated in East Palo Alto. Also North Fair Oaks (the unincorporated, largely Mexican neighborhood between Redwood City/Menlo Park/Atherton) has decent access.
Tracy is a hike! And the commute traffic coming in from the south is horrific too. I think it used to be manageable but it's gotten a lot worse as more people have moved there for family homes. East Menlo (Belle Haven) and EPA are actually great suggestions. Prices have risen a lot over the last few years thanks to Meta, (upon further investigation) Scratch that. I just checked and the only places I can find under $3000 are studios. Blame Facebook.
Sad to say your 3k budget won't get you that. I say that just based on what the going rates are here in Salinas. A house on our street 1 block down very similar to ours which is 1200 sq ft 3B 2B built in 1965 just rented for close to 4k.
If you don't mind an apartment you could probably find something for 3-4k https://www.zillow.com/san-jose-ca/rent-houses-3-bedrooms/ https://www.zillow.com/san-jose-ca/apartments/3-bedrooms/
It's not the 1990s. EPA, and even more so, Belle Haven (east Menlo) are family-oriented communities. I've spent a lot of time there, walked around by myself at night, never felt unsafe. I wouldn't be running around at 2 am, but that's most places. Belle Haven has the best soccer field in the area. Full-sized, night lights, it is turf and it gets a lot of use. All the local leagues play there.
This is another way of saying that East Palo Alto and Belle Haven have been gentrified, and therefore are safer but a lot pricier. Yeh? I guess...
Unfortunately, or fortunately, yes. It's been happening for years, but Meta accelerated it. I don't know if they still offer housing subsidies to employees, given how huge they've grown, but when they were headquartered in downtown Palo Alto, the subsidies were significant (like $1000/month) and of course drove up the rents there even more.
You might look in Scotts Valley (or perhaps even Felton, but some of those places can be a little funky). It's cheaper than most of the Bay Area and also cheaper than Santa Cruz itself. Some decent places for around $3k. Roughly 30 min to PPP if it's not rush hour. I'm just across the mountain from Scotts Valley in Bonny Doon. I can't imagine moving back into the chaos of Silicon Valley.