After two years of dominating the soccer-playing robotic dog world, two of us are doing a startup in the education space. One of us works for a startup. We need an apartment!<p>Any suggestions for Mountain View, Palo Alto, or SF would be totally sweet, and by that I mean completely awesome. No need to exalt the virtues or bitch about the landlords at YScraper -- we've read quite a bit about it. <p>Rock On!
Mountain View and Sunnyvale both have a decent number of "reasonable" areas, though that's all a relative term. I moved out here about a year ago and was looking for something with a balance of affordability, comfort, and location (near Stanford). Most of Palo Alto was out of the question because of price, and I never really felt comfortable (safe) in East Palo Alto or the parts of Palo Alto near 101. Going north, Menlo Park and Atherton are even more expensive. Redwood City can be somewhat cheaper but neither the area nor the apartments were in great shape.<p>So, that leaves Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Both cities are very safe and quiet (maybe <i>too</i> quiet for some). There are a lot of apartments in these two cities which aren't ridiculously expensive. However, most of the apartment complexes are relatively small, so your best bet is to come down here and drive around and see which complexes meet your needs.<p>I personally moved to Mountain View near Rengstorff Ave. and California St., an area we call "apartment city" because the housing is so dense. It's quiet and residential and there's a lot of shopping within walking distance. I definitely recommend this area, but you should still come down and check it out before signing a lease.<p>As an aside, I've got some experience with startups in education. I worked for a couple successful startups in higher education, and almost founded a K-12 company in the spring. Drop me an email if you'd like to share war stories -- now, or after you move.
Used to work in Sunnyvale and I have friends who live in San Jose and Mountain View. Have lived in SF, Foster City, Burlingame, and San Mateo now.<p>Sunnyvale got its wide variety of low cost rent places and decent Indian and Cheap and good Asian food places. El Camino Real is basically a mobius loop of America e.g. McDonalds, Starbucks, Ethnic Zone, repeat. Sister used to live in Mountain View off 85 by the Albertsons. Personally, if you're gonna live in Mountain View, somewhere close to downtown Castro Street would be cool to get food and beers and that kind of stuff. A bunch of startups (Meebo?) are around that area too.<p>Foster City is quiet. They have a bunch of golf courses and a Costco going for it. San Mateo is just about in the middle of everything, I like it because of the laid back downtown and being 5 min from the airport, 15 min from SV, 20 min (no traffic) from the city. That being said, San Mateo dies after 9pm. So if you're one of those party types lookin for a midnight saturnalia, the city is your only hope.