NikkiDKatt

North Central is one of those neighborhoods that is packed with boxy apartment buildings and smaller, older homes. It is basically a lower middle-class (verging on lower class) neighborhood where a fair number of singles live.

Apartments here tend to go for around $2000/month for a 2-bedroom until you get near Downtown where prices can as much as double.

There are also a number of homes for sale here with the median price running at about $400 K. About 3 quarters of the homes on the market here are on the market due to foreclosure, so that gives you a sense of how hard hit the area has been. (Not surprisingly given that nearly one in five people here make their money via construction.)

One of the features I really like about this area is its proximity to the San Mateo Caltrain Station—being able to easily commute for me and my significant other is a priority, especially since we would both be commuting in the fall if we moved here.

And since you are right by Downtown San Mateo, you have a ton of choices in terms of restaurants and night spots—definitely a plus of the area.

The schools here are pretty good as well. San Mateo High School is located here and though it does not have an API of 9 or 10 like some of its Peninsula neighbors, it does have a 7, which is not too shabby.

Unfortunately this is one of the least safe areas in San Mateo, with maybe 3 dozen assaults in the last six months. (It’s not as dangerous as places in San Francisco, but relative to the Peninsula it is pretty bad.)

Overall this is a pretty good spot if you are single or maybe even a childless couple—I’m not sure it works as well families though.

It’s all about the stately old houses in San Mateo Park. It reminds me a bit of Old Palo Alto. San Mateo Park, a small neighborhood on the northwestern edge of San Mateo, is filled with well-maintained century old homes. Styles here vary, so you might get a 1906 Pennsylvania Dutch style “farmhouse,” whose 2500 sq. ft. go for $1.2 million on the northern end of the neighborhood, while a Jazz Era California Spanish style homes (with beautiful Spanish tiles and cherry trees) rests on the southwestern end, whose comparable 2500 sq. ft. go for $2.15 million. (Most homes here are priced at around $2.1.)

The charm is added to by the quiet leafy streets that make up this neighborhood. A lot of the intersections in this neighborhood have grassy wedges inserted to soften transitions from street to street. (Feels very European to me.)

Most of the local schools in San Mateo are pretty strong, but for some reason Park Elementary, which is supposedly a magnet school gets an abysmally low API of 3 (out of a possible 10). I am not sure if this is some kind of an error or if there is something else going on here. The middle school and high school fair much better, btw.

And as you would expect in a neighborhood like this, crime is virtually non-existent (only a couple of vehicle break ins in the last 6 months according to the San Mateo Police department).

Of course, there is also not much by way of nightlife or entertainment IN the San Mateo Park, but you are so close to the downtown area and its enjoyments that this should hardly matter. You can practically walk to these destinations. In San
Mateo Park, however, even El Camino Real is just a wide residential street where you can find apartments and a church, but not much else.

Overall, this is a wonderful little neighborhood which is way outside of our price range but which is kind of enjoyable to walk through (or jog through if you live nearby).

Shoreview is the neighborhood just to the north of Foster City, right by the bay. Just to throw another “bay” in there, the western border of Shoreview is the Bayshore Freeway. This is basically a long strip of a neighborhood.

At the farthest northern point there are the Coyote Point County Park and the Poplar Creek Golf Course. Coyote Point is a great place to take the kids or to go for outdoor activities. They have lots of bay side trails, playgrounds, and beaches where you can do everything from kayaking to swimming. There is also a shooting range on the western end, a marina and a natural museum, the CuriOdyssey which has exhibitions and animals on display. Also great for watching jets take off from SFO. Great weekend spot.

I couldn’t really say whether the Poplar Creek Golf Course is any good, not being a golfer myself.

Much of Shoreview is residential with homes dating mostly from the 1940’s and 50’s. This entire area has been slammed by the foreclosure crisis with 5 or 6 homes here being on the market due to foreclosure. The median home here goes for $450K, making it one of the least expensive places on the Peninsula to buy a home.

Before you go jumping in however you should consider the following:

1. The quality of schools if you have or intend to have children. One of the local elementary schools, Horral, is pretty terrible with a significantly below-average API rating. The middle school, Borel, and high school, San Mateo are far better, however.

2. Crime—especially violent crime—should also be a consideration. This area is unfortunately not completely free of crime problems, with more than half a dozen assaults in the last six months.

You can also rent a 2-bedroom here for around $2000.

In the area you will also find fast food places and motels—nothing amazing.

Overall, I would say this is an okay neighborhood in which to live—though I don’t know if I would really want to live here.

I think this neighborhood may have been named after Sugarloaf Mountain in Brazilian city of Rio (near where Christ the Redeemer stares down over the bay), but I don’t know for sure. I spent a year in Rio and I suppose the hill here somewhat resembles it.
This is a pretty big neighborhood stretching all the way from Highway 92 to Highway 82. On the far northwestern end of Sugarloaf, there is the sloping sub-neighborhood of Glendora. The wide streets and contemporary style homes give this neighborhood a fairly useful, 1980’s suburban sort of look and feel—without seeming to have taken on the wear and tear of a neighborhood that old.
In this part of this neighborhood, home prices are around $1 million. There are also a few foreclosures here which are probably depressing sales figures for the area.
Just to the southeast of this section of the neighborhood is Laurelwood Park, which is best known these days for the new kids play area, which is full during weekdays of bored moms and kids. There are also a handful of hiking trails up here leading up to Sugarloaf “Mountain”—which I have heard has nice views down into the Bay.
The streets continue their descend along straight routes on the eastern end of Sugarloaf Mountain. Many of the homes just to the east of Laurelwood Park date from the 1970’s and, though extensively remodeled do have that sort of groovy feel to them.
In this section of the Sugarloaf neighborhood, you will find Abbot middle school, which has really average test scores for some reason (despite the fact that Cipriani Elementary and Hillsdale High School both have above average test scores).

There is another—much smaller—park in this area, Indian Springs Park.

At the heart of the far eastern end of the Sugarloaf neighborhood is the San Mateo Medical Center, which is a full service hospital. Next to is the Department of Health.

Around the hospital is a pretty ordinary neighborhood, filled with 1940s style Ranch homes. They are relatively well kept but they still do look fairly worn. It does sort of look like your grandpa’s neighborhood in this area.

Home prices drop well below $1 million here, the farther east you get and you start to see some that go for about half a million. On the far eastern end of the neighborhood you find El Camino Real—the main north-south artery in the Peninsula.
North of the hospital you will find a number of boxy apartment buildings. Two bedrooms here go for about $2000 here.

There are also a number of stores and some restaurants here, although the whole area seems to have a bit of worn out look to it as well. But not in a bad way. If you like a greasy spoon, Jack Prime, a Bob’s Big Boy style hamburger joint on El Camino.

Overall this is quite a range of a neighborhood from east to west—so that there is a little bit for everyone.

Running along Highway 92, Western Hills is a pretty good mix of a neighborhood. There was a chance that I would be teaching a summer class up here at the community college so I wanted to check out the neighborhood (it turns out I won’t be teaching it, but anyway). We decided we would look into it as a place to live possibly as well.

The community college here is on the far northern end of the neighborhood, right on the border with swanky Hillsborough.
The college looks very much like a 1970’s style community college—sort of ugly buildings for the most part and about the size of a high school. They’ve had new construction recently, I think, but they haven’t really updated the look that much with it, apparently.

Just to the south of the college are a bunch of apartment buildings. They are not swanky or particularly attractive nor terrible—they are just your run of the mill apartment complexes—the kind of place students don’t mind living and that are okay when you are just out of college, but that start to seem dingy as you get older.

In case you are wondering, 2-bedroom up here, btw, will run you around $2100/month. In terms of buying, there are also condos up here that go for about $400 K ($300 K if in foreclosure).

On the farthest southern end of this neighborhood you get an upper middle class neighborhood with really nice mostly contemporary style homes. Homes here tend to go for just over $1 million dollars, some rising to as much as $1.5 million if recent homes sales are any indicator. These are nice newer homes that give you just under 3,000 sq. ft. These are expensive, but given how far up in the hills they are and the views many of them offer, it is not altogether surprising that they should go for this amount.

Schools in the area are pretty great as well, with Hillsdale Elementary, Ralston Middle School and Hillsdale High School all being above average. (You will also find a number of private religious schools in the area if that is more to your liking.)

The area is relatively safe as well, with only some reports of theft to report in the last six months. In other words, this is not the sort of place where you generally need to worry about getting mugged or otherwise assaulted if you go for a walk at dusk.

Overall, pretty nice area, though still outside the range of most people.

From the Home Depot and Costco the neighborhood curves north into a more industrial area before terminating in the Mariner’s Point Golf Course where you can take in a few holes on any given day.

Some of the companies in between include, Sansuro Games—a video game company; Quantum Analytics, who provides analytic tools for companies; and Gilead, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to research on terminal diseases.

That is just a taste of some of the companies that choose Foster City as their home.

There are also a few food and entertainment spots here as well, including The Great American Bistro (in the Hilton) and Mariner’s Point Bar & Grill.

As far as night spots go, the Clubhouse Bistro probably offers the best nightclub experience in this part of the Peninsula and is definitely worth a visit. I only recently came here for the first time and really had a good time—definitely sophisticated adult fun.

This is not really a residential area, but it is the kind of place that you like to have around for visiting business partners (there are a number of hotels here) and just so that you can get out on the town every so often.

Town Center is basically the commercial heart of Foster City. This is where you will find the Metro Center Shopping Center, which is a nice little spot, with good seafood place and a Safeway for groceries. The area around here also has a Baja Fresh restaurant, a Noah’s Bagels (and its perennial partner, a neighboring Starbucks) and a Jamba Juice.

There are however some condos and apartments here as well. Renting an apartment here can cost you a pretty penny, with a 2-bedroom, for example, going for between $2300 and $3000.

And should you decide you would like to actually own your own flat here, you can buy a 1200 ft. condo for a mere $600 K.
The condos are a bit on the tightly packed side, but they could definitely work for someone who just wants to live near where they work. There are basically two big condo parks that I noticed here. Both are mostly made up of three story stucco structures (the first story is the garage) with red-tiled roofs.

A very busy place to live and work. Probably best suited to singles or young couples.

The Pilgrim/Triton neighborhood/area is a tiny area just off the San Mateo Bridge where you can find brand new offices and fast food. In the fast food category, you have the usual suspects: McDonalds, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut. You can also get gas here.

It is not very pretty but it gets the job done.

Lincoln is the commercial “neighborhood”/area just to the north of the San Mateo bridge just before it hits the bay waters, which is another way of saying it’s the last stop before the water.

There are a few different companies that make their homes here. There is for example an office of Arena—a product management lifecycle improvement company (whatever that means). There is also a larger corporation which runs an office park here—Life Technologies. I have never heard of them, but apparently, they are a major player in bio-tech, having their finger in everything from cancer fighting to bio identification.

This is fairly typical of the Silicon Valley, where you are always stumbling across large tech companies looking to take advantage of the accumulation of tech workers in the area.

Other than the offices and the parking lots, however, there is not much else to this area.

Unlike the other neighborhoods in Foster City, many of whom actually are or have land masses that could be called islands, here there is only one section like that.

So why the name the neighborhood “Islands”? Well if you know Foster City then you know that most neighborhoods have a kind of theme. In this case, it is islands, so streets have names such as: Bahama, Cayman and Baffin.

So what is it like living here?

Also like in a lot of the neighborhoods in Foster City, Islands is largely made up of contemporary style homes and smallish condominiums. There are no homes currently for sale in this neighborhood, but my understanding is that homes hover around $1 million here regularly.

There are a couple of extra nice things about this neighborhood. First, there is the trail that runs along the slough on the southern end of the neighborhood. If you are a runner or want a good place to walk the dog, this is the perfect place spot for those kinds of activities.

Second, there is Sea Cloud Park which has 4 baseball diamonds and 2 or 3 soccer fields. This is definitely a spotlight of weekend families.

Overall, it is a nice little neighborhood. Nothing spectacular, but very solid.

Fish is a neighborhood on the southeastern shore of Foster City. As is the Foster City tradition, the streets are named after the neighborhood theme, which is in this case fish. So, Marlin Avenue, Seahorse Court, and Albacore Lane are among the street names here.

The homes in this neighborhood tend to be contemporary style homes, a bit on the smallish side, sometimes with backyards giving away to some of the plentiful Foster City waterways (these are the best houses in the neighborhood in my opinion).

More than half the homes here are for sale due to foreclosure, and this creates quite a bit of variation in home prices.
Homes here can go for as much as $1 million for a remodeled 1960’s home down to $400 K for a condo. The majority of homes seem to linger around $600K.

As far as renting goes, you can find a one-bedroom for $1600 to $2000 and a two-bedroom for $2000 to $2500.

The middle school, Bowditch Middle School is here in the Fish neighborhood, which is the main public middle school in Foster City. It gets very high marks, if test scores can be believed.

You also have Marlin, Sunfish, Pompano Circle and Shad parks in the neighborhood—which are small, but passable parks.
My favorite of these parks is Marlin because it gives way to the water and seems like it would be nice place to take kids in the summer.

There are also a handful of restaurants in the neighborhood (a Thai place and a Chinese place). None of these are spectacular, but if you don’t feel like going far to get some grub they will do.

Overall it is one of my favorite spots in Foster City.

Okay so now the theme is Famous Ships. Street names in this neighborhood: Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria, Bounty, Constitution and a bunch of other ships, many of whom I don’t know what to associate with. For example, Balclutha Drive, is named after the old ship that is in the San Francisco Bay (I had to Google it to find out). It is the only ship of its kind still in the bay, right by Fort Mason. If you know SF, you probably know the one I’m talking about though, like me, you probably didn’t realize that was its name.
So some of the ships for which these streets are named are not quite as famous as others.
So what is it like living in this neighborhood at the very heart of Foster City?

First, there is fair amount more variety in terms of home styles in this neighborhood in comparison to some of the other
Foster City neighborhoods. The majority of homes here are very nicely kept Ranch homes, but many are colored in bright colors, and mixed in with these you will find the occasional Eichler home or contemporary style home. There are also canals on the edges this circular neighborhood. These satellite islands with streets with names like Flying Cloud Isle, Flying Mist Isle and Shooting Star Isle have backyards that give way to the canals and often have private boats docked there.

The average 2-bedroom here rents for around $2300.

In terms of buying, prices vary according to type of home, of course. The median price for a condo runs about $300K in terms of median price, while a 2000 ft. home out by Flying Island will run upwards of a million dollars.

This is also where you will find the seat of government for Foster City, with both City Hall and Foster City Police Dept. being here. You will also find the Foster City public library here.

There are also a few good, though small parks here.

Overall, a pretty nice neighborhood. About average for Foster City.

Okay, so maybe this is a bit much just for a neighborhood, but I am just saying that if you are going to theme your neighborhood on explorers, maybe you should have something worth exploring rather than just a series of fairly bland sort of contemporary style houses, all pretty much in the same sort of dull style that while nice and clean is less likely to excite then to put you to sleep.

The two exceptions to this are the condos that are located out on the islands at the northern end of the Explorers. These are both fairly attractive and somewhat reminiscent of Florida in that they sit out on waterways in a manner that has a certain appeal.

You can find some rentals here. Right now for example there is a 2-bedroom going for $2500 and a 4-bedroom going for $3800. That is not completely out of keeping with what you expect on the Peninsula.

As to the price for buying, you need to separate houses out from condos. Up on those northern islands, a condo with 1500 ft. of space will run you $400K to $500K. So that is around $300/sq. ft.

Prices go up significantly as you get into the homes of at the southern end of Explorers, with a 2000 ft. home going for a million dollars on the high end. (Although you can find foreclosures for half that amount on the low end.

The schools here are also excellent, with consistently high scores across the board.

Overall, this is pretty nice area, though it is not so amazing as to blow your socks off.

Stars and Constellations is a pretty good neighborhood right at the heart of Foster City. It sits on a sort of island with Central Lake to the east and the slough to the west. The homes are made up of a mix of Ranch style homes and condominiums.
They are nice but a bit on the average side for my taste. It is not the sort architecture that really piques your aesthetic senses.

There are some apartments just to the north of Hillsdale Road. A one bedroom there will cost you just shy of $2000 and a 2-bedroom goes for $2500.

As to buying a home here in Stars and Constellations? More than ¾ of the homes here are on the market due to foreclosure. This depresses the prices somewhat making it so that homes here range from $300 K to $700 K--$500K being the median home price. That is pretty low for the peninsula and for Foster City, so this might be a good place to sneak into the Foster City residential market.

It’s a nice little spot, but nothing to write home about as far as I am concerned.

Chess is a part of the commercial district of Foster City and there are some downright industrial looking sections of this neighborhood, such as on the far northern end where you have those giant chemical vats that you often find with big industry.

There are a number of businesses here, such as NB Chinese Academy, a school for those seeking to learn Chinese (both young and adult), a florist, a place for windows, a digital printing place and a fitness center.

There are also a number of corporations here as well: California Home Medical Equipment, Bayshore Ambulance and Powertronix all have offices here. So this is a big employer for the area and brings in a lot of commuters to work here.

This is not really somewhere you go to find a place to live however.

If you like themed neighborhoods with street names all based on one guiding principle, you will probably love this neighborhood. The streets here are named after, as the name indicates Boats and Boat Parts. Thus you get Schooner, Catamaran, Outrigger, Spinnaker, Mainsail, Hull, Galley, Helm etc.

But what is it like actually living in Boats and Boat Parts? Is like sailing on calm seas or is it like a being trapped on an island after a 3-hour tour? A-three-hour-tooour!

On the edges of the neighborhoods it is mostly apartment buildings. Rents have thrown down anchor at about $2000/month for both 1 and 2 bedroom with the former being slightly below that mark and the later being just above.

There are also a fair number of condos here which go for less than $400K for the most part, which means that this is a fairly affordable area if you are okay with living in a condo.

At the center of the neighborhood there are a number of single family homes. I’m not sure what they go for—none of them are currently on sale, but I assume they are closer to a $1 million.

Overall this is a pretty cool neighborhood like most of those in Foster City, although it does perhaps have too many condos.

Birds is the bayside neighborhood just to the south of the toll booths on the San Mateo Bridge. Being newly a fan of Eichler homes, especially when they are really well-kept like they are in this neighborhood—I really love this neighborhood. The streets are wide open and the homes have really well-kept lawns, the whole thing has a really sleek MOD sort of look to it, sort of like stepping into a 1960’s movie in a way.

It is also cool that it is bay side. You can see the San Mateo Bridge arching off towards Hayward and Union City, and you get a cool bay breeze as well. (Though, of course, sea level rise is a bit of a long term concern.)

There are also some pretty bland looking apartment villages out here. They are of the older cramped looking variety that have thankfully gone out of fashion.

There is also a veterinarian and a daycare center out here, so you will definitely have all of your little critters’ needs taken care of here.

The median home here goes for around $775K which would be about $3500/mo. That is almost there. We will definitely have to keep an eye on this neighborhood.

Only about 1 in 3 homes are on sale due to foreclosure, which is a good sign for the health of the neighborhood.

Overall, I would love to live here.

This section of Foster City on the western end has a very 1980’s feel to it. Homes are really nicely kept here. Many of them have those really high peeked roofs with long columns that drop down to emphasize their height. The roof serves as a shelter for the front door, offering visitors a shelter from the elements as they wait for someone to answer the door. Some of my favorite spots in this neighborhood are the cul-de-sacs where you often find basketball backboards and where I imagine the neighborhood kids come out for a little pick-up game on the quiet streets. It seems like the kind of place where people wash their own cars on weekend mornings (though knowing how things are these days, they probably don’t).

The streets here have that wide open feel that you get when there is not a lot of tree cover and the streets are have sidewalks. This feeling is increased because of the lack of sloping from hills, which just makes the sky look much bigger.
This makes it seem much brighter. (A bit like desert neighborhoods in places like Arizona or New Mexico, I suppose.)

There is also a pretty good park right at the center of this neighborhood, Boothbay Park, which has tennis courts, a kids play area and a basketball court.

Home prices go for around $1 million here, which means it is outside of our price range.

Apartments are a lot more moderately priced. There are some of them on the southern end of this neighborhood that are currently going for about $2000/mo for both 1 and 2 bedrooms. They would be fairly bland except for the lagoon like canals directed next to them.

The area also has a strip mall on its northern end, where you can find a supermarket—a Lucky—and some other businesses, including a handful of restaurants (a pizza place, a seafood place, a deli, a Chevy’s Fresh Mex, and a place called Papa’s Cooking), and a sporting goods store and martial arts studio. It’s the kind of place that pops up in a nice area so when residents don’t feel like leaving the neighborhood, they can stick around and still get their needs met.

Overall, this is a pretty good spot but overpriced for homeowners. I wouldn’t mind living here as a renter though.

This section of Foster City on the western end has a very 1980’s feel to it. Homes are really nicely kept here. Many of them have those really high peeked roofs with long columns that drop down to emphasize their height. The roof serves as a shelter for the front door, offering visitors a shelter from the elements as they wait for someone to answer the door. Some of my favorite spots in this neighborhood are the cul-de-sacs where you often find basketball backboards and where I imagine the neighborhood kids come out for a little pick-up game on the quiet streets. It seems like the kind of place where people wash their own cars on weekend mornings (though knowing how things are these days, they probably don’t).

The streets here have that wide open feel that you get when there is not a lot of tree cover and the streets are have sidewalks. This feeling is increased because of the lack of sloping from hills, which just makes the sky look much bigger.
This makes it seem much brighter. (A bit like desert neighborhoods in places like Arizona or New Mexico, I suppose.)

There is also a pretty good park right at the center of this neighborhood, Boothbay Park, which has tennis courts, a kids play area and a basketball court.

Home prices go for around $1 million here, which means it is outside of our price range.

Apartments are a lot more moderately priced. There are some of them on the southern end of this neighborhood that are currently going for about $2000/mo for both 1 and 2 bedrooms. They would be fairly bland except for the lagoon like canals directed next to them.

The area also has a strip mall on its northern end, where you can find a supermarket—a Lucky—and some other businesses, including a handful of restaurants (a pizza place, a seafood place, a deli, a Chevy’s Fresh Mex, and a place called Papa’s Cooking), and a sporting goods store and martial arts studio. It’s the kind of place that pops up in a nice area so when residents don’t feel like leaving the neighborhood, they can stick around and still get their needs met.

Overall, this is a pretty good spot but overpriced for homeowners. I wouldn’t mind living here as a renter though.

Me and the BF came for a little shindig at a professor’s home in this neighborhood a couple of weeks ago and it kind of got us enthused about trying to find a home here in Foster City. It really is a fairly unique place, a little bit like Marina del Rey, my BF says (he’s from So Cal originally).

This particular neighborhood is pretty cool because just about every home here has a backyard facing the canal. Most people here have their motor boats parked right there ready for weekend fun—though as my professor informs me, they go on the water a lot less than you might expect when you first move in.

Still, just the idea of it is fairly cool.

These aren’t huge homes. I eaves dropped on someone else talking about it and apparently this was about 2000 square feet and it would now cost about $1 million dollars (though the prof apparently got it for a lot less before prices started to skyrocket in the last decade). Definitely not in our price range.

Schools in the are strong and there is virtually no crime, so it does seem like a pretty idyllic place to live. But the average payment on a home like this would be $5600/month, and that is just not something we could do.

Just to the west of the Palm neighborhood, Woodside Plaza is largely made up of older Ranch homes. It is actually a pretty nice looking neighborhood in sort of a Leave it to Beaver sort of a way (though not quite as affluent as the Cleaver’s neighborhood seemed to be). This neighborhood is a little bit more middle class looking, though it does have the wide open streets that sometimes makes these kinds of neighborhoods look nicer than you might expect.

Three quarters of the homes in this neighborhood are on the market due to foreclosure. The prices cover a huge amount of ground going from roughly $250K to close to a million dollars. These are mostly all Ranch style homes, with some of the nicer, larger ones (close to 2000 sq. ft.) drawing the prices in the upper ranges.

That said, the neighborhood still seems a little overpriced to me, not significantly upscale enough to draw these kind of prices.

One definite improvement this neighborhood has over its neighbors to the east, is the better schools which here are at least average.

Woodside Plaza, the actual plaza, has the usual set of suburban amenities you expect to find in the suburbs: a Lucky’s, a Rite Aid and stores like Michael’s. Boring yes, but useful if you live in the ‘burbs.

Overall, I would say that Woodside Plaza is a pretty nice place to live, though it is fairly overpriced. For these kinds of prices you could probably move a bit closer to the action in Menlo Park or even, perhaps some parts of Palo Alto.

With historic Union Cemetery on the eastern end, Palm is one of the neighborhoods right near the heart of Redwood City. It has a fairly high proportion of apartment buildings, especially as compared to other neighborhoods. These are those fairly boxy looking 60’s and 70’s style apartments for the most part (although there are some nicer looking ones mixed in just for good measure).

There are also some older style Ranch homes on nice wide leafy streets. None of these streets seems spectacularly wealthy, but for the most part they are relatively nice middle class neighborhood streets. The kind of streets you might have grown up in if you are a Gen Xer or maybe even a Boomer—nice but a touch drab.

It is one of the more affordable places to find a place to rent on the Peninsula. You can find a 2-bedroom here for between $1600 to $2000.

This is also one of the more affordable places in which to buy with prices ranging from $400K to $1 million (though the higher end price is really a bit of an outlier, being the only home to break the $900K barrier).

This area, like a lot of places on the Peninsula, has been hit pretty hard by the foreclosure crisis. More than one half of the homes located here are on the market due to foreclosure.

In case you are wondering what you can get for around $400K, this should give you an idea. There is a home here for sale for about $440K. It is about 1100 ft. in terms of size and was built way back in 1924. The realtor calls the style it was built in “Contemporary” but I just call it ugly. Not the home for me.

On the upper end of the scale you can find a really nice, truly contemporary looking home (built in 1992) that has high ceilings and a really nice appearance to it, going for close to $700K.

That is a pretty wide range in price--though the price difference doesn’t always point to differences in the quality of these homes. In some cases, the more expensive homes are a little bigger or a little newer but not that much.

You are probably wondering what is the $1 million dollar property that is the high end? It turns out it is just an apartment complex.

Unfortunately this is one of those neighborhoods whose schools are just not very good. Much of this neighborhood is served by Hawes Elementary, which ranks pretty low on most state tests.

That eliminates it as a family area, though it would have been an okay place for students who are willing to commute into places like Palo Alto.

And, just in case you are wondering, the neighborhood is named after Palm Park which resides pretty much at its center.

Lido is the pointing edge of the Redwood Shores section of Redwood City. It is the farthest out that these neighborhoods abut into the San Francisco Bay.

When you drive through the Lido neighborhood (which you never do unless you have some actual business in this area since this is basically a big turnabout—no one comes here on their way somewhere else unless they are going to church or work out here), 2 things leave an impression:

One is the homes which still look pretty much brand new. They look as if they were built in the last few years. Everything still has the unworn, just out of the box feel. If Lido were a car, it would still have that leathery new car smell that companies now try to capture in a box and sell to you to make your hunk of chunk smell like its brand new. (Actually most of the homes date to the 1990’s and have this contemporary sort of a look that I do not find particularly pleasant from the outside, but whose high ceilinged interiors give homes a bright, airy look that can make up for a lot of the unpleasant aesthetics from the outside).

These Clinton era Lido homes go for around $1 million dollars for the most part. There are also some condos on the western end of the neighborhood and they go for around $600K (even when they are in foreclosure—just to give you a sense of how much people are willing to pay to live out here).

The streets are really clean, the lawns are green, and so is the grass on the roundabouts and the long center green spaces that were placed for effect here.

Which brings us to the second thing that you notice about Lido when you drive through it: the waterways that divide up the sections of the neighborhood. Just about everywhere you go in the neighborhood there are little recessed lagoons around which the homes are placed. You really do feel as if you are out to sea here as well—it has that beach community feel to it. (A fairly upscale one, anyway.)

Of course, as I have mentioned in some other reviews, there is a bit of a worry that unless precautions are taken, this whole area might actually be underwater before the end of this century as rising sea levels and extreme weather events place these kinds of coastal shorelines in danger.

Now, you shouldn’t get the wrong idea about the parks here, they are not the kind of kid friendly parks with play areas and all that. Rather the sort of parks with benches and a pleasant look to them that you rarely see anyone use except for walking through because they seem so artificial.

There is a dog park on the eastern end of Lido, which is little more than an enclosed space where dogs can be let off leash.

There are also some office buildings that seem pretty out of place and some kind of treatment plant located way out on the edge of the abutment as well.

Fully Alive Community Church is also out here right at the edge of marshy area near the plant. They offers a fairly active community resource for local residents. I don’t really know very much about it, but it seems like it is a helpful thing to have in a community.

The local school is Sandpiper Elementary. It gets great reviews and has an unblemished API.

Basically, this is a really wonderful spot right by the bay which most people would be more than satisfied with. I suppose with the real dangers of Global Climate change still a generation away, I might be willing take a risk on a nice spot like this. (Of course, affording it is a different matter altogether.)

Just to the north of the San Carlos Airport and at the west base of Redwood Shores, Dolphin is the neighborhood best known for being the home of EA Sports—the maker of such video games as the Madden NFL football.

This area used to be part of Marine World before it moved (to Vallejo?), and you can still see signs of this from the waterways/lagoons that remain and from the names of the streets (like Twin Dolphins Drive).

The EA facility is a fairly attractive spot with a bike path and a grass “labyrinth” keeping with the general gaming ethos of EA.

But EA is not the only company who calls Dolphin home. Dolphin is also home to:

--Fourth Dimension Software, which bills itself as the “leading” provider of travel industry software solutions.

--Coraid Inc, a data storage company founded by a former Cisco big wig.

--Assia, a DSL management service provider.

--Merced Management Systems, which provides “customer-facing management systems” to help companies communicate with their customer base.

--The Quinn Emanuel law firm’s San Francisco office. (They are a huge business law firm.)

It is not just business here, however. Dolphin’s proximity to San Carlos Airport and the Peninsula in general, also make
Dolphin a prime spot for hotels. The German hotel chain, for example, Sofitel, also has a luxury facility here right at the northern edge of neighborhood, looking north towards the Marine neighborhood. There are also some hotels on the southern end right by the edge of the airport.

Dolphin also offers several services to help those who work or want to work here, such as:

For those who commute into the area and need their pre-school kids near their work, there is Hoover Children’s Center, an excellent pre-school, daycare.

For those who are looking for work, there is Nelson Staffing, an employment agency servicing the area.

And there is Pacific Athletic for those who want to take in a swim or play some racquetball during their off hours. (There is also a 24-Hour Fitness less than a block away.) I believe they also have a full service spa.

There are also restaurants in this area though none of them are especially great. We are talking Togo’s and Amici’s Pizza—the kind of chain restaurants you can find in a million other places. And if you need to stop by the supermarket, there is a Nob Hill Foods in the strip mall where these other restaurants reside.

And it is not just offices and restaurants, here, there is also a residential area. On the south eastern end of the neighborhood there are a number of condominiums built in the early 1970’s. These condos tend to go for about $600K normally (though they list for a lot less when they are in foreclosure).

On the northeastern end of the neighborhood, you have a more traditional residential neighborhood with contemporary style homes (mostly looking like modified Ranch style homes) going for around $900K or there abouts. There are actually not many of these homes for sale in this area as far as I know, which is not surprising—it is an excellent location, with flat wide streets, and a cool Bay breeze to cool everyone off.

The schools are pretty strong in this area as well. Nesbitt Elementary, which serves the area, has an API of 7, which is above average (though not quite as strong as in some other Peninsula neighborhood schools).

Overall, I would say that this neighborhood has a lot going for it, from a strong business base to a good mix of residential choices. This would be an especially great place to live if you happened to work at one of the local businesses, such as EA or Oracle.

Westport is basically a big office park on the western end of Redwood Shores. There are 20 large office buildings arrayed across this area and surrounded by parking lots.

There are 3 main kind of companies that seem to make their home here, gaming companies, biomedical tech companies, and a general assortment of tech companies. (Exactly what you expect in the vicinity of Silicon Valley.)

For the first kind of company, you will find the following:

--Nintendo’s Nor Cal Office. The game maker may also have positioned this office here to be close to EA Sports whose HQ is just to the west of here.

--Trion Worlds, founded by a former EA big wig, and having several highly experienced game makers, this game maker is most famous for Rift and End of Nations video games but is poised to expand its offerings, including making TV shows.

In the second category, biotech, you will find:

--Proteus Biomedical, which is a leader in “intelligent medicine,” basically implants with computer chips and digestible monitoring devices.

--Counsyl, a gene test producer that combines a number of gene tests into one to find genetic problems such as Tay-Sachs and Krabbe diseases.

And then there are also the following tech firms:

--The HQ of Corticon Tech, a subsidiary of Progress Tech, that creates Business Management Software that automates decision making for large businesses.

--The Clickatell HQ is here too. Clickatell makes SMS (SaaS) solutions for mid-sized companies and has offices from here to South Africa.

--Merchante E-Solutions, a payment processing platform provider created by former BofA Merchant Solutions’ big wigs.

--Blackbox Network Services has an office here. Black Box creates network infrastructure applications. (Whatever that means.)

--Qualys, an information security company.

--Openlane, an online vehicle resale auction platform.

There is one company that is not directly involved in tech:

--Harvest Properties, a commercial real-estate investment firm.

All of this points to the driving engine of the Peninsula, the tech industry. This also gives you the reason why property values are so high here. With so many companies involved in the same general enterprise, there is a real value to having a company here, where you can get high quality workers from all over.

And, because many companies looked for a tech solution for HR problems during the Great Recession, it also points to the reason why real estate prices have remained so high on the Peninsula. Put simply, the tech industry didn’t really suffer very much from the Foreclosure Crisis.

Overall, a maybe only slightly above average office park.

Me and the BF came here to the Oakwood neighborhood this past weekend (as well as to Central, the neighborhood just to north of this one). Although I was under-impressed by Central, I actually really like parts of Oakwood. Both the residential areas of these neighborhoods have older homes which are on the smallish side.

The Oakwood neighborhood has been hit pretty hard by the foreclosure crisis with more than half of the homes here being on the market due to foreclosure.

This neighborhood however, borders affluent Atherton on its southern end, and as you get near it property prices and the quality of the homes rise in anticipation. So you will actually find a couple of million dollar homes down near Selby (the street that marks the border with Atherton).

So what do you get for $1.4 million in Oakwood? (The most expensive house we could find in this area.)

You get 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, a pool, a large backyard, about 3000 sq. ft. of floor space and a Clinton Era home that still seems to be in mint condition. (I would not have been surprised to hear it was only a decade old.)

Of course, that is way out of our league, since that would be about $8000 in mortgage payments per month, but you can always dream, I suppose.

Not all homes here are quite so expensive. Many homes—especially those older homes for sale due to foreclosures--have considerably lower price tags. (Around $500K for the most part.) Many of these other homes date back to the 40’s and are not quite as attractive as the high end homes nearer to Atherton.

In fact, there can be a fairly substantial difference between the homes on one block versus the homes on the very next block over. You can notice the patchy nature of this neighborhood by checking out the wild swings you find in rent prices as well.
For example, today we noticed that a 2-bedroom just off Carlos Ave. going for $3800 while just one block away there was a 2-bedroom for $2400. And that isn’t even the widest differences. There is a 3-bedroom condo on the western end of the neighborhood going for $7500/mo while on the eastern end 3-bedroom for just $2000/month.

This is not to say that these two apartments would be in any way equivalent. They are not. The one on the western end is a brand new apartment complex with a stonework façade, gated parking lot and really attractive balcony views—while the other 3-bedroom on the eastern end is one of those older boxy apartment complexes facing an uncultivated field, a tarped over pile of rubbish (as far as I can tell) and some fairly dingy looking homes.

That is the thing about this neighborhood. It’s like a box of chocolates, as Forrest would say, You never know what you gonna get.

(Except when it comes to the schools, which are pretty awful here with Selby Lane Elementary having an API of 3.)

Me and the bf checked out this place last weekend looking for some place that we might afford. We were attracted by the lower home prices. Of the 7 homes that we found here most were in the $300K to $500K range, which is sort of a sweet spot that we are looking for.

Unfortunately, the reason why these homes are so inexpensive (relative to Peninsula market prices), is because they are small and old. Most date back before WWII (some as far back as the 1920’s). In terms of size they are mostly around 1000 sq. ft. which is really little better than our current apartment.

Also, because they are old they have a rather dingy look to them. You feel sort of like you are staying in your grandparents’ house—you know the feeling, like the light seems to not quite make it to the corner of the room and everything just feels a bit dusty no matter how much you clean.

The local schools are pretty awful too, with Hawes Elementary having an API rating of 2.

One of the bright spots of the neighborhood, however, is Red Morton Community Park which has nice big fields for soccer and baseball, tennis courts and even a pool.

If you’re curious you can find studios in this neighborhood for about $1000 and 2 and 3 bedroom apartments/homes for just over $2000—so it is definitely an affordable place to live.

Steinberger is a relatively new neighborhood in the Redwood Shores section of Redwood City. This is the part of Redwood City that juts out into the San Francisco and which many climatologists believe may be underwater before the century is out.

This area is mostly made up of townhomes and condos built in the 1990’s. That means, of course, that most of the dwellings in this area are on the smaller side in terms of actual floor space (less than 2000 sq. ft.) for the most part.

About two of the five homes that are on the market here are on the market due to foreclosure. This is a nice area, though more well suited to single folks than those looking start families with more than one kid.

Much of Middlefield sprawls out from Woodside Road. Office parks, long strip malls, and construction yards straddle Woodside. Ugly streets shouldered by non-descript warehouse walls and metallic rolling doors greet the passerby, with little to distinguish one building from another except for the occasional business placard.

This is the kind of place that you go if you want to get patio furniture or go the drugstore. All those kinds of hum drum home owner necessities can be purchased in this kind of an area. You have an Orchard Supply store, a CVS Pharmacy and an Office Max. You also have a Finnish-American Sauna supplier, a doggie daycare and a concrete and landscaping service.

This is all useful stuff to have nearby, but not very attractive in appearance.

As far as the residential section of Middlefield, it is mostly made up of semi-dilapidated box style apartment complexes, which often feature concrete front yards and dark dingy stairwells that disappear back into long halls. Windows have a ramshackle appearance, and seem ready to fall out of their casements.

Put simply, this is a good place to buy things for your home, but not a good place to have your home.

I highly recommend this area for seabirds and for eggheads studying the effects of global.

This neighborhood is bit on the wet, marshy, and uninhabited side for most others however. On the other hand, I hear the schools of fish are excellent here, and that rent prices are as low as they get in the Peninsula.

Centennial is probably one of the least expensive places to live in the Peninsula—at least if we only consider the southern reaches of the Peninsula. The average home here is around $500 K as far as I can tell.

Centennial looks very much like a middle-class neighborhood. The homes here are a little bit on the worn side, having mostly been built in the 1940s and 1950’s as far as I can tell. This is a pick-up truck and mini-van neighborhood with lots of families and hardworking folks. It is the kind of area where you see kids play things, play areas and bicycles in front yards and where you see small groups of children playing. (Sometimes without the parents immediately visible on the day that I visited this neighborhood.)

The nicest area of this neighborhood is north of Whipple. The homes here are quieter and generally more well-kept than in on the southern end of Centennial.

The southern end of the neighborhood does have a really good park however. Mezes Park has really nice tennis courts, a good basketball court and great play area for small kids. This is definitely a plus for those with kids or who want to stay in shape without paying gym membership fees.

Centennial is also fairly centrally located with the Downtown area just to the south and the Redwood City Caltrain station within walking distance of the southern part of the neighborhood and biking distance of the northern end.

I’m not sure which school actually serves this neighborhood. There are some in the area that I hear are really great but then there are others which are pretty middle of the road overall. That would make a big difference in terms of deciding to live here with kids, especially if we were thinking of moving here for the long term.

One thing I do know is the high school—Redwood High School—is pretty awful with an API of 2 out of 10. I did a bit of research and found out that Redwood High School is also consistently missing its growth targets year after year—so it looks like a pretty bad situation.

That makes it a real drawback to live in this neighborhood.

Shearwater is a pretty new area. The school that is here, for example, was only constructed in 2010, so it barely has 2 years under its belt. (Despite this, Redwood Shores Elementary is getting exemplary scores and has an API of 10. Basically, it has hit the ground running.)

The homes in this area mostly date to the 1990s and have that bright high ceilinged look to them that you find in many home from that decade. Because of the bay side location, the price tag on these homes is mostly over $1 million.

As I mentioned in the review of the Marlin, the neighborhood just to the east, one of the concerns I would have buying a home here has to do with predicted effects of climate change on the area—namely that this place may be underwater before the 21st Century is out. I guess the worst of these fears are still pretty far off, but I would still worry that as the effects of climate change become more pronounced places like this will have their real estate prices plummet as others start to see them as risky bets. (Am I too soon to worry about this?)

Marlin rests just to the east of the commercial district where Oracle is located. As you can tell by the names of the streets, this is right by where the old Marine World used to be.

Most of the homes here are newer, dating from the 1980’s or later. (Marine World closed its doors in 1986 which probably increased building in the area.) There are number of 80’s style condos here—which account for many of the moderate prices.
There are also a fair number regular contemporary style homes, whose prices rise to close to $1 million in places. These are nice smaller homes which are fairly tightly built.

All-in-all, the prices are relatively moderate for bay front property. (Many of the homes have direct access to the waterways right from their backyards where they have their own private docks, and could, if they choose, have their own boats. Though it doesn’t seem like that many choose to take advantage of this opportunity.)

I was speaking to one of my environmentally inclined friends in my graduate program about this area. He drew my attention to fact that climate change is going to pose a real challenge to Redwood Shores—what these eastern Redwood City neighborhoods are called collectively. This entire area used to be marshlands apparently. But first Marine World in the 60’s and then further developers came along and claimed it.

The point though is that by current estimates this whole area is going to need some serious Amsterdam style defenses if we are to keep the whole area from going underwater during this century—especially if more marshlands are developed. In addition, Cargill also wants to get into the act and build even more on this area. (Check out the article link below.)

Though some on the Right like to believe that climate change is just a Left-Wing hoax, it is becoming increasingly clear that things are changing and maybe even at a faster pace than climatologists first believed--which is one of the reasons I would be wary of buying a property here. Once it becomes obvious that Climate Change is having its effect, the bottom is likely to fall out of bay side real estate like this. If you have a thirty year mortgage, you would be right in time for the worst of Climate Change’s effects.

So, although this is an attractive neighborhood I wonder how wise it is to put down roots here at this point.

In case, you want to read more about this consider the following article:
http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=5021

Like neighboring Canyon, Farm Hills is another hillside neighborhood with median home prices floating around $850K, though almost half are significantly over $1 million.

Some of the most expensive homes in all of Redwood City, however are up on the far western end of the oddly shaped neighborhood. It is up in these hills that you will find some of the newest constructions dating from the 90’s.

We drove up here and looked around. It is really beautiful and leafy--the kind of place that just exudes wealth without seeming pretentious or off-putting. You can tell that it costs a pretty nickel (there is a 6000 ft. home up here that is going for $2.6 million). But it is not gaudy.

(There is one home up here that has a miniature train track circling it—clearly made for the kids but looking to be for one of those toy trains on which you can actually ride—like the kind you might see at a fair. Pretty amazing.)

You will definitely get some pretty good views from here though you will also pay for them.

On the low end, the only kinds of homes that fall below $500K are condos and townhomes. Most of these are located at most southern end of Farm Hills, where you will find a number of them. The views are pretty good, but condos and townhomes don’t quite work for people with really young children, think because of the noise factor.

Most of the mid-level homes are along the lower end of Farm Hills on the eastern end. These homes mostly run around $800K to just under $1 million and date from the 50’s. They are well-kept and beautiful but way outside of our price range.
You would pay almost $6000/month in mortgage, which is not even remotely doable for one these houses.

This would definitely be a dream area in which to live, however. You have great schools, great views and a really leafy secluded neighborhood that is totally family centered, by all appearances. I would love to live here.

One of the drawbacks of the areas though would be having to drive down to town to get any little thing. You are just too far away from things to actually walk.

Also, I am given to understand by my friends who have lived in hillside homes that the maintenance requirements for living on woody hills are greater than on regular flat neighborhoods: fire clearing, erosion problems, mudslide worries, critters eating plants, skunks, etc.

It would definitely be worth it to live in a place like this, however.

Canyon is one of the western most neighborhoods in Redwood City, and like most places on the Peninsula the farther west you go, the farther up into the hills you go. This means 2 things, generally:

1. Pretty good views of the Bay.

2. Higher property prices.

In the case of Redwood City, it also means slightly newer homes than those in the neighborhoods just to the east. That is, homes from the 1950’s and 60’s rather than from the 1920’s and 30’s.

About a quarter of the homes for sale here are on sale for over a million dollars. We went to check one of these out and we can definitely see the reason for the eye popping price tag. Though it was built in the 1950’s, this house had been substantially renovated and looked more like a Reagan Era house than something from the Truman Era. It has beautiful wooden decks and really high ceilings—very classy looking on the inside, like you could invite the cast from Madmen over for martinis.

The median home in Canyon is around $850K with a handful of foreclosures marking the $500K low on the far eastern end of Canyon, while a $1.6 million home marks the high water mark at an undisclosed location in the hills.

But with a $1.3 million price tag—definitely not a home we will be purchasing anytime soon.

Another positive feature of this area is the school system. The local elementary for this area is Roy Cloud Elementary which is, by all accounts, truly outstanding.

Overall, this would be a pretty great place to raise a family.

The main feature of the Sequoia neighborhood is Sequoia High School—which is one of the two main high schools in Redwood City, and definitely the better of the two in Redwood City given that Redwood City High is one of the worst in the Peninsula.

The neighborhood also borders the downtown area so you are right by all the bars and restaurants. You are also right by the Caltrain Station so it is perfect for commuters, you don’t even need to hassle with your car—you can walk right to the station.
Like a lot of the neighborhoods in this section of Redwood City, it is mostly occupied by older homes dating back from before 1950. There are really fairly well-kept homes with a lot of older bungalow style homes—which are pretty cute.

One of my favorite streets in all of Redwood City is here—Broadway. Before it hits the Downtown area on the other side of El Camino, Broadway is kind of cool looking residential street for a couple of blocks, lined with trees and nicely kept older bungalows.

Just about all the houses around here seem to be on the market due to foreclosure, which is generally good for homebuyers, though kind of depressing given these clearly represent the dissolution of someone else’s dreams. Prices seem to go from below $400K to $800K approximately.

There are some apartments to rent here for around $1300.

In terms of all the basic necessities, you have them covered here too, with a Safeway and a Whole Foods right on El Camino. You also have an assortment of dentists, psychologists and car repair shops in the area. You even have an assisted living facility in the neighborhood. All of which is to say, that this is one of those suburban areas that covers all your basics.

For nightlife and entertainment you just have to keep following Broadway into Downtown and you can get plenty of that, which basically makes this a good spot for young couples who aren’t quite ready to completely settle down just yet.

This is basically a commercial area filled with office parks housing companies, the biggest and most well-known of which is the computer solutions company, Oracle. Oracle, in case you don’t know, is basically the third most profitable computer software corporation behind IBM and Microsoft. It is the the company that recently acquired Sun Microsystems. They have an impressive office park all to themselves, which happens to be the site where the old Marine World used to be (I am told by long time locals) back in the 80’s. (It is now in Vallejo?)

Oracle is just the biggest company here however. Besides Larry Elison’s little company, you can also find Silicon Valley
Finance and an office of Singapore Telecom.

If you don’t have any business to do here, however, you will not find much else except for a nice mom and pop deli called the Patio Café. Do not try it during the lunch hour on a weekday unless you want to hobnob with Oraclites rushing to catch a bite. It’s packed.

There are some restaurants inside the Oracle complex as well, from what I understand.

Other than this, there is not much to bring you here however beyond business.

Eagle Hill is sort of an extension of the Jefferson neighborhood. It is a very family friendly neighborhood with really good schools and nice sidewalks. It basically shares the same schools as Roosevelt so whether you decide to send your kids to the really good public schools—Gill Elementary, Kennedy Middle School or Sequoia High—or to one of the many private schools, you can’t really go wrong here.

One of the main differences, however is that this area is a little hillier and that the houses are just generally nicer kept than in Roosevelt. There are some pretty good views of the SF Bay from here.

So what does it cost to live here?

Homes here run around $700K or so. One or two might approach or even break the $1 million mark, and you might be able to find a few foreclosures for under $500 K (like in Roosevelt, more than half of homes in this neighborhood are on the market due to foreclosures).

Overall, this is definitely a good neighborhood in which to raise a family.

Great for egrets and insects.

Not so good for bears.

A bit underdevloped for humans--unless you are into swamps--literally into them.

Roosevelt is a large residential neighborhood right at the heart of Redwood City. There are a lot of homes for sale here.

The median price of homes seems to be about $600K with prices ranging from around $325 on the low end to $1.2 million on the high end (although both those ends are outliers—the vast majority of homes go from $400K to $800K).

The foreclosure crisis has hit Roosevelt really hard. 3 out of 4 homes listed here are on sale due to foreclosure—pretty depressing really, though, of course, it is an opportunity for potential home owners.

This is also a really old neighborhood. About ¾ of the homes date from before 1950. So there would definitely be maintenance issues with most any home you buy here as you would expect with any home that is more than 50 years old.


(There are also some fairly affordable apartments in the area right by the corner of Jefferson and El Camino. They run around $1300 for a one bedroom and $1900 for two bedrooms, which is pretty good for the Peninsula, although the apartment themselves are pretty old and run down.)

There are some positives about being in an older neighborhood, however. One of the best aspects of this neighborhood is that it is flat and has sidewalks, which makes it a good spot for having kids. It is basically a bike-able neighborhood in that sense.

Unfortunately the local elementary (John Gill) has an API of 3—which is pretty terrible. Though it seems to get better by the time you get to Sequoia High School which has an API of 8.

There are also a number of parks in the neighborhood, including Morton park with its soccer fields, baseball fields and tennis courts.

Overall, although not the most attractive of neighborhood, Roosevelt does definitely have some positives for a family.

Redwood City sometimes gets a little bit of bad wrap these days—especially when considered in comparison to some of its more hoity-toity Peninsula neighbors. Downtown Redwood City, however, is a pretty cool spot. The lower rents seem to make it a much easier sell for business owners.

Here’s what you can do in Downtown Redwood City:

1. Go to a really good restaurant. There are actually a number of them:

--Donato Enoteca: The best classy restaurant in Redwood City, this Italian restaurant really rocks it!

---New Kapadokia: A great Turkish place which I would also recommend.

---Tarboosh—a Mediterranean joint which I particularly enjoy.


2. Go to cool nightspot. There are actually more cool nightspots in Redwood City than a lot of places in Peninsula:

---The Redwood City Underground Pub: Just a classic pub scene with a pretty good crowd.

--The Living Room: A 90’s coffee house style bar (think Central Perk with beer); you know, red walls and couches.

---840: Really cool decorating—feels a little bit like you are in an underground wine cellar. Kind of romantic. Good date spot. Best cocktails in town.

--Sodini’s: The place to go if you want to torture people with your karaoke.

3. Shopping:

--Pickled: Somewhat pricey women’s clothing store. You can find some nice stuff.

--Old Navy: Yes, they have the usual suspects here as well in terms of chain stores.

4. Movie Theaters:

--The Century 20: Big megaplex—all the mainstream movies are here. Right now for example, Hunger Games and the remake of 21 Jump Street.

5. Family Fun: You are also by a lot of place to go just for outright family fun:

--Malibu Castle Golf: A humungous miniature golf course.

--Malibu Grandprix: Go Kart racing at it best!

--Batting Cages: Part of the same fun park area.

So put simply Downtown Redwood City has got it going on. It is definitely a destination for weekend fun.

So what about actually living in this area?

I couldn’t really recommend that. There is just too much going on and too little selection of places to live—although I can see the attraction of just walking to your favorite restaurants or bars rather than driving in.

An apartment around here is moderately priced for the Peninsula, with a one-bedroom going for $1450/month.

Overall, I would recommend living somewhere else and just renting a place here.

This is basically where you will find the Redwood City marina. There is not much here besides the sailboats and the marshland except for some condos that face out over them (almost like a micro-Marina-del-Rey).

We looked at the cost of living here, just on a lark (it wouldn’t really work for us but we were curious). You can rent a 3-bedroom condo here starting at $3000 and rising up close to $4000.

The views here though are not that spectacular, given that you are at a marina. I’m not sure it is really worth the bayside prices.

We came here this weekend to take a look around. We have been considering places that we could move this summer after our lease runs out. We have been looking for a house since we are now officially in a “family way.” We know we can’t really afford a home in Palo Alto or even in the surrounding areas and we have heard bad things about EPA and other areas so we are looking for places in Redwood City that might fit the bill.

We were visiting some friends who live in the apartments here so we took a look around at the houses. In Arlington, most of the apartments are by El Camino—a lot like in Menlo Park where we are now. Apartments here seem to be just as expensive as apartments in Menlo Park though. The only ones for rent that we could find right now were $2300 for a two bedroom, which I think is pretty high for an apartment.

We did see a little “house” for rent for $1300 but it had no yard and was super tiny, probably smaller than our apartment and didn’t look hospitable at all.

We looked around at some houses here too, but they were mostly way outside of our price range. There was an older home—I guess it is called a Cape Cod style house—which is on the market for just almost $2 million ($1.8 million), for example. It is really an attractive house, very quaint in an old school sort way, but that is not only not in the ballpark of our price range, it isn’t even in the same league as our price range. It’s a major league price—we are totally still in the minors.

More disheartening was that we saw a much less attractive house right by it, and it too was over $1 million. We figured out that to get that house we would have to pay over $6000/month. That is definitely not happening now or any time in the near future since that is way more than we make per month after taxes at this point.

This area of Arlington is pretty nice right around the middle of the neighborhood just off Edgewood Road. It is really leafy in kind of slightly uncontrolled way (some yards just look like a wall of green), but I would not at all have pegged it as a million dollar home neighborhood. There are sidewalks, which is nice because you want your kids to be able to walk places with you without being afraid you’re going to get run down and it is nice and flat which is nice also for the same reasons.

There were some condos for less than $500 K closer to El Camino on the eastern end of the neighborhood, but that doesn’t really seem to me to be much of a step up from an apartment to me—especially in terms of buying.

We did see one possibly way on the western end of the neighborhood that we need to look into further. It is still outside of our price range (close to $800 K) but at least we are not in million dollar territory anymore. It is smallish (1200 sq. ft.) but it has nice backyard and is on a nice shady street. Still, the payments would likely be around $4500/month and I don’t see us being able to swing that.

The other good thing about this area is the school system. I believe North Star Academy is the elementary that serves this area, and it is a superior school with an API of 10. Sequoia High is also really good—definitely one of the schools that keeps up the high standards of the Peninsula. So that is a definite draw to this neighborhood. There is at least one nearby daycare as well, when that should be necessary.

As to the other things you look for in a neighborhood, such as walkability, Arlington is within a mile of a Lucky and a Trader Joes. There are also a number of restaurants of the fast food and cheap variety right along El Camino (e.g., Carls Jr. and The Sandwich Spot).

There is even a pretty good bar nearby (“The Office”) and about a half dozen of them by the Cal Train station.
Overall, this would be a pretty good spot to find a house if we could find an affordable one.

West Atherton is probably the largest neighborhood in Atherton. Like the rest of Atherton, this is a really attractive area with rows of redwoods along lanes often dubbed with British sounding names like Faxon Forest, Aragon Park and Selby Lane (though these are usually mixed in with the usual Spanish Monte Vistas and Linda Vistas).

Atherton Avenue, with its automated gates and security intercoms, is perhaps the central lane in Atherton. This is where you will find many of the mansions that make up the crustiest of upper crusts in Atherton.

Home prices here run from $3 million on the low end to $45 million on the high end. How much of a difference is there between a $3 million dollar home and $45 million dollar one here?

The homes in the $3 million dollar range are located on the “mean streets” of Atherton, where millionaires only have one private jet and half a dozen patents to their names. You only get about 3500 ft. and a measly expansive orchard for a backyard--5 bedrooms and your own driveway.

Now for $45 million you get away from the riff-raff near El Camino Real, and get a real house: nearly 9000 sq. feet on an acre and a half of land. You can get a 1940’s mansion renovated to the Mediterranean style that is so popular now and offering 5 bedrooms, 5 baths and an amazing pool surrounded by attractive stonework.

Of course, in between those 2 extremes you will find a number of homes in the $7 million range. And they are very luxurious on the inside—marble counters and expansive kitchens.

By far the most attractive homes, however, are along Atherton Avenue. Here is where you find some of the oldest mansions in Atherton. There is one home there that seems fit to be a museum with rows of sculptures in the back garden and walks.

What about the other aspects of Atherton. It is, as you might expect, pretty safe and schools here, as in Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Mountain View for the most part, are outstanding. The local elementary is Las Lomitas and the middle school is Hillview.

West Atherton is also home to Menlo Business College, which is a private 4-year college—and Sacred Heart Prep School, a
Catholic K to 12 which is really well regarded.

Put simply then, West Atherton is a great neighborhood for families (if you are so well-off you can basically choose to live anywhere). For the rest of us, we can only hope to one day be so wealthy we can afford to live in such a place.

Lloyden Park is the Atherton neighborhood just to the northwest of the Caltrain station. This tiny neighborhood is really quite attractive, with woodsy streets and immaculately kept homes. The front lawns are invariably decorated with interesting patterns of topiary and more often than not have compelling accents like curving stepping stone pathways leading to the front walk or stretches of colonnade like driveways.

So what does it cost to live in this neighborhood? The average home around here will run you around $1.5 million—that is for a 1600 ft. home which is really beautiful. The larger homes, of course, are much more expensive.

Being so close to the Caltrain Station is definitely a bonus for commuters. That way you can head off to the high paying job that will pay for one of these expensive beauties.

Just north of Sharon Heights in Menlo Park, this is the hilly enclave of Atherton. Since in most neighborhoods homes prices tend to go up with the increase in altitude, you might expect that homes prices would also go up in Atherton. And that would largely seem to be the case if the current crop of home prices are any indication.

Right now there is a giant 18000 sq. ft. Tudor mansion for sale for $17.8 Million. The monthly mortgage payment on this silver spooned baby would be over $100K. Basically you could buy a million dollar home with one year of the mortgage payments for this house.

But that is not even the most expensive house up here. There is another house that will run you close to $20 million. It is high tech house powered by solar panels and having been constructed with all sorts of unusual materials and devices. It looks very minimalist in sensibility with sharp edges that make it look a little bit like an office building from the back.

These are the kinds of mansions that have game rooms, private screening rooms, gardens with flowing fountains and three car garages. They have intercoms at their front gates and worries for their safety because of the all the luxuries they enjoy.

And, as you would expect, the elementary school up here receives outstanding marks. In fact, even when you factor in for all the advantages that students get from being in an area so affluent that they spend $2000 extra to help educate their kids, this is still an amazing school. In other words, just as their parents are among the best of the best, so too are the kids’ academic performances.

Overall, this is yet another Atherton neighborhood that the rest of us can only hope to one day be invited to visit. It is clearly out of most people’s abilities to actually buy a home here, of course.

The best way to think of Menlo Oaks is as an extension of the Lindenwood neighborhood. Really, except for having streets that seems a touch wider than Lindenwood’s, it is pretty close to the feel of that neighborhood. Large, luxurious manor-like houses hidden behind high hedges on leafy streets.

Definitely another hideaway for the rich.

This is one of those neighborhoods that is nice to take a walk or jog in just so that you can get a glimpse of how the 1% live. The narrow streets here are so leafy you might be excused for thinking that you are farther south near Santa Cruz. Of course you are actually right at the doorstep of Silicon Valley, in what is obviously one of the most affluent areas in all of the United States and probably in the world.

The homes in Lindenwood, of course, project this affluence. They are large homes, almost manor-like in the appearance with thatched roofs, dormers, and driveways that horseshoe to the front of doors. These are the kinds of places whose guest houses are nicer than most of our homes and which have pools and fountains and gardens in their backyards.

This however is a completely residential neighborhood. If you want groceries or to go to a restaurant or anything like that, you have to go into either Menlo Park or Palo Alto.

So what does it cost to live here? Well there are no rentals in this area and when I looked up home prices I only found one place. It was a nearly 5000 sq. ft. home dating from the 50’s—really beautiful with a big back yard. Price tag: $4.5 million.
Your monthly mortgage payment on a home like this would be $26K. To put that in perspective, my rent for the year will come out to less than that.

Ah, well, one can always dream.

Of the neighborhoods in North Fair Oaks, this is by far my favorite. I’m not sure if I would call it a great neighborhood, but it does have a bit of character, which is what I like about it. Like in the rest of North Fair Oaks, this neighborhood too is filled with homes that date back to WWII. Unlike in the other neighborhoods in North Fair Oaks, however, these homes seem like they are a little bit better taken care of than the homes in those other neighborhoods.

It may simply be because a number of the homes are painted in bright colors and the paint jobs look as if they are well maintained or it may be that on the days when we were around there were people walking their dogs on the streets, I’m not sure, but this just seems like a little bit of more neighborly neighborhood, if that makes any sense.

I shouldn’t give you the wrong impression though. This is still a working class neighborhood and most of the homes here are pretty tiny—a lot of them are sort of like stripped down bungalows. But they just seem a little better cared for to me.

Unfortunately, the schools are still pretty lousy and there does still seem to be a bit of a crime problem here judged by the barred window and the way that people park their cars right up by their houses. And if you are one of those types who isn’t into mixing with Spanish speaking people, you are probably not going to like it here. But, imo, this is not too bad a spot.

Like the rest of North Fair Oaks, the neighborhood here is one of those worn down places where the homes date from around WWII. The poor schools and fears about crime make this not too desirable a neighborhood, though I suppose if you are single or are a group of male housemates you might find the neighborhood worth it so as to avoid the long commutes and get a serious break on your rent.

Apartments here run in the $1000/month range for studios and 1 bedrooms, but climb to $1800 for 3 bedrooms. Crime is a worry though. It is the kind of place where you don’t leave anything someone might desire readily visible in your car and where you make sure you keep the blinds down to the outside so people don’t get a good look into your house.

One bright spot though is that although the Taft Elementary isn’t great here (especially compared to the outstanding schools of Palo Alto and Mountain View), I here that the school here is making progress and is much improved from just a couple of years ago. I don’t know if that would be enough to give me enough confidence to send my kids here, if I had them, but it is certainly better than Fair Oaks elementary.

There are a number of Mexican restaurants here and a serviceable sports bar as well, but nothing that you would drive into the area for—more the kind place you might end up in if you happen to be driving through than the kind of place you seek out.

All in all, not that desirable a neighborhood.

Ampex is actually a big data storage company in this neighborhood that makes devices for “data capture” that can function in “demanding environments” like at sea, in the air, or in remote areas on land. (Sounds like they have some defense contracts.)

Now I haven’t been in this neck of the woods for that long (it will be one year in the summer) but I have never, ever heard of anyone calling this area Ampex. I think most people just consider this to the commercial area by Redwood Village.

This is definitely one of those ugly commercial areas with office buildings and parking lots and not much else—at least on its northern end by the Bayshore Freeway. This is definitely not the kind of neighborhood anyone goes into for any reason other than business. I’m not sure there are even any restaurants to feed the office workers who commute here every day to man their cubicles.

There are lots of repair shops, and places like paint shops and upholsterers.

This is north of Spring Street.

South of Spring Street you get an older residential neighborhood made up of 50’s (or older) Ranch homes and sort of dingy apartment buildings. We actually almost got a place in North Fair Oaks this summer. It was one of those boxy apartment complexes not that different from the place we ended up getting except that it and the entire street it was on had this sort of depressing run down look. It is the kind of area where people use bed sheets as drapes (and occasionally card board boxes) so we kept looking.

That turned out to be the right choice. North Fair Oaks, I have since learned, has a bit of a crime problem and is not the best place to live. Overall, I am much happier with our apartment which is about the same price ($1100/month) and is in a much nicer spot. I don’t think I would like to live here.

And I hear the schools are not very good either. Fair Oaks Elementary, I’m sorry to say, has bottom basement test scores.

Not to be confused with the SoCal city of the same name, Ventura in Palo Alto is one of the more student friendly areas with a pretty strong commercial section as well.

Let’s start with the commercial section. On the northeast end of Ventura is a commercial area anchored by the offices of Cloudera, some kind of “enterprise software firm” devoted to “Apache based Hadoop software and services.” I am quoting because I have no idea what that means. I assume from their name that they also do some kind of cloud computing, or because they have their head in the clouds, I really don’t know. I do know that another company in the area is Danger, Inc—part of Microsoft—which is best known for “Sidekick” some kind of cloud storage app which notoriously lost users data a couple of years ago.

Another company in Ventura is Playdom, a social media game maker in the style of Zynga, which as far as I can tell seems to make knock-offs of popular games like Civilization for social media. (Their version is City of Wonder.)

This location also seems to have a high percentage of auto shops with at least a half dozen that I counted, and a bunch of stores as well, including the Teak Patio, Kelly Moore Paints, Mike’s Bikes and Gryphon Stringed Instruments (which has great, though pricy guitars and also offers lessons—don’t forget we are in Grateful Dead territory here).

Of course, whenever you get this many businesses packed into one location, you will also find a number of restaurants looking to feed at the economic troth as well. Thus, for those who don’t want to head up to the Mecca of S. California Avenue where great iconoclastic restaurants abound, there is Hunan Garden, Baja Fresh, Boston Market and probably my favorite in Ventura, the pricy Straits Café—a Singaporean fusion restaurant.

With all this business on its northern end, you should not overlook that Ventura also has a residential area on its southern end that is largely made up of older Ranch and Mission Revival style bungalows dating from the mid to early 20th century by all appearances.

What does it cost to live here?

A one bedroom around here will run you about $1550 around here—which was too expensive for us, but is relatively affordable by Palo Alto standards, which explains why we know of at least two other students from my program that found homes here.

It’s a nice spot—relatively close to campus and with stuff to do nearby (including the Cinearts movie theater). I can certainly understand why it is so popular among students.

This is yet another Eichler neighborhood, filled with that Nor Cal architect’s classic low roofs, exposed beams, and recessed entryways. This is not quite as impressive a neighborhood as the Fairmeadow neighborhood but Greenmeadow definitely does have its charms. As I have mentioned elsewhere I am a real fan of these Eichler style homes when they are well-kept, and I think they work especially well when they are all next to each other in a neighborhood. Unlike other home styles, like Ranch homes which just look really bland and indistinguishable, I find that Eichlers, for whatever reason, retain their individuality, even when placed next to each other in this way.

Greenmeadow is relatively well kept. There are faded front lawns and some less than immaculate paint jobs here and there, but overall, it is a pretty good spot. This is not really a renter’s neighborhood. Right now there is only one home for rent that I can find. It is $1800 for a 2-bedroom, which is pretty good by Palo Alto standards where you usually have to multiply the number of rooms times $1000 and then add an extra thousand just for the convenience of being in Palo Alto.

This is pretty much suburban Palo Alto, so you have all the usual conveniences and mediocrities that come with that: strip malls, bland restaurants, daycare, fast food. It’s not exciting but it is practical.

There is also the Cubberley Community Center on the eastern end of this neighborhood. It is home to several local groups including the Chinese reading room, the Friends of the Library, and a dance group that puts on classes. The location also used to be home to Cubberley High School, which those who are familiar with the book and film The Wave will recognize as the high school where that thought experiment took place. (Basically, a local high school teacher managed to recreate a Nazi style movement among suburban tenth graders in just one week.)

Overall though, a pretty bland, fairly forgettable neighborhood by Palo Alto standards.

The restaurants and fun don’t end north of University either. You have an almost equally great selection of restaurants and nightlife as in University South on the northern side. In fact, I just realized that some of the restaurants that I mentioned in my review of University South are actually north of University.

In my apologies to both places I will now correct my error, giving restaurants on the northern end of University Ave to Downtown
North and the restaurants on the south of University Avenue to University South:

Here then are my top 10 favorite restaurants in Downtown North:

10.Crepevine: I know it’s a chain and all, but the crepes are good, I love the potatoes, and the portions are big. It is just a great value.
9.Baclava: One of the three Mediterranean food places on my list. I like this one a lot but Evvia is just superb.
8. Sancho’s Taqueria: Great tacos; great burritos—‘Nuf said.
7.Kanpai: Though the competition isn’t stiff (Palo Alto is not a great sushi locale), Kanpai is definitely the best sushi place in Palo Alto. Try the “chef’s special” if you are feeling adventurous, and the University Rolls if you just want something solid (it is salmon and tuna).
6. Café Renzo: Definitely my favorite Italian place in Downtown North.
5. Darbar: There are lots of great Indian places throughout the Bay Area. This is probably the best one in Palo Alto. Favorites: Chicken Tikki Masala and Samosas/
4.Oren’s Hummus: Okay, so you have to be into hummus, but if you are or if you have a vegetarian friend who is, Oren’s should definitely be a stop on your trip downtown.
3.Zibbibo: This is the second Mediterranean place on my list. Though for me, this place is mostly about the salmon sandwich.
2.Joya: This is just an outstanding Tapas bar. I love coming here because it reminds me of my time abroad.
1.Evvia Estautario: I love Mediterranean food and this is a really great place, much more than just gyros. Favorite Dish: Lamb Souvlaki.


Unfortunately, North Downtown Palo Alto rivals University South in virtually everything else as well, including rents and home prices. A one-bedroom apartment in North Downtown will cost you over $2000/month.

A condo here will cost you ¾ of $1 million while anything else will quickly pass into the million dollar range.

Like University South, this is a good neighborhood to get a bite, go shopping or catch a movie, but not really for living.

Ahhhh! University South.

Let’s just start with the restaurants. There are a ton of great ones here. Here are my top ten:

10. The Three Seasons: My spot for Vietnamese food. Favs are garlic noodles and spring rolls.
9.Shokalaat: Great lunch spot. Sit in there little veranda area, have some crab cakes, a good sandwich, and a diet killing desert! Ohhhh, I just gained 5 pounds thinking about it.
8. Gyros Gyros: Cheap lamb and beef gyros. ‘Nuf said.
7. St. Michael’s Alley: Okay, I’ve not been here but I have heard absolutely amazing things. Just from what I’ve heard puts this place in the number 7 position. It might actually be much higher if I ever actually get to eat here at some point.
6. Osteria: Got to have an Italian place on the list even though I’m not impressed with the Italian selections in Palo Alto. This is the best one, moderately priced and pretty yummy. It is our go to place when we feel like Italian, which is about once a month.
5. Cafe Renaissance: Great Persian place--well the only Persian place. Favs: dolmas, OSH soup, and pomegranate chicken, and lamb wraps. Yum!
4. Mango Caribbean: Ya man, try the jerk chicken here. It it totally rocks!
3. Cafe 220: This is just best Mediterranean place in University South, bar none. I've not run across anything on the menu I didn't like.
2. Mantra: Darbar's University South competition,this is a swanky Indian place--very tasty.
1. Pampas: Brazilian BBQ! This is definitely what they serve in heaven.

Okay, so this is definitely where you go for eating in Palo Alto. What else do they have here?
Bars:

The Wine Room, Gravity and Vino Vino: Wine bars are the staple of Palo Alto bars. These are the three best.
You also have a lounge (Scotty’s), some sport’s bars (the Old Pro), and the closest you get to a dive bar in Palo Alto (the Nut House).
You also have lots of clothing boutiques, from Anthropologie to independent stores.

But the real standout of area for cinephiles like me is the Stanford Theatre, which is one of the those great, old movie palaces from the golden age of cinema. It is a revival house, so you get to experience old movies the way they should be. (Given how few of these are still in existence this is really a local treasure.) This weekend, for example, you can watch the double feature of Joseph Mankiewicz’ People will Talk, with Cary Grant in the lead, and the 1939 Ginger Rogers/David Niven flic, Bachelor Mother. You’ve probably not heard of these and that is the great virtue of the Stanford Theatre, a real commitment to movie history—not just the classics, like next weekend when they are showing Olivier’s Richard III and Othello.


Okay, so this is definitely the place to go for food and to catch a classic flic. But what about living here?

Renting is pretty tough. A one-bedroom starts at about $1800 on the low end and can go up as much as $3000. A two-bedroom is even steeper, with prices ranging from $2300 to $5500. Needless to say, we rapidly gave up on trying to find a place here.

Thinking of buying instead? Well, a condo here could run you nearly a million dollars. And a 1600 foot home will run you $2.5 million. Put simply, you would have to put a really high premium on proximity to campus.

So, in a nutshell, I would say this is a great place to visit, but who could afford to live here?

Like a lot of this area to the south of campus, Palo Alto Orchards is a really nice residential neighborhood. Kind of tiny really, just a handful of blocks with nice, often newer, homes.

There are some apartments on the northern end of this neighborhood that we checked out when we were looking for apartments this summer. The prices were something like this, $1500 for a studio, $2000 for 1 bedroom, $3100 for a 2 bedroom. But you did get a pool for your troubles.

There is a Montessori School at the northern end of the neighborhood where a lot of local parents leave their really young kids when they head off for work every morning. On El Camino there are a couple of hotels, rental car places and a Hobee’s Restaurant. It’s that kind of a scene over by that location.

You definitely have all the conveniences of the suburbs in this area, from supermarkets to chain restaurants like La Salsa (which I love). There is not much in terms of nightlife here, however.

Overall, yet another nice, though not an outstanding Palo Alto neighborhood.

The name kind of says it all: Palo Alto Hills. This is indeed the hilly part of Palo Alto where the richest of the rich can get some space from those millionaires down in the lowlands and hobnob with the their filthy rich neighbors in Los Altos Hills just to the east. I mean, nothing is more gauche than having to rub elbows with someone who may only have made six digits last year. Ick!

This is definitely pool and tennis court territory. Most of the large homes up here have either one or the other (or, of course in many cases both, why should you have to choose?)

And, of course, should you get bored with practicing your serve or taking laps in your pool you can also head over to the Palo Alto Hills Golf and Country Club for some holes of golf as well. So in terms of recreation, they definitely have you covered.

So what does it cost to live in Palo Alto Hills? Well right now you can find about a half dozen homes for sale up in dem dar hills.
On the low end, the cheapest home will run you $3.6 million. What do you get for that sum? You get a 5 bedroom house with 3 decks and your own personal theater so that you don’t have to head into town to catch a movie.

I know what you’re thinking: What a dump!

On the high end, the most expensive Palo Alto Hills home currently on the market is a $7.9 million Mediterranean style home (think Tuscan vacation home). You might as well round up to $8 million I think though—what is $100,000 after all. For $8 mil you can get 1.3 acres, your own vineyard, 3-car garage, 4 bedrooms, 8 baths, a pool, and some pretty impressive Mediterranean style architecture.

What, no home theater?

Of course, in terms of nightlife, or even basic needs, this is pretty much the boonies. You will have to get in your car and trek down to civilization for even your groceries. It’s just you and the other millionaires up here. Pretty nice, but pretty remote.

Put simply, I don’t see the BF and I moving up here any time soon.

Green Acres is a nice little neighborhood just to the south of Barron Park. This is a tiny strip of a Palo Alto neighborhood filled with a fairly even mix of Eichlers and ranch houses. Both are really well-kept like in most neighborhoods in Palo Alto.

There are also some apartments right at the edges of Green Acres that we happened to check out this summer. A one-bedroom apartment around here starts at about $1500/mo. but will sometimes run as much as $2000—which explains the reason why we decided to go with our current place instead.

As to buying a home in the area, I don’t know. There are none that I know of currently for sale in Green Acres and we weren’t looking to buy back then.

As to schools and all the rest of it? This is pretty much suburban living. Great Palo Alto schools in the area, including Briones Elementary right at the heart of the neighborhood and Terman Middle School just to the south. Not much nightlife and that sort of thing in the area, but you are only a five minute drive from University Avenue and what Palo Alto has to offer.

Overall a pretty typical Palo Alto neighborhood—maybe a touch below average.