Looking to retire in Marina California (San Jose, Santa Cruz: crime, how much, house)

[Tico49]

We are looking to retire to Marinia California what are the up and downs of living in Marina.

[jaijai]

There are areas of Marina that are less than safe.
How less than safe and where those areas are, i don't know.
Sorry i can't be more helpful.
Why Marina by the way?

[BayAreaHillbilly]

It is a low to mid income place, with some gang problems, and with some meth problems.

[jbunniii]

I wonder if there are any low to mid income places left in America that have neither gang nor meth problems. Sad state of affairs.

[NewToCA]

Originally Posted by jbunniii

I wonder if there are any low to mid income places left in America that have neither gang nor meth problems. Sad state of affairs.

Plenty of low to mid income places that are safe and don't have public meth problems, but perhaps a little tougher to find in California. Marina may be OK, I'm not familiar with it but the crime stats look pretty good to me.


https://www.city-data.com/city/Marina-California.html

[SmoothBBQ]

Marina gets a ton of fog. Not sure about the crime though. I've never seen crime or gangbangers. I've been in Marina plenty of times as they do have some of the larger chain stores ie Best Buy, Kohls etc. It may be hit or miss. Have you visited the area?

[Hawk J]

My Mom lived in Marina more then 50 years. She loved the cooler weather. There were many warm sunny days when i spent time at her home or around town. I used to surf fish at the beach all the way to Moss Landing. Used to be a lot of Hanggliders on the dunes.

[onlymike]

Marina is a nice little city on the water of the Monterey bay. It's location is perfectly situated between Monterey and Santa Cruz. As someone else pointed out earlier the fog can be really bad for a lot of days of the year. So you should expect that not to mention the wind blows pretty good in Marina besides that i'ts a pretty decent little city. Has some of the same problems as everywhere else though. I would live there in fact I almost bought a house there at the top of the market. So, glad I didn't in hindsight just due to how much money I would have lost.

[TimC2462]

As a former resident of Marina for more than 18 years, it does get the reputation of being a fog town. I don't know about meth problems (it's been more than 10 years since my family and I moved away), but the town has certainly declined in terms of quality of living. It used to be a great bedroom community that served military families before the closure of the Fort Ord military base in the 90's. But now, it seems everything about town has aged pretty poorly. Crime should be the least of anyone's worries.

Marina is the odd stepchild out of the cities in the Monterey bay area.

[roadwarrior101]

Originally Posted by TimC2462

Marina is the odd stepchild out of the cities in the Monterey bay area.

During the housing boom from 2002-2007, I had high hopes for that entire area. As housing costs skyrocketed in the San Jose area, more and more people were willing to make that commute, which was propping up cities in the Monterey Bay Area. Since then, the housing market has completely tanked and I just don't see it recovering all that much. Yes, it is a lot cheaper than Monterey or Santa Cruz, but there is no industry to support this (agriculture is not exactly expanding rapidly). I don't have a lot of confidence that Marina will recover over the next decade.