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Bay Area hackers, does anyone live a bit further out from the high cost areas?

1 points by devs1010 ↗ HN
At this point I'm pretty strongly looking to move back to northern California. I'm originally from an area just north of what I guess I would call the "high cost zone", where housing prices are a lot more reasonable. I'd like to figure a way to make it work so I can move to northern California but not double my housing costs. I'm wondering if anyone else there has made this work, I'm thinking partial remote work could help with this or living near enough to a Bart station to where I can commute there to get into SF easily, mainly what I want to avoid is long times spent in a car as I can at least use my time well if I'm on BART. Thanks for any advice

5 comments

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djloche
It looks like there are a decent amount of 1BR/Studio places in the <1000 category.

I would search craigslist apartments with the search term as 'bart' and putting in your price range for what you're looking for.

devs1010
The issue is that a 1BR or studio doesn't fit my lifestyle. Where I live now, out of state, I have a 3 bedroom house, a girlfriend and a bunch of pets so living in an apartment is most likely not going to work which is why I'm looking at other options, I think maybe I if I live within 30 min of a BART station that could work. I'm willing to compromise as much as I can, such as renting a townhouse, etc but it seems landlords there are very against pets so its hard to find anything but a house that allows dogs.
rdouble
You mostly cannot move to Northern California and not double your housing costs. SF and SJ are 2 and 3 for highest cost of living in the country. The nicer suburbs cost even more than living in the cities. Maybe you can find a cheap place in Fruitvale or Richmond. If those seem too scary check out what it would cost to live in Alameda and take the ferry. That said, I found everything in the east bay to be a major headache if you have to do any sort of dual duty between the valley and SF. I found that trading square footage for location was worth it, but your wife and pets may not agree.
devs1010
Well, northern California is a large area, I've checked the area where I grew up (its along I-80, about 70 miles from SF but it would be an awful commute) and its only about 10-20% more to rent a house there than where I am now, but you're right, as far as I can tell, about the Bay Area proper doubling housing costs... and yeah, lol I've been through Richmond enough and know its not somewhere I'd feel comfortable living
rdouble
Anything with a reasonable commute and a reasonable size will be in a dodgy neighborhood. If I had a flexible schedule and worked in SV I would choose to live down by Santa Cruz but that's not necessarily going to be cheap, either. If I was working in SF I would just live there and deal with the smaller space. You could also take a look at some of the unfashionable options like Daly City, Colma or South SF.