I'm planning a move to Sunnyvale, CA- does anyone have any advice?

The southern part of the San Francisco Bay area is pretty crowded and intense. Sunnyvale in particular has lots of high tech electronics companies with their associated yuppie BMW and Audi drivers. It is an area of conspicuous consumption. You will be hard pressed to find reasonably priced living conditions that will be within your budget. You will probably have to share an apartment or house to cut into the rent cost. Go to the local colleges De Anza, San Jose State, Santa Clara University, Foothill and see if there is anything posted on the bulletin boards to share a house.

If you can live outside Sunnyvale, your best bet is to look south of San Jose, toward Morgan Hill. Prices might be a little more reasonable down there.

I’ve actually sort of half abandoned sunnyvale, and am looking into santa clara instead.

Its all the same.

@PerryDolia

I don’t know if that’s necessarily true about Sunnyvale. It’s not a particularly wealthy place. Yes, there are big companies, but many of the more wealthy types live in Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Monte Sereno, and places like that. Sunnyvale is mostly one-story suburban housing and lots of townhomes. (The more expensive stuff is in the southern part of the city).The South Bay is full of townhomes. It’s true that the entire Bay Area is inflated in terms of housing prices, though. A small house here that sells for $700,000 would be worth $100,000 or less in Georgia.

And it’s true that the South Bay is very crowded. San Jose recently just went over a million in terms of population.

Anyway, I don’t really know anything useful. I’ve just been to Santa Clara County a lot and that’s where I’ll be going to college in a couple weeks.

I used to like apartments.com and I actually use them to advertise. What I don’t like about them is that you really kave to know the area (county names and such) that you’re going to because if you don’t you just get confused.

There are two rental units available in my older residential neighborhood just a short commute from Sunnyvale. I used to make it in fifteen minutes under favorable conditions. I know one of them is going for $1050; it’s a single 1-BR unit above a garage that is used only for storage. I haven’t checked the other one yet, but it’s half of a nice little duplex. These are places with signs posted out front. There are probably others close by. This is just a sampling.

If you don’t have a job lined up already, be aware that this is a very tough place to find work right now unless you are in one of the few thriving fields. And if you do, again, you could face a layoff without warning. Also the cost of living is pretty high.

I suggest you take a very temporary one bedroom, or better yet, a residential motel room for a couple of weeks to a month. If you don’t yet have a job, you better have at least several (30 -50) thousand dollars in savings, because finding a job is going to be a very daunting task.

If you know someone who lives there, perhaps you could convince them to let you stay a few weeks until you get settled.

This advice goes for any of the South Bay “towns” you want to consider, in reality, the entire area is one huge continuous city, and the only difference between the ‘towns” is the lines drawn on a map.

@YARNLADY thirty to fifty THOUSAND dollars??
If living costs are that expensive, I don’t think I’m going to make it…
I’ve finished off my car payments, and have no other debts I’m paying off…
I have 1500 guaranteed monthly income (translation job), and I was planning on getting another part time job while studying. My parents have offered to cover education costs, and though I have some in savings, it’s nothing like 30 to 50 thousand.

I realize the living costs are high, but will it be that difficult for me to find a job that allows me to make another 500 dollars per month while giving me time to study??

With the 1500 you have coming in, you can barely get by. I was thinking about someone who moves there with zero income and zero job. Many times you can get a part time job through the school. My Grandson is a reception clerk in a veterinarian hospital.

As long as you don’t have an inflated idea of what kind of work you are willing to do, you can find work. I have talked to yourng people who won’t consider working room maintenance in a motel, or night clerk at 7–11. The types of jobs that are available today are not the kind that most workers are looking for.

Here in my area, one of the hardest hit, there are workers getting hired every single day, but the work is mostly piece work and very low pay.

I pay a college student $15 an hour to work in my yard, but it is very hard, digging, weeding and such, not just mowing.