So I’m thinking about moving to San Diego for my next tour in spring of '09. I’ve been there once for a few days and my wife has never been there, so we know next to nothing about the area. We’re trying to figure out where to live.
Here’s the info we’re working with:
We want to live in or as close to downtown as possible (in as nice an area as possible–we prefer trendy and urban (shops/restaurants within walking distance) as opposed to suburban)
We have around $2400/month to spend on housing
I’ll most likely be working at NAB Coronado
We’re willing to buy but would rather rent (apartment, house, condo, whatever)
What’s the housing market like there? Any thoughts on good places to live? Any places we should steer clear of? We heard the area around Balboa Park was nice, but as of now, that’s the only info we have. No idea if it’s affordable or not. Are there even any apartment buildings in downtown? Also, I know there are several different military housing communities in the San Diego area, so if anyone knows anything about them, I’m all ears (I don’t really want to go that route, but it’s a good backup plan).
Aside from the housing thing, any suggestions on things to do there? Places to go see, day trips, activities, museums, what the weather is like, good school districts, bad school districts… anything worth mentioning. And how is traffic there? Right now we’re dealing with D.C. area traffic, and it takes my wife 90 minutes to get to work (about 25 miles away). Please tell me it’s not that bad there.
The San Diego housing market is one of the more expensive markets around. And with the whole industry kind of slowing down, we’re feeling it here, too.
If you want to be close to downtown, you’d probably want to consider neighborhoods like Hillcrest and North Park. North Park isn’t as nice as Hillcrest, but in my humble opinion is a cool place to be - it’s being revitalized, so there are still some spots that aren’t so hot, but it’s also cheaper than Hillcrest. Hillcrest is trendy, gay-friendly, and home to a lot of great restaurants, so it can be crowded and pricey.
I live in Clairemont, which is probably 5-7 miles north of downtown. Close enough to get there easily, far enough to be less crowded and expensive.
There are a ton of high-rises downtown - there was a big boom in building condos down there, and guess what? Now they can’t sell them! Depending on your budget you might be able to get something discounted, but I’m not in real estate, so don’t take that with any sort of certainty.
My understanding (and this was oh 10 years ago when I was married to an officer in the Navy) was that military housing here is very hard to come by - now, maybe you have rank that can get you in, but I don’t think it’s a given you’d even find military housing.
Traffic is definitely not as bad as DC or LA, but we have our trouble spots. You’ll have a bit of a backup getting into Coronado I expect because you ain’t the only one stationed at NAB Coronado, but I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as beltway traffic.
Weather here is mostly mild. But the further inland you go, you’ll see wider fluctuations. For me in Clairemont, just a handful of miles inland, during the winter we will have a few days dipping into the low 40s (Jan/Feb) overnight. And during the summer we had some days that got near 100. Those are few and far between if you’re say 5 miles or less from the coast, but the further inland you go, the warmer it can get. Still, by DC standards it’s nothing. No snow. Hardly any rain (see recent wildfires as proof). Mostly good weather.
I took a pretty scattered approach at all this, but hopefully it helps. On the housing, have you checked San Diego Craigslist yet? That will give you a feel for where you can afford, and if you have specific neighborhoods you wonder about, we can I’m sure offer you our opinions.
Also, for price comparison, I own a 1BR condo in Clairemont and my mortgage (traditional 30 year fixed, 20 percent down) is about $1,300 a month. Add in HOA of $225 or so, so that’s what it costs me. Just as a price comparison. It obviously can vary wildly depending on so many factors.
You will LOVE San Diego. My son and his wife were there three years (NAS Coronado, yup!) and had the time of their lives. They lived in a gated apartment complex in Chula Vista. When we visited they took us to all the tourist spots – Sea World, Wild Animal Park, the waterfront (as a Navy man, you’ll enjoy touring the USS Midway) and, a few miles north, wine country.
As far as commuting, the only comparison they could make was with Denver, and SD traffic seems to flow more smoothly than Denver historically has (although TRex is smoothing Denver out some now.) While we were there visiting, we met several of my son’s friends; they compared SD favorably with (that is, better than) places like Norfolk, Pensacola and Chicago. We made several trips between Coronado and Chula Vista, and I don’t recall the trip ever taking more than 15-20 minutes, although they do have some bad days now and again.
Oh, yeah – buy fire insurance.
BTW, I just re-read your post – I thought it was NAS for Naval Air Station, but I’m an old Army guy, so what do I know?
Also, since you asked about schools, does that mean you have kids? Or plan to? I don’t know anything about school systems, since I have none and plan to have none, so I can’t help there.
But knowing the kid situation might help with things to do. For the young ones there’s Legoland, SeaWorld, the Zoo, Wild Animal Park, tons of stuff.
I moved here from L.A. and I’ve never looked back.
Yup, NAB = Naval Amphib Base, which is right next to the NAS on Coronado.
scout, I have a 1 year old and a 10 year old (both girls). They’ll love your suggestions! Thanks also for the info on Hillcrest and North Park. I’ve been looking at info for Hillcrest and it looks to be very nice. Now I’m off to check out North Park and your Craiglist suggestion…
We’ll put a shrimp on the barbie for you! No, wait, that was Australia. Oh, what the heck, we’ll ignite the entire city to welcome you. By 2009, we should be due for another good burn anyway.
I can’t really add much to Scout’s excellent rundown. It seems to me that $2400/mo is quite a bit to spend on housing, even for San Diego, so you should do fine. I live in Scripps Ranch, which has the advantage of being sort of equidistant to everything, including downtown, Hillcrest, La Jolla, and Escondido. Also, it’s a nice area … kind of like living in the country, but still within the city.
As a Navy wife living in San Diego, let me welcome you as well! I am a New Englander (One of those “I can imagine living anywhere but New England, ever”) and I can believe how much I love living here. The weather is everything you hear that it is. Wonderful sunny days all the time. Slight warning though, I think it makes you slightly immune to the passage of time. “That couldn’t have been six months ago, the weather is exactly the same as it was then….”
Having kids might be key in getting on base housing if that interests you. My husband refuses to live on base. He says its like never leaving work. Plus base housing is not really in any “downtown areas.” There are lots of nice apartments and condos being built downtown right now, so they might be ready by the time you move…
I don’t think the traffic here is bad at all, but then, I used to live in Boston during the early Big Dig era. I rarely go downtown during the week though. Getting into and out of downtown might be a problem during rush hour. The Coronado bridge can get kind of backed up as well (and all bets are off if there is an accident on the bridge, but these are thankfully rare). But the freeways here are big and usually move pretty well.
I have no kids, so I can’t help you out with the school districts, but there are tons of things to do in San Diego. It all depends on what you like to do? Hiking? The beach?. The Zoo and Wild Animal Park are always good bets (I recommend becoming a member – gets you free unlimited access), and Sea World, (They were recently doing free admission with a US Military card)etc, there are tons of museums in Balboa Park.
The better public school districts tend to be in coastal areas like Point Loma, Del Mar, and La Jolla. There are also supposed to be some good schools in newer developed areas where lots of families have gone to be able to afford a house (e.g., Rancho Bernardo, Fallbrook). I believe Coronado also has a highly rated school system, if you want to consider that option. San Diego has a school choice system and you are allowed to opt out if your local school is on the list of lower performers. A lot of the best schools and trendy Charter schools have waiting lists, though.
From what you describe (urban preference, working on Coronado), I think living in downtown would be the way to go. It is one of the few places where walking to restaurants and shops is feasible. And you would be very close to Coronado. I think you would also be going the opposite direction of traffic - at least with respect to downtown. And there’s even a ferry from downtown to Coronado, if you wanted to go that route.
As mentioned above, there is a huge boom in high-rise condos in downtown. This is all tied in with the new ballpark, and the cleanup of the gaslamp district. So I know there woud be a lot of condos for sale. What I’m not sure about is what the rental market is like downtown. I dug up this link on “signonsandiego”, but I’m not sure how representative this is: http://sdhomessearch.signonsandiego.com/Rentals/Search.asp?CType=A&p=C&CountyIds=12&CountyIdCount=1&TargetFold=Rentals
If nothing else, you can poke around at the various neighborhoods to see what prices are like. There are definitely areas to avoid. I think $2400/mo. would get you a reasonably decent place. But again, I’m not sure about the downtown area.
Living outside of downtown then adds traffic to the equation. Traffic has been getting steadily worse. But I don’t think we’re anywhere near as bad as DC traffic. Unfortunately public transit sucks (there, I said it), so there is no nice Metro equivalent you could plan on.
For good or bad, coming from where you are now, I think you’ll notice:
the lack of humidity (except for some brief periods, but you may not even notice it)
the lack of seasons (very appealing to most people here, but no fall colors). Taking a nice walk along the beach (in shorts and t-shirt) in January, will you miss the snow ?
the lack of open space (except deserty-like space). There are nice hills as a backdrop, and all of San Diego is covered with mesas. But unlike VA, you won’t find big, open, rolling, green hills. All the open space has been sucked up to suburbs.
the lack of a good newspaper (the “Union” falls far short of the Washington Post…or the Fresno Bee for that matter
For $2400 a month you can afford a “longterm rental” in Coronado (my mom had a 2BR/2BA apartment for $1100) and have good schools, a good neighborhood, and a short trip to work.
“The area around Balboa Park” sounds a little vague, but North and South Park (among other areas, like Hillcrest) could fit that description, and are both relatively nice. Over the last 10-15 years, they’ve been in the gradual process of changing from slightly nasty, run-down neighborhoods to gentrified gay(ish) neighborhoods. The Beatnik ethos thrives there; The Big Kitchen Cafe, one of San Diego’s best kept secrets, is a magnificent little hideout for feminists, activists and socialists.
I happen to live right down the street from some military housing in Serra Mesa. It’s up the hill from all the interesting stuff in Mission Valley, and it’s not the most affluent neighborhood but (a) it’s not the poorest and (b) being a mile or two from the police department, it’s really safe.
It’s easy to get a pretty nice place in Coronado for cheap/free if you’re Navy. Also, keep in mind that if you live in the city of San Diego proper you’re going to have to cross the Coronado Bridge to get into work every morning, and traffic is bad enough on the mainland, but lemme tell ya, Coronado Bridge is a BITCH all day long and especially during rush hour. My dad did it, though (North Island), so it’s doable if you really want to.
I see you’re from Northern Virginia–traffic can be almost as bad here as it is there, although it depends on where you are. Again, crossing the bridge is a bitch, and going into the city in the morning and out of the city at night (particularly north/south) is a royal pain as well. Getting into and out of beach neighborhoods is a PITA on warm days, especially La Jolla and Pacific Beach. My worst traffic story comes from when I interned at a law firm in La Jolla and lived in University City, literally 2 miles south of the firm. It took an hour to cross that 2-mile stretch every day–I would’ve just walked, but I had to get there from my high school in Point Loma (15 miles south) in the middle of the day. On Halloween, it took 3 hours to get home. Three hours to drive two miles. That’s location-specific, though.
If you do really want to live near downtown, Hillcrest is a nice place to start looking. It’s best to avoid it if you’re homophobic, though. Me, I love it, but it can probably be offputting for more traditional-minded out-of-towners.
Downtown itself is a lot nicer than it was 5 years ago, although it depends on what part. But Little Italy is an example of an area that used to be fairly trashy and is now pretty nice. Great restaurants, and you can live across the street from the left field post at the ballpark (and see the games from your roof for free).
Now, as for what to do–the weekly alternative rags (the Reader and CityBeat) are good. The Reader is a higher-quality paper, but CityBeat has a more, shall we say, progressive viewpoint, and it covers local events a little better IMO. It also isn’t as plastered with ads.
The Ken Theatre on Adams Ave right off the 15 is an ancient and very cool one-theatre cinema, which shows one off-the-beaten-path (or cult favorite) movie every week. The Hillcrest Theatre on University & 5th (or is it 6th?) is more modern, with more theatres and more movies, which tend to run in the arthouse/indie/foreign direction, and it’s within walking distance of some nice restaurants like the adorably retro Corvette Diner and, if you’re in the mood for Chinese, the relatively expensive but also relatively atmospheric Golden Dragon. 5th Ave on Hillcrest is also a great place to go for retro and second-hand clothes and used books, not to mention cigars and vinyl records. (Eclectic neighborhood, Hillcrest is.) If you’re into cigars, Speakeasy Tobacco is a nice place with two big humidors where you can often find Cubans milling around, playing poker and bantering in Spanish, which is just damn cool IMO. It shares a parking lot with 5th Ave Books, which has a good selection of classic American literature, a decent selection of more modern stuff, an eclectic mix of art and counterculture books and a few really nice collector’s items. Hillcrest is also probably the best place to get your wife’s hair done.
Also nowhere near as much humidity.
Er…if by “a few miles” you mean “the width of a handful of Eastern states”.
Well, yeah, but neither of the wildfires in this decade have done much damage inside the city limits. The 2003 fire got inside the city, but not by much. Anyone living “near downtown” by any stretch of the imagination probably has nothing to worry about.
It does for the most part, but it’s actually not bad if you’re going to popular locations downtown. It’s generally far cheaper and faster than downtown parking, and will usually get you closer to your destination too. This is especially true at the Harbor, the Convention Center, and Petco Park.
Actually, there are falling leaves with changing colors in El Cajon. On the campus of Grossmont College, at least. Of course, it’s nothing like the East Coast (I’m a DC-area kid myself, having lived the first 10 years of my life in Maryland).
The Union-Tribune isn’t as bad as it used to be. It’s a pretty good source for news on local government (of which there’s a lot of bad news, unfortunately) and Mexico, although the LA Times is probably the better choice for news about California in general. The sports writing is pretty good, and the movie and music reviews are excellent, especially in Night & Day, the part that comes wedged in the middle of Currents on Thursday. The biggest difference between the U-T and the Washington Post is that the U-T has very little of its national news written by local staff. The quality difference is there too, of course, but it’s not quite as bad as some of us East Coast transplants make it out to be. That said, I still read more of the Washington Post and the New York Times than the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Hey Greg Charles, Skara_Brae, cher3, cormac262, Tortuga, how come we haven’t seen you in the San Diego dopefest thread?
More local business stuff: If you (and/or your wife) are shopping for clothes on 5th Ave, avoid the temptation to go into Buffalo Exchange. It looks cool, the music is fun, and the people are friendly, but DON’T DO IT! The selection is small and overpriced compared to the assload of other buy/sell/trade type clothing stores on the same block.
And the best steak in the Western United States can be found at Donovan’s Steak and Chop House in La Jolla. Mighty fine pork chops, too. Not at all within my budget, but I try to get rich relatives to take me there whenever the opportunity presents itself.
If you’re a beer nut like I am, there are some damn fine local beers. Karl Strauss Red Trolley is my go-to beer, although Karl Strauss can be hit-or-miss in general (Woodie Gold was a waste of money and time). Stone, up in North County, makes some beers that are very popular with the locals who know not to drink Corona, chiefly the Stone IPA and Levitation. They also have a 21st-anniversary (or is it 11th-anniversary?) beer out that I’ve heard rave reviews of but haven’t had a chance to try. Not that it’ll probably be around when you get here, of course…
ETA: And for burgers, when you want an experience a step up from In-N-Out, you can’t go wrong with Hodad’s on Newport Ave in Ocean Beach. Hell, you can’t go wrong with Newport Ave in general. Lots of antique stores; Jungle Java is by far the most relaxing coffeeshop I’ve ever been in–it’s almost all outdoors, with a garden and lots of gently flowing water; Newport Pizza & Ale House has a good selection of beers on tap, a better selection of bottled beer, wine and lambic, and an NES hooked up to one of their big screens, not to mention damn fine pizza. The Black is a local curiosity that everyone has to go inside at least once, even if you don’t buy anything. And OB has a sense of community that’s pretty rare in big cities these days, with an infusion of world cultures lent by the international hostel.
I am east of that, but if I recall, your house is on one of the mountain streets, right? So pretty danged close. Want me to drive by and make sure the lawn is neatly kept?
I will stop by the thread and say hello…