<p>I got out of Stanford GSB in 1974 and remeber the first townhouses on Sand Hill Road going for about $100 K and just being amazed! Our friends from grad school had a big house on the east side of Menlo Park (out by Bayshore) that they bought for $57k. Now we live in the East Bay, but every time I go to Palo Alto, I think I’m back in God’s country.<br>
If you have school age children, OP, PLEASE check the API results on the Cal dept of education web page (I have a new computer, so I don’t have the pages bookmarked anymore). School quality varies wildly and a lot of schools just don’t cut it (the aftermath of Prop 13 along with our immigration reality). Even most of my friends living in Menlo Park and Los Altos Hills ended up sending their kids to private schools.</p>
<p>insomnia, PM me. I have great RE connections in the Palo Alto and Sacramento areas.</p>
<p>Alumother…Peninsula School by any chance? I went there in 1st grade.
Kathyc I would think your friends in Los Altos Hills who sent their kids to private schools did so for other reasons than the publics API scores.Gunn probably has one of the highest APIs in the state.</p>
<p>Not the highest, I think it’s Mission San Jose High, but API is very misleading.</p>
<p>Here is the website for API</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.greatschools.net/[/url]”>http://www.greatschools.net/</a></p>
<p>Bec- only some of LA Hills students are in the Gunn HS district- the rest are in Los Altos High, or other HSchools.</p>
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<p>20/20 hindsight, kathiep: Just owning a small house starting in 1996 and through 2005, and you’d probably be, who knows, 5-700K wealthier. </p>
<p>I love the Bay Area, but San Jose is not a part of it I love. And there is a lot of South Bay in general that is sprawly and office-parkish. An armpit? Well, maybe that part of the Bay Area.</p>
<p>San Jose weather is significantly warmer than weather closer to the gate – as in Golden Gate – an hour/75 minute drive north. San Francisco is a different world.</p>
<p>Bec5656, my friends weren’t in the Gunn district and they didn’t want to send their kids to Los Altos, so one set sent their kids to St. Francis and others to Pinewood (don’t think that’s quite the right name?). Some other friends weren’t real thrilled with Menlo-Atherton. I am well aware of the fabulous reputation of Gunn…</p>
<p>Since we’ve wandered sideways into a discussion of private schools in the San Jose area… [The</a> Harker School](<a href=“http://www.harker.org%5DThe”>www.harker.org) didn’t exist through high school until the late 1990s, but I recommend folks looking for an unparalleled independent school in the South Bay/San Jose area check into it. Don’t do so if you’re startled by paying near-college prices for K-12, though. (My opinion: it was worth every penny for our family. But we had the great good fortune to be able to afford it.)</p>
<p>Agree with Zagat. San Jose is not very attractive option but least expensive. Walking neighborhoods ? Only in enclaves like Palo Alto / Stanford and Mountain View. By the way Mt view is miss-named. It’s completely flat - the entire Silicon Valley is flat, and you see views from distance mountains but they are just brown rolling hills, nothing spectacular. You will also find the Silicon Valley as wide as it is long. You drive endlessly long streets and avenues without change in scenary - which are dull and characterless anyway for interminable periods. The only spots worth looking at are bought by tech billionaires. As for downtown San Jose, it resembles a third world city than “capital of Silicon Valley” with huge hispanic and Vietnamese populations. One benefit - you can still get huge bowl of Pho at dirt cheap prices from abundance of Vietnamese restaurants.</p>
<p>Bay: post #15…several weeks of 100+ degrees ?</p>
<p>Which century did that happened in? While Im no fan of SJ, I have never experienced weeks of 100+ degrees there.</p>
<p>Yes, I have relatives living in Willow Glenn. Charming–though the schools get dicey post-primary school. Their smallish four bedroom house is worth about $1.5M.</p>
<p>I don’t know about moving there as an Empty Nester.</p>
<p>I’ve lived here for 10 years now and there <em>was</em> one week of 100+ heat, about 6 or 7 summers ago. We were all totally astonished. (The nice thing, though, is that it’s a very dry heat, not humid in the slightest. And no flying insects.)</p>
<p>I love the hills around here, they lift my spirits. And it goes without saying that I love inexpensive Pho. :)</p>
<p>It must be during the Rolling blackouts throughout northern California in 2001. ;)</p>
<p>That is exactly when it was!</p>
<p>(I subsequently moved away in 2002.)</p>
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<p>I’d like to call this diversity. </p>
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<p>Have you driven along Highway 280 which cuts through Silicon Valley ? You call that flat?</p>
<p>The ravine that you can see going deeply off to the west of highway 280 north on the Peninsula is, I’m told, the San Andreas Fault. I kinda like being able to keep an eye on it like that.</p>
<p>Harker is a great school–but tough to get in. I have always been dumbfounded by the lack of private schools in California and the struglle to fund good public schools. Where does that ambivalence come from? The private schools in my sister’s neighborhood in SF are all oversubscribed. Most midwestern cities offer broader choices.</p>
<p>Not just California, I think the problem is very specific to the Bay Area. Lots of bad public schools and the districts with good public schools, house prices are over the roof. Think of spending more than $2M+ for a delapidated 50-year old house(less than 2000 sft), just because the house is in the Gunn High school boundary. Lots of sacrifice for parents to live in a good school district.</p>
<p>I think during the bust, Harker did send out more notices to applicants, a lot students did get in during this time because the Valley was not as flush as before.</p>