86BravoPapa

That really helps, thank you. North seems to be the better option. How's the 73 flying out of SFO?

ThumbsUp

I think the correlation between poop on the street and rent is inverse, so this should give you a good idea of where you should find the best deals:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/ind...dafdb02a76d2a4

Guppies4Dayz

As always, seniority is everything. Where do you sit? Junior lineholder, you're going to do lots of redeyes to the east coast with minimal day layovers followed by evening flying. Senior, and living local, you can find decent island 2 day trips. Your best bet will be to go to PBS and grab the SFO 737 FO bid award for June. Look around where your seniority would be. Then look for lines in that range that seem to have a lot of trips that are not very commutable (that gives you the clue that this person is local). That's a good example of what you'll probably be flying.

I left the guppy last year because the flying wasn't great as a commuter even though I was fairly senior. Living in base, YMMV. As everyone else said, WB is the place to be. If you fall into that black hole, you'll never leave. Bid WB reserve and you'll never even work. 😁

worstpilotever

I gaurantee your wife is not going to want to slog into the city 2 or 3 days a week from santa rosa to oracle park. its not in an easy location to get to, as you either have to go across the bay bridge or go thru downtown at rushhour both ways. (unless she can work 5am-1pm) Once you go north of novato there is lot more traffic, although they are adding a lane to the freeway, not sure if its done yet. should help a bit.

with no kids i would suggest renting in the city for a year and see how you like it. There are a lot of rentals right by the park, not sure of the rents over there. the park to the airport is about 20 minutes depending on traffic.

Turbosina

I've lived in the Bay Area for 27 years, was based at SFO for 9 years with Skywest (currently trying to get back to SFO as a fellow UA 737FO but didn't get it on the last vacancy bid.) I've also worked non-aviation jobs all over the Bay Area including the area your wife is commuting to. So I can offer a few location tips.

The big factor here is your wife's commute. The traffic in the Bay has returned to pre-pandemic levels; Tuesday through Thursday are absolutely jammed on most freeways. I had to drive from SFO to Santa Rosa a few Thursday afternoons ago and it took three hours. Similarly, commuting southbound from the far north Bay (Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Petaluma etc) into the city on a weekday morning can be a nightmare. Public transit is limited, and parking in downtown SFO is $40/day. If your commute to SFO was the only consideration, I'd say the far north bay would be a decent option, just because you're not doing that drive 3x/week.

The southern part of the North Bay (Sausalito up to about Novato) is much closer to the city, but that convenience comes with a steep price. I'm not sure of your housing requirements or budget, but a quick Zillow search for decent houses in that area will show you just how much it costs to live that close to SF. Marin County is gorgeous, but it's full of tech money and the real estate prices are somewhat breathtaking.

Given where your wife has to commute to, I would suggest looking at places that are fairly close to a BART line (our 'rapid' transit train, i.e. subway that extends far out into the suburbs.) Somewhere in the East Bay, like Walnut Creek, is only a 40-minute BART ride from downtown SF, and you'll have two choices of bridges when you're driving to SFO (Bay or the San Mateo Bridge.) The closer you get to the city, like Orinda or Lafayette, the higher the housing prices will be, but the shorter the drive. But it's worth investigating. The scenery in that part of the Bay is lovely and the area is quite safe (as is Marin.)

Somewhat lower down on the price list and slightly less convenient would be places like Castro Valley or Fremont. The BART ride into SF from Castro Valley is about an hour, but your drive to SFO will only be about 45 minutes.

Then there's the Peninsula, like San Mateo, Belmont, Burlingame, San Carlos, etc. You'll be a stone's throw from SFO, and your wife can hop on Caltrain for a fairly quick ride downtown, but you'll also be facing Marin-like prices.

Again: given your wife's commute, I would strongly suggest finding somewhere that's either close to a BART station (East Bay) or a Caltrain station (Peninsula.) Driving into downtown San Francisco multiple times per week, from anything more than about 15-20 miles away, is a really tough slog, given the realities of traffic. Unless she can go into work only on Mondays and Fridays, when the traffic is noticeably lighter. (Covid basically compressed the 5-day commute mania into Tues-Thursday, which is when everyone now goes into the office.)

Best of luck!

Turbosina

Great advice right here. Nope, the 101 work still isn't done...that's been going on for how many years? At this point I think it's just a jobs program for highway workers rather than a project with a defined end date...

snackysmores

I would highly recommend avoiding this.

SonicFlyer

BlancoLirio, Juan Brown, lives high up in the Sierra Nevadas and commutes in for the 777

worstpilotever

There are lot of pilot that live in the mountains, but i doubt any of them have spouses that work in downtown SF.

Turbosina

Having no idea of the OP's housing budget, it's impossible to give very focused recommendations. If money is no object, there are plenty of $3M and up condos located near the ballpark, which would be a 10 minute walk to work for his wife and a quick 25-minute drive to the SFO employee lot. Or a nice house in the San Mateo hills for about the same price, a very short drive to SFO and a reasonable CalTrain ride to downtown.

But given the absolute chaos that traffic into and out of downtown SF is, especially Tuesday -Thursdays, plus the $40/day parking cost and the inevitable downtown $15/day congestion fee that the Board of Supervisors keeps talking about... driving into the city for work has become even more ridiculous than ever. I spent years driving into SF every day for work and it was always tough, but now it's just lunacy. BART definitely has its issues but I wouldn't wish a frequent driving commute into downtown SF on anyone. The other day it took me 45 minutes to go the three blocks from the ballpark just to get on 101.

But yeah, if money was no object and convenience was the priority, I'd either get a condo near the ballpark or a house in the hills above SFO. Assuming that the OP doesn't have north of $3M to buy a decent property, I would recommend choosing anywhere that doesn't require a driving commute into SF.