Task #1: Apartment Hunting

From day one concentrate your efforts on finding an apartment, the vacancy rate in California is quite low, so even if you do find one you may not be able to move in right away. I happened to luck out in that the movers made it to California the day I got to take possession of the apartment. There are some really good sites for doing research on apartments, forget looking at newspaper ads and apartment guides, it takes too long. The web resources let you conduct searches and specify criteria for what you are looking for, otherwise you'll end up spending days going from apartment to apartment seeing if it's what you want. Be specific in your searches, and refine what areas you want to live in. I started off with finding about 50 apartments that satisfied my criteria, but when I checked out the area I was able to trim that list down (IE I found a lot of places were just too far away).

Analyzing Drive Time

I'll talk more about vehicles later, but drive time is usually a criteria in selecting an apartment. One interesting thing to note about California is that electric vehicles and motorcycles are allowed to drive in the car pool lane, and even better motorcycles are allowed to drive in between cars. So if you have a bike, or don't mind one, you can live substantially further away and still make it to work in the same amount of time. Remember, one would want to be further away if they wanted a larger/better/newer place for the same amount of money. They also have a fairly decent light-rail system if you're into public transportation. If you're into car pooling you'll save some time, but Bay Area city planners are retarded. The carpool lanes aren't continuous, so if you can't get from end to end in a car pool lane you get stuck in regular traffic, so there's not that much advantage to it. The carpool lanes run from 5am to 9am, and 3pm to 7pm, then it's a free for all.




Morning Bad Spots:
 The Sunol Grade is ranked the worst bottleneck for morning traffic, you'll find that around Sunol Blvd going South after Pleasanton towards Fremont on 680. 101 South from the top of the Peninsula is pretty grim towards Santa Clara. 880 South from Hayward towards the 237 is really bad because you have all these people on 680 changing over to 880 on Mission Blvd (two lanes merging into three). Any bridge equals bad. 101 North to Santa Clara from Gilroy is heavy.

Morning Good Spots:
 When I say good, I mean relatively. After Mission Blvd on 880 South it gets much better. 237 West, especially after Great America Parkway. 101 North after 237. 101 South after Great America Parkway. The 280 at all times is really good. 880 North after 237. 680 South after 237. 580 East. 680 North after 237.

Evening Bad Spots:
 This will be pretty much be the opposite of the morning. 101 North from Santa Clara. 85 South from 101. There's a huge bottleneck of 3 lanes of people trying to squish into 30ft of an off-on ramp at the 880 and 237. This is the biggest example of how not to build a highway system. What on earth were they thinking!? My trick is just to stay in the left lane, pass the 880, there's a set of lights after that, then u-turn and hit the 880 North onramp. 680 North. 880 North gets a bit better after Mission. 237 West is pretty grim.

Evening Good Spots:
 101 South from the Peninsula all the way down isn't too bad, speeds up after the 85 off ramp. 237 East is really fast except when you near Zanker Road, jams up to what I call the 15 minute mile. 680 South. 880 South. 280 either way.

Traffic Reality:
 Yes California traffic is bad. With 300 000 new people a year, what do you expect. Yet, with the cost of living and the traffic, people still continue to come. There must be an incredible reason for it. Remember that! In my opinion it's not as bad as some people claim it to be. I leave at about 9:20am, and I'm at work at 10am. That's 32km in 40 minutes, not too bad. If you're one of those people that can't take more than 10 minutes of driving, then just live closer, but expect to pay a little bit more in rent and/or have a smaller place for the same amount of money. Ottawa used to take me about 30 minutes for 14km during peak hours or 12 minutes off peak, but I always worked downtown so I had to take the bus which took an hour off peak. So 40 minutes of traffic here is easy. If you're from Toronto or Vancouver, this kind of traffic is nothing new. Also, take a look at my route, I take Mission Blvd in Fremont onto 880 South (that merge is slow), then 237 East, 101 North, then Oregon Expressway to Page Mill almost to the 280. Most of my time gets sucked up in local traffic lights, not highway traffic jams. The worst I've ever had for that route is 1 hour and 15 minutes. Over time you get a sense of the traffic patterns, and you adapt by leaving at times that are optimal for the drive time.

Signing Up Notes

California doesn't have a concept of first and last months rent like in Canada. It's just a deposit of usually $300-500, and a pro-rated first payment of the number of days left in the first month you'll be staying. Usually they have contracts of 3 month, 6 month, 9 month, and 12 month leases. I would opt for the longest term possible, because after that you pay on a month by month basis and they could raise your payments (there is no concept of rent control here). The apartment representative will tell you what they need, which will usually be the deposit and pro-rated first payment ( [monthly payment of apartment / days in that month] * days left in the month) in the form of a money order or certified check. They also want a copy of your letter of offer or a pay stub (to verify your income), and possibly want a letter from your previous land lord about your history as a tenant. I never had an apartment before, so instead they just increased my deposit to $800.

Structurally Speaking...

Apartments in California (in the Valley anyways) aren't like in Canada, where Canada has tall rectangular buildings. A Californian complex is usually only 2 or 3 stories high, and is more representative of a small condo. The apartments in 25+ story buildings are really cheap, because of it's bulk construction and the fact that vertical real estate is virtually free. This is one of the reasons you'll be a bit shocked at the cost, not having big tall ugly buildings comes at a price. In a place like Ottawa, the land is quite worthless, and the value is all in the building. California is the reverse, the house is absolutely worthless, amd the land (which is more rare) comes at a premium. Californian apartments also promote the concept of a little community and host a variety of summer community strengthening events like barbeques and pool parties, which is unheard of in Canada.

Cost Of Living

If you've done your research you'll be aware of the cost of living in the city you've decided to move to. California, New York, and Boston have fairly high cost of living factors. Unlike Oregon, Washington, and Texas which have a very low cost of living index. You can check the cost of living and generally compare cities at www.homefair.com and www.homeadvisor.com. These sites let you compare two cities side by side, calculate the cost of living difference, give you stats on the population, crime, traffic, etc... Money.com also provides a cost of living calculator, however they have a good Best Places To Live tool. However at this point you've probably already decided on where you want to live.

Utilities

Setting up your utilities is usually very easy (Phone, Cable, Gas, Power, Water). The apartment rental office will provide you with documentation on how to set that all up with contact numbers and everything.