Apartment in California: Part 2

I have groused in the past about the absurd expense of apartments in the Silicon Valley area, given the rapidly rising demand and limited supply. Well, my corporate housing benefit expired mid-September, and so I had to bite the bullet and find a place. (The amenities at Google do make if possible to live on site….lots of food, showers, comfy sofas...but that is not encouraged :-) - -

My lovely real estate agent Rita took me on a couple of days of apartment touring. My criteria were, I thought, pretty modest, and I continued to fondly believe that I could find a bargain. (I don’t care about school districts, and I don’t need much space, and I don’t need too many amenities on site - - I can even do laundry at work if need be.) I did want proximity to work - - no more than 10 miles away, given the horrific Silicon Valley traffic. People pointed out to me that I could take the Google buses (very comfortable and equipped with wifi) that shuttle Googlers all over northern California, but I am too accustomed to the autonomy of driving. I don’t want to leave work at a particular time because that is when the bus leaves from my Google campus in Sunnyvale to community X; I want to leave work when I finish what I’m doing. I no longer have babysitters that I need to relieve at a certain time...I think I was an easy client to please.

I did find one place that was a few thousand dollars/month less than other options. I thought I had found the golden nugget. But when I did a google search on the property, there were lots of reviews of tenants saying their cars were broken into; their apartments robbed; and that management was unresponsive. Representative complaints? Outliers? Who knows...But since I don’t know the communities here, and even a “nice” complex can be abutting a less desirable and more crime-ridden area, I shied away…

So that brought me back to the more expensive units.

It occurs to me that there are no bargains in the age of the internet and comparative pricing. Just as we the consumer can compare the price of a car or a washing machine at 10 different online sites, so too can the landlords. They are so savvy about pricing, that the prices shift daily (based on demand? outlooks? who knows...)

Lots of housing designed for the growing tech community has sprung up in Silicon Valley over the last few years. Since the communities are competing with one another, there are certain basic amenities that most of the units have, such as pools, gyms, media rooms, computing and print facilities, meeting spaces. Not unlike the sorts of hotels many of us stay at on business trips. Given my modest needs, and given that Google already has all of these things, I didn’t need those peripherals. But you can’t strip them away - -they come with the package. (It would be nice to have a “cafeteria plan” of options -- where you can point out that you won’t be using all the amenities, and so you need not subscribe…)

The apartment I chose is a studio that is about 6 miles from my Google office, with no scary reviews on line. The complex boasts multiple olympic sized pools that I will never use…(I’m a bad swimmer, I can’t see well when I remove my glasses or contacts, if I wear a bathing cap, I don’t hear well, if I don’t, my hair gets frizzy - -  :-) It has lots of walking paths (that I will use). And a Starbucks and small grocery on site (that I will also use.) Funny how the Starbucks actually did play in my head as an important feature. While I was in corporate housing in Santa Clara for 3 months, there were no nearby stores that were walking distance. If you were out of coffee, you had to drive somewhere. Or go without. Not a big deal, but ability to get coffee on site is a nice amenity for me. I am reminded of taking kids on college tours to select colleges. I hear from parents how their student “felt right” on one campus and “less right” on another. On your walking tour you are not seeing the reputations of professors or the special majors offered by that school. You are seeing buildings, and kids wandering around campus. I wonder how many major decisions - such as which university to choose over the next four years - - are influenced by trivia such as walking paths and a nearby Starbucks.

This studio in San Jose (which is not the most prestigious zip code in the area -- Palo Alto would have been more expensive) - - will be $2300/month. I am told by friends familiar with the area that I got a real bargain.

I have just moved in. Some pictures included.