Mulford Gardens

The definite highlight of Mulford Gardens, is the San Leandro Marina on its western end. The marina has almost 500 berths, a couple of yacht clubs, some restaurants and a hotel. There is also what I hear is a pretty nice golf course just next door where you can take in some holes while taking in the bay views.

Inland to the east of the marina is an odd looking neighborhood made up of unusual looking homes dating from before WWII. The neighborhood is sort of flat and something about the spacing between the houses feels sort of off in terms of what we usually expect in this kind of an urban setting. It may simply be that when this neighborhood was built back in the day, it was not as urban so homes were set up farther apart.

Rents around here run about $2300 for a 4-bedroom house--$1300 for an apartment. The median price for homes here is around $275 K, with homes selling for between $200 K and $500 K. Just about every home for sale here is currently on the market due to foreclosure—a bad sign in terms neighborhood coherence.

One way that you see this reflected is in the poor school performance metrics, with the local elementary being below average and the local high school (Lincoln) being abysmal. This is not the kind of school to which you want to send your kids.
In terms of crime, there have been about 2 dozen assaults in the neighborhood in the past 6 months. Which is not only about 1 assault per week, relatively safe.

So to put it simply: Mulford Gardens is a good neighborhood to go if want to take in some holes or to house your yacht, but if you are looking to have a family, this doesn’t really cut it.