Help! Possibly relocating to SV area. Looking for suggestions of towns to check out. Have kids. Enjoy outdoor activities. Like to be able to walk to store, etc. Office will be in southern valley area. Going out this wkend for initial look. Presently living in Chicago, but have also lived in CO, FL, SO Cal, MN. Liked CO the best so far.

Since you will be working in the south end of the valley, San Jose, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Morgan Hill or Gilroy would probably be the most convinient. Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Campbell, Mountain View, and Palo Alto are nice places, but you would have a bit of a commute to south San Jose.

Where you choose to live is often times based more on economics than your preferences since housing costs are so high here. San Jose, Morgan Hill, and Gilroy tend to have lower housing prices than Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, Mountain View, Santa Clara, etc.

There are a lot of people who commute in from Pleasanton and Tracy, although that is quite a long drive.

Economics is a key issue. If you can only afford a $500,000 house, telling you about areas where everything is $800,000 won't be of much help.

www.mlslistings.com has a decent search page and can give you some ideas of real-estate prices.

I think of SV as stretching from north San Jose up to Redwood City; other might include south San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont. If the office is in south San Jose, the commute is quite different than Santa Clara or north San Jose.

Be aware that the current slump has cut back a lot of the traffic problems and created lower rental rates (but hasn't really cut house prices); a tolerable commute may get bad in a hurry if some of these empty office buildings fill up again.

Check out Willow Glen - a neighborhood in San Jose. Very quaint cottage houses with a true neighborhood shopping strip with shops and restaurants. Good schools too.

Campbell and Sunnyvale are also very close to South San Jose - as well as Los Gatos.

I wouldn't venture into Gilroy or Morgan Hill unless you are price driven. It's cheaper there, but quite a commute.

What street is the business on - perhaps that will help us pin it down. San Jose is a huge city (though mostly suburban).

Thanks for the input thus far. To narrow it down a bit, it sounds like the office will be in Mtn View, Sunnyvale, or Santa Clara. House price range is definitely closer to 500k than 800k - although we will be renting for the next year to year and a half. So...any suggestions based on this info? Any favorite towns within a reasonable commute to Sunnyvale/Mtn View/Santa Clara that MIGHT have a house for around 500k (yes, I have already checked out real estate listings-ughh)???? Thanks again.

We have been pricing properties and have found some great ones in Redwood City in the $600K range (we are city dwellers and that is as far south as we can imagine being from the San Francisco). It is a bit north of where you are looking but has good schools! Very nice city, but again the commute is a factor.

The rental market is A LOT better for renters then it was a year or two ago.

Sunnyvale, Mt View, and Santa Clara all zoned far more office space than they did housing, with the result that housing prices are high, and commutes into the area a bit annoying. Years ago, I figured that if you took the equivalent house and placed it varying distance from your zone, the difference in price (translated into mortgage payments) corresponded to the extra commute time at about a typical engineer hourly rate.

Really nice areas are extremely priced. There aren't any really bad areas - no such thing as an abandoned house around here. The proportionate prices pretty much reflect the desirability of the neighborhood and convenience of commute to your target area. Schools have quite a bit of influence on prices; some of the immigrant communities place high importance on schools, and as a result prices are unusually high in certain school districts (Cupertino is primary example). East Palo Alto is probably the most dysfunctional school district in the area.

If you don't have a pile of IPO money to work with, you might consider Milpitas or the Berryessa area of San Jose. While Willow Glen, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Los Gatos etc are very nice, they are also quite expensive (If you find a cheaper house in those places, it probably has a freeway in the back yard, or a 4-lane street in front).

How old are your kids?

The most important consideration would be the public schools. Some school districts outshine others: Cupertino, e.g. or some single school may be better in an otherwise so-so school district.

I'd check into which school district you plan to move into. Critical for your kids!

The traffic here is really bad so you may want to really take that into consideration. There are a lot of apartments in santa clara and sunnyvale so you should have no problem finding something there that's nice. That's good that you are going to rent for a year. Check craigslist.org if you want to get a house to rent, the rates have really gone down. I would avoid the fremont/newark area. They're fine as in safe and clean but have no originality very boring - but perhaps good for kids. Just a warning though I live in fremont 94538 portion and commute to santa clara it takes me anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour to get to work and back (19 miles).

The peninsula is definetely nicer and has more character but the housing is more expensive.