Thinking about relocating to Santa Cruz/Aptos area...what are the condos like there? Hows life there?

Very expensive

Ce: Santa Cruz and Aptos ae relatively expensive places to live. The average for a 2 bedroom condo is about $1600/month. Being that Santa Cruz is on the Monterey Bay, temps are comfortably cool in the summer. The Santa ruz Beach Boardwalk is a popular coastal amusment park. About 45 miles to the south are the attractions of Monterey and Carmel. The closest big city is San Jose (30 miles northeast of Santa Cruz) where you find the typical big city amenities including performing arts(ballet, opera, symphony, theater) as well as museums, restaurants, shopping, etc. Check out the following websites for more information about Santa Cruz, Aptos, and the surrounding area.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
www.sanjose.org
www.monterey.com
www.carmelbythesea.com

The scenery is beautiful, the redwoods are right there, the beaches aren't great for swimming - cold water, undertoe, great surfing though. The politics tend to be pretty liberal. There are lots of vegetarians, vegans, left over hippies, neo-hippies, etc. UCSC is a very liberal university. Lots of tourists in the summertime, mostly locals the rest of the year. It's a good area for commuting on a bicycle - lots of bikelanes and pathways. Moderate weather - rainy winters, sunny spring and fall, foggy summers. It rarely gets below 40° or above 80°F. There is some tech industry, a lot of tourism, commerical industry, fishing. As other people have said, it's expensive to live there. Seperated from the Bay Area by a mountain which means it's close enough to go over the the BA anytime, but it keeps it's own identity.

I thought about replying to your post by saying that Aptos is a horrible place to live, just to keep our small town small but that wouldn't be the right thing to do.
I've been lucky enough to have lived in Aptos for 20 years and I wouldn't live anywhere else.Yes it is pretty expensive to live here but you get what you pay for. A 2 bedroom condo for rent goes for 1,200 to 1,500 a month. To buy around 395,000 to up to 500,000 if it has an ocean view.
Aptos is just the perfect small town IMO. We have the redwoods and the ocean. Our beach is one of the nicest on the whole California coast. You can walk for miles and miles. We get alot of fog in the summer but it burns off by noon. Compared to the rest of Santa Cruz we have very little traffic. Everything you need is located right in the village, banks, movie theaters, grocery stores, restaurants etc. We have very little crime and the politics tend to be liberal to moderate.
Hope this helps you. There truly is not a day that goes by that I'm not thankful to live here.
p.s. remember that it is Ap-taws not Ap-toes and you'll be just fine.