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Moving from Florida, excited and terrified. Give me some advice.

ScottRNelson said:
Pleasanton doesn't have any bad sections. You probably can't find a bad section in Dublin, San Ramon, or Danville either. But that's a bit of a drive in to San Jose. At least you have the option to take the ACE train.

The original poster needs to be a bit more specific about where the wife's job is at. I would expect more system administrator jobs in Silicon Valley (San Jose to about Redwood City or so) than in San Francisco. Now is not the best time to be looking for a job in that profession, though. Some companies are currently downsizing a bit.
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Scott is right and fwiw consider Pleasanton, or Dublin where i live, it is just the other side of 580 overpass to Pleasanton and we have two BART stations. Pleasanton is an old very well grown town and Dublin/Pleasanton are both at the 580(East/West)/680 (North/South) interchange.
I commuted to San Jose every day on my moto in 2004 and it wasn't too bad but if your wife is working in San Jose definitely search there, maybe just avoid East San Jose.
 
A good rule of thumb in San Jose is anything on the west side of highway 101 is nicer.
 
pregrid said:
Fremont is a good place to live and just coincidently Tesla is in Fremont. they're in the midst of a huge rampup, lots of jobs available soon if not right now. 'bout 15 min to San Jose.
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THANK YOU!!!! Just applied for a job at Tesla!!! I'd LOVE to work there!
 
hophead said:
Scott is right and fwiw consider Pleasanton, or Dublin where i live, it is just the other side of 580 overpass to Pleasanton and we have two BART stations. Pleasanton is an old very well grown town and Dublin/Pleasanton are both at the 580(East/West)/680 (North/South) interchange.
I commuted to San Jose every day on my moto in 2004 and it wasn't too bad but if your wife is working in San Jose definitely search there, maybe just avoid East San Jose.
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Thank you!
 
Depending on what kind of SysAdmin you think you may be, jobs can be easy or difficult to find. One of my friends is skilled in Windows, Linux, and has a strong smattering of languages he can develop/script in. Looking for a Windows job, he had a hard time. Switched to focusing on Linux and highlighting his dev skills, then rewrote his resume to read "devops" very prominently, both in resume and in types of jobs he was looking for. Offers rolled in like crazy, recruiters hit him up on LinkedIn constantly, and he found a job inside of a week.
 
The wife and I live in San Mateo. It's kind of central on the peninsula. It's pretty safe all the way around. I've found no horrible parts really. I commute up to SF (20 or so miles) and the the wife was commuting to Cupertino for a while. It took her around 40 minutes give or take. So San Mateo .. between both and fairly nice. Our rent is under $2k and we have 3 bikes, a truck and a car. So yeah. It can be done.

And ctrvl is absolutely correct on his work assessment... Wintendo jobs can be had but Linux/UNIX DevOps (Sys Admin for us grey beards) is the ticket.

And as much as you shouldn't freak out when caging it that splitting/filtering is legal ... give it a bit before doing it yourself. :) And know that it can get very chilly even in July/August in a lot of places around the SFBA ie. Florida's version of freezing so don't count on Florida level gear to completely work for you here. A few folks I've talk to lately from FL/AL/TX have found this out the hard way.

Cheers.
 
wingnut1000 said:
The Mountains sound awesome but too far north :(
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No. The mountains he talks about are mostly (south)WEST of the stretch you are looking at.

Don't forget to check city and county websites for jobs.

If you have family use www.meganslaw.ca.gov to search for registered sex offenders and www.crimereports.com to search up to six months worth of reported crimes. Both give you an idea of the immediate surroundings you might call home.
 
aergern said:
The wife and I live in San Mateo. It's kind of central on the peninsula. It's pretty safe all the way around. I've found no horrible parts really. I commute up to SF (20 or so miles) and the the wife was commuting to Cupertino for a while. It took her around 40 minutes give or take.
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The commute from Cupertino (or thereabouts) to San Jose could be another 20-40 minutes depending on the time of day and where in San Jose one is going. That with the 40 minutes from San Mateo would make for a very long day.

The OP needs to realize that San Jose covers a pretty big area and if his wife is working in south San Jose down by Morgan Hill or north San Jose by Milpitas or right downtown then it will have a huge impact on the commute. What might help some is if she has flex hours. However, while that helps, because so many people have them it has smushed out the rush hour time and even at 9:30-10am when I try to do my morning commute the roads are still pretty darn busy.

If he is willing to MC commute maybe they could set it up so that his wife is close to work especially since she has a definite job. Then, pick a place close to her work but also close enough to 280 or 101 so that he could commute to whatever job he finds using the MC.
 
Hyperborea said:
The commute from Cupertino (or thereabouts) to San Jose could be another 20-40 minutes depending on the time of day and where in San Jose one is going. That with the 40 minutes from San Mateo would make for a very long day.

The OP needs to realize that San Jose covers a pretty big area and if his wife is working in south San Jose down by Morgan Hill or north San Jose by Milpitas or right downtown then it will have a huge impact on the commute. What might help some is if she has flex hours. However, while that helps, because so many people have them it has smushed out the rush hour time and even at 9:30-10am when I try to do my morning commute the roads are still pretty darn busy.

If he is willing to MC commute maybe they could set it up so that his wife is close to work especially since she has a definite job. Then, pick a place close to her work but also close enough to 280 or 101 so that he could commute to whatever job he finds using the MC.
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Yeah, I was also thinking back to my commute to Meridian & 280 when i was suggesting it. It took me 45 minutes or so to get to work. Which isn't bad. But yes, I agree that if it's much further south then San Mateo may be out of line. I was also thinking that there are a metric ton of startups in SF he's going to probably be thrown at so SM is more central for both but depending on what they are actually able to spend ... they have lots of options. :)
 
Come see me when you get into town. I'll give you the four one one.

I moved here from Florida. long years ago.

I also have some space for rent.

Stay on the green side of the mountain- we're cooler over here.

wingnut1000 said:
I'm moving to the bay area from Florida next month and I'm pretty frustrated as I don't know anything about the area. I'm flying out this week to try and find and apartment but honestly I don't even know where to begin, so I'm reaching out to the only community I'm really familiar with.

Looking to live in the bay area, under San Francisco, above San Jose
What areas are safe but have affordable housing? (2-3k/mo)
What areas should I avoid?
Any online resources that show a good overview of good/bad areas?
How long is your commute, does it really take 2 hours to get in and out of SF?
I'm bringing 2 cars and a bike.
Know anyone looking for a good System Administrator?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I don't know anyone out there, so this is quite daunting.
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That stand your ground law doesn't apply here. You can't go shooting somebody because they made a scary face at you lol
 
Contact me too just before you arrive; I work for a great property management company and we usually have 2-10 vacancies daily out of the 250+ that we manage. (may need to refresh the Rentals page, sometimes it gets stuck with 0)

Do you have any pets?
Good credit (680+)?

I'd start with your wife's gross income (most want that to be 3 x the rent and an offer letter will suffice). Get into a smaller place; start looking around for the next one once you're here.

Holler if you have any questions (now or later).

:teeth
Yana:banana
(408) 981-4248
 
If possible live north (or the shortest distance south) of where you and the mrs will work to avoid traffic. Of course that means rent will be more $$$.
San Jose is spotty for where to avoid:
101/Tully: avoid
101/Story: avoid
680/Alum Rock exit: avoid
Evergreen area: the newer area in the hills->ok. older area near capitol expwy->depends.
85 from Cottle Rd going north-> mostly ok. as you go north it becomes nicer and more $$$

If you're coming all the way from Florida, rent a place from a major company like Avalon or Sequoia to minimize headaches with smaller companies or one person. We used to live at Rosewalk for several years and liked it there.

+1 bring lots of money
 
Where in floridumb you moving from? This could help in detailing what a bad area is here. I came out here from Washington D.C. and am still looking for these mythical places. Just for shits and giggles.
 
Close to San Jose is kinda vague. Milpitas, Menlo Park, Los Gatos, and Morgan Hill are all kinda close to SJ, but will yield different sorts of recommendations. Can you be more precise?

edit: also, for what it's worth, I live in Dublin and work in the south bay. If I were planning a move, I'd get a hell of a lot closer to work than Dublin. It's a decent place, but it's still a haul from SJ, and if you've gotta do it twice a day, there are better things you could do with your time.
 
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avoid places like EPA, parts of Menlo Park, East San Jose, Oaklamd (actually anything on East Bay north of Fremont), Hunters Point. Personally i would head straight to the SC Mountains and start living in paradise.
 
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