We recently had the pleasure of meeting with our San Francisco and San Jose consultants to gain perspective on local trends of the Bay Area. It was interesting to find out the biggest factor impacting the desirability of a neighborhood during home finding is weather! It can be foggy and rainy in one neighborhood all the time, while gorgeous and sunny in the next. If this happens during a visit, it can seriously impact the perception of a certain neighborhood. Another trend our consultants have noticed with incoming, international assignees is they desire newly built properties, but find upon arrival that they are few and far between. The majority of neighborhoods have older housing. Newer builds are rare, unless something else was torn down.
The Bay is notoriously difficult to get around, but one solution for transport has been the CalTrain. It’s super easy, and immensely popular among techies who want to experience all the benefits of living in San Francisco while working in Silicon Valley. They even have a “bike car” for those who bike to the train station, and then bike to work. Plus, Wi-Fi is coming to the train cars soon! If you can’t make the train, then most tech companies have shuttle buses that travel through neighborhoods in San Francisco and Bay cities, and travel to Silicon Valley.
A littler further south, the cities of Santa Clara, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale are quaint towns within close proximity, influenced by Spanish culture and architecture. There is a high concentration of start-up companies in the South Bay Area, and particularly in Palo Alto, legislation has recently been passed to restrict new companies from opening in their town center so more space is reserved for retailers. There is a heavy concentration of properties, newer housing than San Francisco, and high prices due to a tight rental market. The area is also very dry, as we experienced for ourselves. During our trip, a brush fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains caused several, mandatory evacuations.
Meeting with our network to learn from their experiences and share Dwellworks best practices is always a wonderful event. We look forward to connecting with more members of our network soon!
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