First time relocation to Concord/Walnut Creek, CA: Give me some tips!

[RIGorous1]

Hey all,

as I mentioned here a few weeks ago I finally graduated and I got me a job with Chevron. I'll be moving to the Concord Area, but from what I hear Walnut Creek is the "good area" since it has better schools (I have a daughter in 2nd grade).

This is my first move and I'm unfamiliar with how the process works, so if you have websites I should check out or general tips on the area, then by all means post 'cause I'm all ears.

Next week I'll be in the area to scope out some apartments, so the faster I can learn the better.

BTW are there any internet cafe's in Walnut Creek? I'm staying at the Motel 6 (cause I'm cheap) and all they have is dial-up :disgust:

Thanks for your help.

Ben

 

[AlienCraft]

Check J-wire for the free wi-fi locations.

Almost anywhere in that general area is ok, as far as neighborhoods go. There are plenty of house rentals available now that the housing bubble is popping, I have several friends that lived out towards the Concord Pavilion, as well as on the West side of 680 and North of 24 Nice areas, very decent houses, not McMansions.

And welcome to NorCal !

 

[RIGorous1]

thanks for that J-wire link it really helped... already found a few coffee shops that have free wifi.

 

[gsethi]

Walnut Creek is one of the nicer areas in the Bay area with nice houses and good schools. Avoid Concord as it has mostly old houses which are not that good. Concord is mostly a small business town with homes for lower/lower middle income households.

Pleasant Hill is decent but it varies a lot depending on where in Pleasant Hill. Some parts are very nice (hilly areas) while others are same as concord.

Walnut Creek is for households with upper middle income and has very nice but expensive houses. You go also try Moraga and Lafayette (Hwy 24) but they are more expensive nicer areas. Avoid Martinez (even though it is ~5 min from Chevron refinery).

If you cross the Benicia bridge on 680 freeway, there are some nice houses in Benicia (Avoid downtown Benicia and look for houses on the hills). It is ~10 min from the chevron refinery (but you will have to pay toll for $4 every day you cross the bridge.

Walnut Creek is your best bet followed by Pleasant Hill (hilly areas), Lafayette. If you want even nicer homes, then go little south of Walnut Creek to Alamo, San Ramon.

EDIT: since you are looking for apartment, I would avoid Concord, Pleasant Hill and Martinez. Look for nice apartments in Walnut creek. Basically, anything that are in hilly region is usually decent areas and anything downtown/on plain land is not that good is this part of the Bay Area.

 

[beer]

all I'm going to say is, don't come to sf and expect us to like you here. walnut creek is the 'worst' of all suburbs when it comes to offensive things to SF-ians.

 

[RIGorous1]

Originally posted by: beer
all I'm going to say is, don't come to sf and expect us to like you here. walnut creek is the 'worst' of all suburbs when it comes to offensive things to SF-ians.

LOL are you joking? why is it the worst of all the suburbs?

 

[Red Dawn]

What ever you do don't live near the Chevron Refinery, they are always having Chemical leaks.

 

[habib89]

wierd, i have no idea what beer is talking about.. i was born in sf, and lived in concord for almost 2 years, and now live in oakland. i've never noticed or heard anything wrong with walnut creek.... concord is alright.. it's not upscale, but it's not bad.. the schools aren't all taht great though.. gsethi was pretty much right on about most everything... except i don't see what's wrong with apartments in pleasant hill... but as he said, it depends where in pleasant hill.. i have a friend who's parents own a complex in pleasant hill.. let me know if you're interested.. the floor plans that i saw look good, but i never personally went to visit them.. my fiance was in love with them until we moved to oakland..

are you working at the refinery, or in the offices that are off of willow pass (on diamond i believe)??

http://www.greatschools.net/ there's a good site to check out school reviews

i personally would love to live in walnut creek or any of those cities along 24 (lafayette, moraga, etc)

edit: oh, also, welcome to our wonderful state! if you have any questions about anything, please do not hesitate to ask

 

[RIGorous1]

Originally posted by: habib89
wierd, i have no idea what beer is talking about.. i was born in sf, and lived in concord for almost 2 years, and now live in oakland. i've never noticed or heard anything wrong with walnut creek.... concord is alright.. it's not upscale, but it's not bad.. the schools aren't all taht great though.. gsethi was pretty much right on about most everything... except i don't see what's wrong with apartments in pleasant hill... but as he said, it depends where in pleasant hill.. i have a friend who's parents own a complex in pleasant hill.. let me know if you're interested.. the floor plans that i saw look good, but i never personally went to visit them.. my fiance was in love with them until we moved to oakland..

are you working at the refinery, or in the offices that are off of willow pass (on diamond i believe)??

http://www.greatschools.net/ there's a good site to check out school reviews

i personally would love to live in walnut creek or any of those cities along 24 (lafayette, moraga, etc)

edit: oh, also, welcome to our wonderful state! if you have any questions about anything, please do not hesitate to ask

I'll be working in the offices on Diamond... like the guy above mentioned, the thought of living near a refinery scares me. Thanks for that greatschools link that site is awesome! Saves me some time in filtering the schools and communities I want my daughter to grow up in.

Yeah so far everyone says pleasant hill or walnut creek are the cities I want to be in, but I haven't heard much of lafayette or moraga so I'll do some research now.

Thanks,

Rig

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Wow did you come to the right place. I grew up and lived in Concord for 25 years.

The key is to know where you are working because you need to take the commute into account. If you're working at the Concord facility, then you're all set and have MANY more options than if you are working somewhere else.

Walnut Creek is, indeed, nicer than Concord. It's prettier, has nicer amenities, and is located closer to the freeway. North Main St has a nice relaxed nighttime vibe and there is an upscale outdoor mall there. I'd say the high schools are also better. I think Northgate is the main high school there and it beats Concord High or Clayton Valley and definitely Ygnacio Valley or Mt Diablo (lots of devil references because of Mt Diablo looming over the city). Most of the affluent parents, however, send their kids to De La Salle/Carondelet.

But WC is significantly more expensive than Concord, which accounts for why it's safer and cleaner and prettier. Concord isn't cheap either. A large percentage of people who live in Concord work in SF/Oakland. And there are several large cities to the east over the hill namely Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, and Oakley whose residents also largely work in the City and many of them avoid the congested freeway by crawling through Concord and Walnut Creek to get to the freeway.

Concord itself is mixed. Check on a map. Everything west of Monument Blvd needs to be avoided. The local term is Little Mexico, but what it relly is is just lots and lots of cheaper apartments and rundown rental houses. It's a very rough area. The police station was recently moved from near the library to the intersection of Cowell and Monument to form a bit of a dam there. But aside from that the rest of Concord is mostly very nice with some bad parts near Port Chiacgo Blvd.

Don't neglect some of the other cities bordering Walnut Creek. Pleasant Hill has always been an under estimated city and is definitely making huge strides to liven itself up by pouring tons of money into beautifying the city.

As for apartments, you'll find plenty in either Concord or Walnut Creek. If yoiu avoid the areas I mentioned you'll be fine.

As for an Internet cafe, go to La Scala on the corner of North Main and Civic. They have free Internet and are open late and it's a huge hub for the locals. Great food and coffee if you need a snack too.

Feel free to PM me with any specifics.

 

[homercles337]

You just graduated and have a 7 year old daughter? :thumbsdown: You fail at life. Wait, i mean i fail at life.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: RIGorous1
I haven't heard much of lafayette or moraga so I'll do some research now.

Well, they seldom get mentioned because they are very expensive....more so than Walnut Creek because they are closer to the City. I went to Saint Mary's in Moraga for a semester and I can't think of a more beautiful city on the damn planet.

Other areas to consider besides Concord, Walnut Creek, and Pleasant Hill would be:

-Clayton (east of Concord and very quiet but you fight with everybody else during traffic and it's very far from the freeway not a big deal if you work in Concord)
-Danville (south of Walnut Creek and on the way to Silicon Valley for those who work there and not SF. Wouldn't be a problem for you since you'd have a reverse commute)
-San Ramon (south of Danville)

I would avoid:
-Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley (Pittsburg is a very rough city almost all throughout and Antioch isn't much better. Brentwood and Oakley are really far out there are have an atrocious commute and have a white trash reputation that I won't comment on. All four cities are downwind of the refineries and bear the brunt of the emissions)
-Martinez, Benicia (very close to the refineries and inconveniently located)

If you are rich then, heck, live in Alamo or Blackhawk or Lafayette or Moraga.

For schools, the public school aren't great. Pretty much anybody who can afford it sends their kids to private Christian or Catholic school. Around here, they really aren't pushy about religeon and the schooling is almost exclusively secular. Walnut Creek Christian Academy is one of the premier schools in the area, but I know very bright people who went to Ygnacio Valley Christian, Kings Christian, Tabernacle Baptist, and St Agnes......all in WC/Concord.

 

[RIGorous1]

Thanks for all the comments Pellinor... I'm still researching and most of what I found reinforces all that you've said so far.

Hahah I'm not rich, and actually most of my income is going into the apartment (until the wifee starts pulling in the second income) because I want my daughter to have a good education. For now I'm looking at the public schools in the area like strandwood and bancroft because I can't afford private, yet. From what I read on greatschools.net they are supposed to be pretty good for public, or are the ratings there inflated...

I'll be researching for the next couple of days, but I'll check back here often.

Thank you all for you help.

 

[RIGorous1]

can you guys think of any other reliable apartment resources asside from:

forrent.com
craigslist.org
apartments.com
rent.com

I've pretty much exhausted those resources, and I only have a good list of about 7 places.

thanks

 

[AlienCraft]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: RIGorous1
I haven't heard much of lafayette or moraga so I'll do some research now.

Well, they seldom get mentioned because they are very expensive....more so than Walnut Creek because they are closer to the City. I went to Saint Mary's in Moraga for a semester and I can't think of a more beautiful city on the damn planet.

Other areas to consider besides Concord, Walnut Creek, and Pleasant Hill would be:

-Clayton (east of Concord and very quiet but you fight with everybody else during traffic and it's very far from the freeway not a big deal if you work in Concord)
-Danville (south of Walnut Creek and on the way to Silicon Valley for those who work there and not SF. Wouldn't be a problem for you since you'd have a reverse commute)
-San Ramon (south of Danville)

I would avoid:
-Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley (Pittsburg is a very rough city almost all throughout and Antioch isn't much better. Brentwood and Oakley are really far out there are have an atrocious commute and have a white trash reputation that I won't comment on. All four cities are downwind of the refineries and bear the brunt of the emissions)
-Martinez, Benicia (very close to the refineries and inconveniently located)

If you are rich then, heck, live in Alamo or Blackhawk or Lafayette or Moraga.

For schools, the public school aren't great. Pretty much anybody who can afford it sends their kids to private Christian or Catholic school. Around here, they really aren't pushy about religeon and the schooling is almost exclusively secular. Walnut Creek Christian Academy is one of the premier schools in the area, but I know very bright people who went to Ygnacio Valley Christian, Kings Christian, Tabernacle Baptist, and St Agnes......all in WC/Concord.

QFT

 

[ElFenix]

i used to live in clayton. then again, i was very small, so i don't know much of it.

 

[beer]

Originally posted by: habib89
wierd, i have no idea what beer is talking about.. i was born in sf, and lived in concord for almost 2 years, and now live in oakland. i've never noticed or heard anything wrong with walnut creek.... concord is alright.. it's not upscale, but it's not bad.. the schools aren't all taht great though.. gsethi was pretty much right on about most everything... except i don't see what's wrong with apartments in pleasant hill... but as he said, it depends where in pleasant hill.. i have a friend who's parents own a complex in pleasant hill.. let me know if you're interested.. the floor plans that i saw look good, but i never personally went to visit them.. my fiance was in love with them until we moved to oakland..

are you working at the refinery, or in the offices that are off of willow pass (on diamond i believe)??

http://www.greatschools.net/ there's a good site to check out school reviews

i personally would love to live in walnut creek or any of those cities along 24 (lafayette, moraga, etc)

edit: oh, also, welcome to our wonderful state! if you have any questions about anything, please do not hesitate to ask

SFians like to bash the suburbs whenever "we" get. Of course, I wrote the initial post tongue-in-cheek, since I come from a suburb in texas, I was shocked at how much the city dwellers hate suburbs. I've only lived here for a year and yes, there's a lot of east bay hate, especially oakland (sorry) and many of the far-flung suburbs at many bars/clubs because the suburbanites come 50 miles to drink a few beers and go home and do it in such large quantities that they ruin formerly good bars/clubs and force all the SF hipster-types to find new places that the suburbanites haven't infected yet. Since you have a daughter, this probably doesn't apply. The B&T label (bridge&tunnel) is used in a very derogative sense. The basic premise of this hate is because east bayers are preceived to ruin good clubs, either with gangs (1015 folsom is a prime example, ruined by asian gangs from east bay) or mountains of douchebags (marina bars like KTs and Balboa and esp Bar None - which imo always sucked in the first place, Rube Skye, etc) when they find out about them, and the only way for a bar/club to remain 'cool' (in the hipster sense) is to have it fly under the radar of the east-bayers. Again this hate is mostly directed at east bay and not really at south bay (in my experience) probably due to sheer numbers and the overall douche-baginess and lack of style/sense that crosses that f-cking bridge on fridays and saturdays starting at 8 PM.

Honestly if you don't know what I'm talking about in the slightest, you haven't lived here (which based upon your post appears to be the case). I wish I would have some corroboration from someone else who has lived here longer than the year I've been here, but even then it should be obvious in any case. But ATers are not the best source of bar/club advice.

Walnut Creek is the 'worst' because every hipster riding a fixie and living in a soma loft or in the mission grew up in a suburb like walnut creek and is living in the city now to revolt against that upbringing (myself included) and walnut creek is a symbol of all the excesses that liberals and hipster types generally don't like. This is so pervasive that a recent book (fiction) centered around life in SoMa focused on two girls from Concord and the amount of sh-t they took when going out because they were absolutely clueless about how much they were hated.

again - having a daughter this doesn't apply probably.

 

[beer]

Honestly if you have no clue what i'm talking about, the yelp forums (which are 85% SF dominated with substantially less partipation from suburbanites) corroborates everything I say. the forums there are crap so i don't frequent but;

http://www.yelp.com/topic/7JRd...Lj2uwi5tqaUUnmqPupY3fg
http://www.yelp.com/message_bo...ype=message_time_stamp

Again this should by no means change where you live since you're not in the same demographic those people are, as long as you're aware of it

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: RIGorous1
can you guys think of any other reliable apartment resources asside from:

forrent.com
craigslist.org
apartments.com
rent.com

I've pretty much exhausted those resources, and I only have a good list of about 7 places.

thanks

Those are the best. There are also a half dozen free booklets and magazines at the entrance of any supermarket that advertise apartments. They usually have a little map inside that organizes the apartments into zones so you can only look in a certain area.

I'm not sure about Strandwood, but I'm not sure there are many apartments near Bancroft. You'll often notice that about the better schools is there are fewer rental properties in its district.

It's too late to apply for open enrollment, so if you don't move into the neighborhood district for one of those schools she'll probably have to go somewhere else.

Here a map of all the elementary school for reference while apartment searching.
http://www.mdusd.k12.ca.us/schools/schoolsES.htm

Based on that, as a fallback, I would look at the large apartment complex on the corner of Ygnacio and Clayton. It's farly large and should have vacancies and the two closest schools, highlands and silverwood both rate in the 800's. It's also a fairly quiet area with stores close. Ygnacio is a main thoroughfair so it gets congested during rush hour, but with no traffic you can be in Walnut Creek in a five minutes and to the freeway in 10. It's right on the border of Clayton which is a more affluent city. To get to Diamond during rush hour would take you longer than you'd think, but if you aren't starting at 9:00 and getting off at 5:00 you could mostly miss it. Anyway FWIW, you may want to check it out.

 

[RIGorous1]

Hey guys,

Just to update you on the situation thus far....

I've got my movers already worked out and now they wait on my decision for a delivery location.
I'm checking out a few places in walnut creek that I found from craigslist, rent.com, apartments.com, etc. this Sunday to Thursday.
I've also scheduled a rental agent/realtor for 1/2 a day to help me look for apartments on Monday.
I'll probably chillin at la scala next week to finalize some research

Any more tips for me? If there's anything you guys can think of please just post. like someone here mentioned apartmentratings.com, links to the local school district and I found then all as a very useful websites that weeded out lots of crappy apartments.

Also are there any questions I should ask my landlord before I sign the lease? how about any questions I should ask my rental agent/realtor so I can get the most out of my money?

Thanks again for all your help.

Ben

 

[GTaudiophile]

I have friends who live in Lafayette. Wonderful place.

 

[Greenman]

It all really boils down to what you want to pay for rent. An apartment that rents for $1500 in concord will be $2200 in walnut creek. And remember that traffic on 680 is a nightmare.

 

[RIGorous1]

Originally posted by: Greenman
It all really boils down to what you want to pay for rent. An apartment that rents for $1500 in concord will be $2200 in walnut creek. And remember that traffic on 680 is a nightmare.

care to elaborate on the traffic on the 680? like is it bad only during select hours?

I'm from L.A., so I'm no stranger to traffic. Even 'nightmare freeways' in LA like the 5, 101, 10, 210, and 110 have free flowing periods and local shortcuts (except maybe the 101, truly the worst freeway its always dense 5am-10pm and prime time is murder). So just how bad is the 680?

I was hoping to escape some of the terrible traffic in LA, so I would like to know more.

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: RIGorous1

Originally posted by: Greenman
It all really boils down to what you want to pay for rent. An apartment that rents for $1500 in concord will be $2200 in walnut creek. And remember that traffic on 680 is a nightmare.

care to elaborate on the traffic on the 680? like is it bad only during select hours?

I'm from L.A., so I'm no stranger to traffic. Even 'nightmare freeways' in LA like the 5, 101, 10, 210, and 110 have free flowing periods and local shortcuts (except maybe the 101, truly the worst freeway its always dense 5am-10pm and prime time is murder). So just how bad is the 680?

I was hoping to escape some of the terrible traffic in LA, so I would like to know more.

It's gets pretty bad during rush hour, often it's stop and go for several miles. Walnut Creek is North of the 680/242 junction, so it's not to bad from there to Concord. Middle of the day, nights and weekends 680 isn't that bad.

Despite what everyone else has said, there are some very nice areas in Concord and Martinez, there are even McMansions in Pittsburg now. Lafayette has the best schools, but I doubt you could find a house there for less than $700,000.