Originally Posted by paulcg77

I'm a Bay Area native. I haven't lived there in a few decades but all of my family is still there. The good news is, prices have been static or declining lately in the Bay Area for a number of reasons, including a lot of tech workers leaving for states with a lower cost of living where they can work from home... For renting, there are a lot of new apartment buildings in Dublin in particular, especially near I-580. If you have a family and a working spouse and can afford to rent (or buy) a house, Pleasanton is probably the nicest city in the East Bay, followed by Danville and Walnut Creek. Livermore is also nice and slightly less expensive. If you have a large enough budget and want cooler weather in the summer, most of the North Bay is nice. Petaluma is a really cool city, and Sebastopol and the Russian River area is a little slice of heaven if you want a quieter outdoorsy small town experience, about 1 hour north of downtown SF and about 90 minutes from SFO. Obviously, Napa up to Calistoga is beautiful, but that's pretty much unobtainium unless you're a millionaire. The good news is, you're only about 45 minutes drive to the best vineyards in Napa from somewhere like Walnut Creek.