Moving to the Santa Rosa area (San Francisco, Burbank: renting, house, transfer)

[lfreiberger01]

My husband and I moved from TX to Northern CA last year. Now he is getting transferred and working in the Napa area. I was told that Santa Rosa housing prices are better than Napa or other places in Sonoma County. Please remember that I am not from CA so I do not know a lot about northern CA. I grew up in the DC area and then Dallas and now heading to Santa Rosa (or surrounding areas). Would anyone suggest a good place to start planting roots? I have 2 little boys (not school age yet). So how are the schools? I don't mind bohemian type areas. How is the weather? Is it humid or Arid? How are the seasons? Is it rainy in the winter and not in the summer? Is there flooding? I just really need someone who knows something about this area...or areas around here that you think are good. Please help!
Thanks ahead of time!

[karikats]

Santa Rosa is outrageously expensive, and completely unaffordable for a single income. I've been here 27 years and I absolutely love it. I dread the thought of leaving, but I am forced to move away as I cannot afford the housing.

The weather is possibly the best in the world, Luther Burbank said it was God's country. With the exception of these past 2 winters, they had been relatively mild compared to the rest of the country. The summers are, in my opinion, on the cold side. We do have 100° heat waves that have lasted as long as 2 weeks, but on the average, it rarely gets over 80°. In the summer, we have "nature's air conditioning" the fog that rolls in daily around 4-6pm. It is uncommon to be out at night without at least a sweater with your shorts that can be worn almost year round. The fog burns off anywhere from 10am to noon then sunshine prevails, almost daily. It is ideal grape growing weather.

It rains in the winter, usually. Depending on where you live you could get some flooding. In Santa Rosa it is minor, no damage. It is extremely rare to get rain in the summer, maybe around the 4th of July we might get a storm, and then not again, until Halloween. The hills turn brown in the summertime which leads to the fire season. Santa Rosa has been spared from fire devastation, although surrounding areas have not been as lucky. We are green from December to March or later. We have high humidity year round, mold can definitely be a problem as it is in my house due to the change in temperature, and renting from a slum lord. The spring is absolutely beautiful and so is the fall. I've come to believe that our seasons seem somewhat off schedule. Summer comes in the fall, then a short winter, then comes spring in late winter, and the rest of the year is summer in the day and winter at night. We have virtually no pollution, other than smoke from fires as it drifts our way. We sit in between hills and valleys 30 minutes from the ocean and 2.5 hours to the snow in the Sierras.

I don't know about the schools except to say there are a lot of them as I don't have children. Most people I know with kids, have them in private schools, not to say there is anything wrong with education in Santa Rosa. We do have the California lottery and Indian reservation's gambling revenues to fund our future generation's education, so I'm assuming it scores well.
The junior college in Santa Rosa is one of the wealthiest in the state, a beautiful campus and I believe very good. Sonoma State University is basically next door to Santa Rosa.

There are definitely Bohemian areas, namely Sebastopol, Occidental, Forestville, and Graton which are all west of Santa Rosa towards the coast, the opposite direction from Napa.

This is a very foody area with emphasis on locally grown/produced everything from fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, beef, lamb, poultry, cheese, wine, beer, milk. I'd say we are a fully contained, self sufficient county, missing only coffee bean trees

There are some negative facts that should be disclosed while selling the city that I so dearly love. The traffic is horrendous, and the present construction of widening highway 101 is only a temporary added inconvenience to the nightmare that will continue to plague the city, even when it's finished. The widening is being done within the city, which funnels back to 2 lanes outside the city limits, causing southbound gridlock on the ONLY north-south road to Marin county and San Francisco. The new lanes are carpool lanes that are in effect for too many hours in both directions at both the morning AND evening commute, causing more of the gridlock than it relieves...IMO Carpooling is apparently not very convenient for many of the residents, myself included, when needing to travel to San Francisco opposite the commute hours. Traffic going to the west on highway 12 is relatively stress-free, while going east (to Napa) is through town, with stoplights, on a two lane highway taking much longer than what one would expect for the number of miles traveled.

There has been an increase in gang activity, and it's definitely a concern.

And finally, Santa Rosa sits directly on the Rodgers Creek fault on a "bowl of jelly". (It's a long way down before you hit bedrock.) The fault literally parallels Highway 101 where our city administration, hospitals, sheriff's dept., two largest shopping centers, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa High School and downtown, among other things, are located. And we are due for another big one. I would never consider this a reason to not move here, as disasters happen all over the world and there is no where that is safe AND wonderful. I would certainly avoid Florida for the hurricanes and southern Cal for the fires as those are a given year after year, but the many decades between our 2 devastating quakes, has provided the closest to safe AND wonderful you'll ever find. I would recommend however, living a few miles away from the highway 101 corridor to increase the safety factor.

I love Santa Rosa no matter what.

[calif]

Wow! What a thorough post above! Santa Rosa schools are OK. Some areas tend to be largely Hispanic, which can be a negative since classroom time is spent catching up the non English speakers. The great thing is that you can shop around for your school and just do a transfer if you don't like the one your children are supposed to go to.

Housing prices have dropped dramatically in Santa Rosa, you can probably low ball a seller and get a great deal. I wish you great luck!

[calif]

Oh and here is a link to the local paper. Santa Rosa Press Democrat

[capoeira]

Originally Posted by lfreiberger01

Now he is getting transferred and working in the Napa area.

Santa Rosa is about 40 miles to Napa. You have lots of traffic for 16 miles on the 101 freeway then a long drive on small local highways like the 116 and the 121.

You are better off looking closer to Napa. Here are some closer suggestions: St. Helena,Yountville,Sonoma,Novato(commute against traffic,good schools),Benicia(expensive with good schools),Fairfield(good areas only like Green Valley),Vacaville(especially Browns Valley!).