<p>I love you guys! The location sounds like heaven to begin with, but if you represent the kind of people that live there, I am already super jealous!</p>
<p>Your friends can deal with the fog. They will not be home most of the day during the week. The kids will be in school, the one spouse will be at the MV job, and the other spouse will be in the other city s/he is flying off to every week. The area is all about micro-climates – it can be foggy in one spot and sunny a few miles up the road – so their Mill Valley home could be socked in with fog, and the school yard could be sunny – or the other way around, depending on home/school selection. </p>
<p>On weekends your friends can get in their car and drive to wherever they want, and in the summer, spring and fall it won’t be that long of a drive. In the winter, it rains, no matter where they live-- they just want to avoid living in flood zones. </p>
<p>The “fog” thing also is impacted a lot by issues such as house placement & views. I live in a theoretically foggy area but don’t really have much of a sense of fog while I am in my house – because of my location, the fog generally blows off in the area right outside my livingroom window, so it is quite common that I will think the day is sunny until I go outside and venture a couple of blocks away.</p>
<p>I’d endorse the Mill Valley vs. Corte Madera “take” of another poster on the socio-cultural differences. Mill Valley is a narrower demographic, less diversity BUT you can find the extremes of entitlement and down-to-earth or aging hippie either place. It is definitely worth exploring the nooks and byways of both neighborhoods and other surrounds if at all possible. I know several folks who were very glad of their decision to choose a school or school district and rent for a year before buying anything as lots of things re commute, kids friends, temple/church if that is a part of your life, sports, etc. are hard to sort out at the first. Marin actually has something like 13 different school/public safety jurisdictions because it was originally a lot of little towns that grew together over time–so there are a range of quite different “neighborhoods” quite close together. In any case, good luck to them, it sounds like they have the resources for a lot of different good choices,</p>
<p>On fog: it’s very individual. I know many, many Bay Area people who hated it, and moved out of fog belts. Moving there from the E. Coast, it was initially shocking to me how many micro climates there are. You can drive 10 miles and have the temperature go up or down 20 degrees and the amount of sun vary greatly.</p>
<p>It’s one place where you truly want to know if you’re affected by SAD before you determine where to live. Price does tend to impact these micro climates, there are sun taxes and fog discounts.</p>
<p>If Marin doesn’t float their boat (and they may even have a boat ;-), I’m another one to suggest the East Bay. Piedmont may meet their needs – small town feel in an urban environment. I find Berkeley a bit self-absorbed and shabby these days - great to visit, but not to live there. Piedmont is surrounded by Oakland, which has great, true diversity. Uptown Oakland is having a rennaissance with many restaurants, art galleries, and clubs. </p>
<p>The Piedmont public schools have a well-earned reputation. There are probably more private schools per-capita in the East Bay (thanks to Berkeley) than anywhere else in the country. Ones to check out are Head Royce, CPS, and Bentley.</p>
<p>But the “good” parts of Oakland are incredibly impacted by fog. The good part is prices are very low, Oakland is a fraction of the price of Marin, SF and the Peninsula.</p>
<p>The Bay Area is so complex, where the weather is good, public schools are good and you’re not on a major fault, prices are multiples of what they are in Oakland. And while you may be happy in many places, even when real estate prices were going up everywhere, the hot spots made residents real estate rich.</p>
<p>Choosing where to live is more complex than ever. In the next decade, new buyers will be lucky not to lose money.</p>
<p>Curious which city and school they decided on.</p>
<p>I’m still stuck on that flying every week out of SFO thing. In our area planes often originate in SFO and are delayed due to fog. As a rule of thumb I try to avoid any flight which starts in SFO. Of course San franciscans will now post that they never have a problem but my mileage did vary particularly with early morning flights.</p>