Bay Area

[Grissom]

Its pretty simple really....if you have to commute from Brentwood to the South Bay or SF daily, you will end up wanting to hang yourself.

If on the other hand, you are retired, or commute before 5 am, then Brentwood just might be the place for you.

[jaded]

You do not go to the other side of the tunnel into Berkeley and Oakland.  There is an abundance or fresh food for food snobs.  

I imagine that living in Brentwood, your best food option is actually Walnut Creek.

[norcalnative]

I would suggest concord with short access to BART way before Brentwood if your doing the SF commute. We are 12min from the Orinda BART station and the trip down town every day runs 45-50minutes door to office seat using the Iphone BART app with nearly zero wait at the track but often a bit of a sprint to make the train.

[Richard_H]

I'll get flamed but I recently moved to Glen Cove, Vallejo cuz it so much bang for the buck and it is 35 miles to SF.  Schools may suck as vallejo is bankrupt and of course the Glen Cove Fire Dept. is shut.

One can buy a VERY nice house there for less than $300k

I also bought a compressed natural gas car for the commute which is one of the best things I've done.

Hybrids are out of carpool lane by jan 1.

[norcalnative]

You also have the very good Vallejo Ferry as an option. Though the drive sucks Hybrid or not.

By the way Honda sold its compressed  Gas biz a while back I couldn't sort out why they would do that given its the one natural resource the US market has plenty access too and lots of reserves of.

[Marcus76]

I worked on a some of those vehicles in the late 90's.  I worked at a company that did a lot of prototype and small production runs for Ford.  Ford actually had better alternative fuel technology than anyone back then before Nasser cut everything.

There's a lack of natural gas filling stations.  There's no interest in building out the infrastructure to support it.  That's why anything that replaces gas will have to be able to use the existing infrastructure, or it'll never get off the ground. Most CNG vehicles were sold to fleet users that had their own pump.  There were buses, park ranger vehicles, police vehicles, taxi cabs, etc.  

[lexa]

---

Richard_H wrote:

I'll get flamed but I recently moved to Glen Cove, Vallejo cuz it so much bang for the buck and it is 35 miles to SF.  Schools may suck as vallejo is bankrupt and of course the Glen Cove Fire Dept. is shut.

One can buy a VERY nice house there for less than $300k

---

sure,

there are many great ways to sell your time and soul for money or RE, always have been.

[joders79]

I am sure I will be blasted for this, but I think it all depends on your perspective. We recently moved to Brentwood from Pleasant Hill, replacing my 5 min commute with a 45 min one. 3 months later, I still think it is the best thing we ever did!

Brentwood is a great town to live in. Schools are decent, the majority of the stores, etc are new, and the houses are affordable. We bought a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 2400 square feet house with den and family room in a great neighborhood for about 260k.

I think it is interesting that everyone assumes that the only people buying houses right now are looking to rent out to section 8.. I have at least 4 friends who like my family, decided not to buy at the height of the market. I waited until I I able to buy a house that I could afford to raise my family in long term.

The commute for some, is hell, for me, it isn't the worst thing ever. I listen to the radio or audio books or lectures.  When I get home, I have already processed my day and am able to enjoy my family.

So come on out to Brentwood.... It is a great place to live.