Thinking about Moving to the East Bay?

Making a move—across the Bay or across the country—provokes flutters of excitement, anticipation and nerves. What’s right for your career? What’s right for your family? What’s right for your finances?

This information is intended to help you decide that the East Bay can work for you. It:

• paints a picture of the diverse communities that form the East Bay;
• gives you a taste of what life here might look like;
• provides information about our unique housing market;
• gets you started on buying or renting a home here.

The San Francisco Bay area is packed with events, the arts, organizations, technology, housing, restaurants, public transit, film festivals, hiking trails, dog parks, water sports, and international icons. It is one of the most dense areas of the country, yet it’s surrounded by an extensive greenbelt of parks and wilderness areas that famed outdoor photographer Galen Rowell considered unsurpassed in the world.

The East Bay offers little tract housing, but a wide range of architectural styles, with arts and crafts bungalows, classic California ranches, and contemporary homes hidden amid redwoods and madrone predominating. Apartments and condos vary from hundred year-old fourplexes on Ashby Avenue with extensive redwood paneling and built-in cabinets and bookcases throughout, to sleek units in Alameda overlooking the San Francisco Bay and city skyline.

Communities near Boalt Hall and the University include the coastal cities of Richmond, Albany, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont and San Leandro, and communities “through the tunnel” on the other side of the coastal hills—Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga and Walnut Creek. Those along the water share great views, classic homes and easy transit within the East Bay and to San Francisco, while those through the tunnel offer more contemporary housing and access to the new business centers of Pleasanton, Walnut Creek, San Ramon and Danville. Some households locate between the Bay Area and inland worksites such as the University of California at Davis or the State Capitol in Sacramento, or between the East Bay and Silicon Valley.

Recognizing the perils of generalizations, East Bay life is filled with the outdoors, high tech, great food, fabulous weather, and myriad specialty bookstores. The San Francisco Bay area attracts cutting edge thinkers and doers. The arts scene spans the range from haute-end to underground, from traditional arts to video and electronic art to the spoken word to music. Our internationally known talents (people like Michael Chabon and Kent Nagano) have kids at our schools and they shop at our grocery stores. Berkeley alone sports a dozen year ‘round theater organizations.

We enjoy a world-class grape-growing region a good half hour to the north, and one of the top ten cities in the world just 10 minutes across the bay by rapid transit. Coastal Canada, Hawaii, Alaska, Thailand and China beckon our vacationers. Our restaurants beat the competition from other parts of the country hands down. We cheer on two major league baseball teams, two major league football teams, one major league basketball team, and one major league soccer team.

Not into team sports? The East Bay’s unique location vis a vis the air masses off shore and in the Central Valley mean that the Berkeley and Emeryville marinas offer the most challenging windsurfing in the country. Legions of cyclists set out each weekend morning to climb hills or head out to the rolling terrain of Marin County, take in the views and perhaps indulge in Peet’s coffee at the end of the ride. Swimmers make their daily laps a lifelong commitment, facilitated by the dozens of heated public and private outdoor pools peppering the East Bay. Lake Tahoe and its winter skiing and summer watersports and hiking are an easy three hours away. Sailing, pickup basketball, roleplay gaming, book clubs—our active lifestyle supports it all. In fact, our active lifestyle converts into lower rates of obesity and smoking than those in other states. We live longer!

We’re diverse. Bilingual education takes on a different meaning in a classroom that might include speakers of a dozen languages. When you go to the DMV to get your license, you’ll wait with other Californians from dozens of countries. Sure, we’re a salad bowl, but we’re also a new version of melting pot, with probably the largest proportion of multi-ethnic households in the country. In a majority-minority state, chances are that kids will feel comfortable inside and outside their classrooms.

Perhaps the best way to get up to speed on the East Bay is to read our media. The following are great sources of inside information about what’s up in the East Bay:

Our Housing

The East Bay offers everything from huge brown-shingle or stucco mansions with lots of windows and many bookcases to quaint cottages and sleek apartments, with everything in between. Homes are often surrounded yearlong by red bougainvillea, clear-blue agapanthus, or decades-old geraniums. Those used to large backyards may be surprised by the smaller lots of all but the most exclusive homes in the Bay Area (homes through the tunnel often have larger lots).

There’s no doubt that housing is expensive in the East Bay (and the Bay Area more broadly); residents have concluded that the benefits of living in this vibrant and beautiful area outweigh the differential costs of living. Many of the area’s city websites include detailed information about housing options, loan programs and new rental developments—in addition to community calendars and year-round things-to-do. See the sites below for more information, and explore San Francisco Chronicle columnist Sam Whiting’s interviews with notable neighborhood residents to get a sense of the look and feel of the East Bay’s neighborhoods.

Certainly, those who were able to invest in homes in the last decade have benefited tremendously from the double-digit appreciation gains of the past several years. When the power of leveraging is taken into account, the gains on down payments may have surpassed 1,000 percent during the past eight years. While many assume the market will slow in coming years, economists predict a continuing housing construction shortfall of about 50,000 units-a-year compared to need. Nevertheless, for those who weren’t able to ride the appreciation elevator, securing the resources to purchase a home can be challenging.

Many who relocate to take a job are provided relocation assistance for their household’s home purchase, which can include forgivable loans for downpayment assistance, shared equity investments, or below-market rate financing. State and local housing agencies offer downpayment assistance for households with surprisingly high incomes. Many newcomers decide to rent for the short- or long-term: 58 percent of Bay Area households owned homes in 2000, a figure lower than only the metro areas of New York, Los Angeles and San Diego.

No matter what the tenure, homes in California are often smaller than those in other areas. This translates into lower operating costs to accompany the lower transportation, heating and cooling costs we enjoy, attributable to the climate and transit- friendly community design.

The California Association of Realtors (CAR) 2005 forecast expects that the median home price in California will increase 15 percent to $522,930 in 2005 compared with a projected median of $454,720 this year, while sales for 2005 are projected to reach 603,700 units, falling 2.5 percent compared with 2004 (which in turn was up nearly 3 percent over 2003).

Our Schools and After-School Life

As in many urban areas these days, schools and housing costs are perhaps the most challenging issues our residents and employers face. Both the state of California and the federal government track school performance, and websites covering the evaluations of East Bay school districts (together with other kid-friendly sites) are listed below.

Private schools are plentiful, and students with special needs are well served, in part through a cooperative agreement, by the school districts in the area. After-school programs are abundant in all districts, and most schools offer after-school enrichment classes as well. The slots in the Lawrence Hall of Science after-school and weekend classes at UC-Berkeley are highly prized, as are those at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and at various arts, writing, chess, gymnastics, roleplay, swimming and music schools and clubs in the area.

Summer leaves time for kids to “hang” during our six months of rainless, 70° to 90°-temperature days. In addition to a myriad of week-long summer classes and camps, the University of California organizes special camps for gifted students recommended by their classroom teachers, and most cities in the East Bay retain camps in the Sierra. These in-holdings date from the early years of the last century, and offer kids-only or family camps, generally on a weeklong basis, with all food, activities and child care included.

Getting Started—Buying or Renting

Prudential California Realty offers several tools that can help you better understand markets and values in the East Bay. Our website, www.prurealty.com (click on California), offers:

• a Relocation Kit;
• a property search function for all available listings (not just those of Prudential) throughout the Bay Area, including hotlinks to MLS information sheets;
• Listing Watch, which allows you to enter parameters for an ongoing search, and see new listings as they hit the market;
• Open House Watch, which does the same for newly scheduled open houses; and
• Seller's Watch, which forwards you actual sales price information as deals in your target area close.

Those interested in renting should make two early stops—at the University’s housing office (see http://calrentals.housing.berkeley.edu/ ) and at http://www.craigslist.com. Craig’s List has quickly become the one-stop-shop for the Bay area, and the East Bay is heavily represented in the housing listings and discussion groups. Newcomers often rent for several months before making a final buying decision, so I also can help you locate a home to rent, giving you time to pick the your perfect home.

If you’d like to get a better handle on the buy vs. rent calculation for the East Bay, consult MSN’s http://houseandhome.msn.com/calculators/rentorbuy1.aspx, among the few calculators that take into account federal tax rates and mortgage interest and property tax deductibility.

Feel free to contact me with any questions you might have as you consider whether the East Bay should be your new home. I look forward to helping you settle into the East Bay!

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