East Coast Vs. West Coast (San Diego, San Jose: for sale, real estate, apartments)

[Pequeño_Bonsai]

Hi all,

I'm a government contractor in my early 20s and have lived on the east coast for all of my life. After visiting Arizona, California, and Colorado in length I have fallen in love with the west and am making preliminary plans to move to California in the next couple of years. After searching old relocation threads I still have a few questions that I hope you guys could answer for me:

*Once the economy recovers, would you rather live in San Jose/surrounding area or San Diego and why? In my research it seems as if more gov't contracting jobs are in the San Jose area (Silicon Valley) but I would be willing to switch my type of work if I could get an Information Systems/Systems Engineering job in San Diego, even if the pay is a bit lower.

*For those of you that have lived in DC, how does the cost of living compare? Would I be able to live comfortably on a salary of about 70k? (My boyfriend is also relocating with me and his income is similar; we'd be living together.)

*I really enjoy water sports, tennis, off-roading, canoeing, horseback riding, etc. What areas can offer these types of activities within an hour or so of a drive?

*What do you wish you knew prior to moving to California/San Jose?

Thanks for all of your help!!

[Pequeño_Bonsai]

Anyone? :-)

[coyoteskye]

I'd post this up on the San Diego forum for responses about San Diego and if you're interested in San Jose, post some more specific questions about it on this thread.

Just to get a sense of rental and/or property prices take a look at California Craigslist.
craigslist: california classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

With a combined income of 140K and no kids you'll be able to swing it despite extremely high rental and real estate costs.

There are more desirable places (imo) than San Jose if you want to be in the Silicon Valley area ... like, for example, Los Gatos which will give you a relatively easy to commute to jobs in the area and an easy drive over the hill (HWY17) to Santa Cruz county (during non commuter times) for much of the activities that you're into and with the Truckee/Lake Tahoe area about 4 hours drive if you want some mountain / lake / skiing, etc..

Below is a map of the counties in California.
Once you get a better sense of where in California you want to be then you can inquire about specific communities.

The San Jose area is quite different than San Diego so it might be helpful if you had a stronger sense of what region of the state you want to live in and how would you really know that without experiencing both first hand?

[zitsky]

I thought San Diego had more government jobs. Maybe I'm wrong. Exactly what type of IS/Sys Engineering do you do? Right now the market isn't great, so I'd recommend getting a job lined up before coming out.

I personally would rather live in the San Jose area, but have no interest in San Jose itself. I lived on the peninsula for 10 years. Peninsula is usually considered anything between SF and SJ. All those activities you mentioned are available within 45-60 min from San Jose.

[coyoteskye]

That map i provided of counties in CA isn't the best.
It's good to know the counties when searching the state for various info.
Here's a link to google images with some better maps (that i've uploaded to city-data-forum already and can't do it more than once).
map of california counties - Google Search