A guide to Menlo Park neighborhoods for Spring Bounce
It’s SuperBowl Sunday! That means that the Spring Bounce will start tomorrow, and housing prices will begin to soar once again!
If I were you, I’d skip the game and start studying the MLS and going to open houses. At the end of last year, “Real Estater” posted a handy guide to Menlo Park that may be of use to you if you’re going in that direction:
“Property seems to have no structural problems” [Burbed.com]
RealEstater:
To those who are not familiar, there are 3 distict “Menlo Park” neighborhoods by the same name:
1. The “real” Menlo Park – Multi-million dollar homes.
2. “East” Menlo Park – Ghetto area; same as East Palo Alto.
3. “Unincorporated” Menlo Park – Kids aren’t entitled to go to Menlo Park schools; get bus’ed to ghetto area of Redwood City for school.Be very careful when shopping for real estate there. Don’t work with an idiot real estate agent who can’t tell the difference between 1, 2 and 3. #2 is fairly obvious, but #3 is not as widely known. If you see a new-ish looking big house priced at under $2 mil, then it might be in area #3. As the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true…
Thanks for sharing!
Get ready for the bounce! Don’t be priced out forever!
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:23 am
There are actually 2 very distinct areas of unincorporated Menlo Park. I assume from the description above that the poster is referring to the North Fair Oaks area. That area shares poor schools with RWC and really doesn’t have much in common with Menlo Park. The other area of unincorporated Menlo Park is referred to as West Menlo Park and is just as upscale as Central Menlo Park. It has its own elementary and middle schools which test very similarly to Menlo Park city schools. There is a much more detailed rundown of the neighborhoods here: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/neighborhoods/#mp
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:55 am
Thanks for the clarification!
February 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
MP afterschool care is almost non-existent. We were part of the rush for it last year. At least one parent slept outside the facility the night before in order to be first in line to sign their kids up. Soon thereafter there was an emergency meeting between school & city officials and a bunch of furious K parents… I can’t remember what exactly happened, but the parents got no satisfaction there.
If you’re planning to buy in MP, be rich enough to have one parent stay at home, or to afford a nanny.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Renter4:
>>MP afterschool care is almost non-existent.
>>If you’re planning to buy in MP, be rich enough to have one parent stay at home, or to afford a nanny.
Also, Menlo Park elementary schools have 2 separate sessions. Session 1 starts early in the morning. Session 2 starts mid-day and runs to the afternoon. Stay-at-home moms and/or nannies are absolutely necessary if you get session 2, to send/pick-up kids to school. Many residents have both stay-at-home mom and a nanny. After all, stay-at-home mom needs to spend time at the spa and go shopping at the mall.
February 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Or just get the fudge out of California!
The place is nuts.
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
>After all, stay-at-home mom needs to spend time at the spa and go shopping at the mall.
Feeling a tad class-warfare-like? The parents pissed off about no afterschool care aren’t at the spa, they’re working to afford their mortgage in a “good school district.” And the SAHMs are volunteering in the school district.
This is the flaw with buying in a good school district in CA: there’s not one public school that gets adequate funds by the standards of say, NJ. Schools here are good or bad depending on how many parents have the leisure to volunteer, and the degree to which you can pad out the budget with fundraising. But the more you paid for the high school score, the less leisure you have to volunteer, and the less money you have to give.
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Renter4:
>>The parents pissed off about no afterschool care aren’t at the spa, they’re working to afford their mortgage in a “good school district”.
Don’t forget, Menlo Park schools aren’t just for folks in Menlo Park. Atherton folks go there too.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Sure, but do they go there? I would think they’d just go ahead and stick their kids in private school from Day One. My impression of the dichotomy in MP schools (not-working/working) was that it was between people who bought earlier and later.
I was looking at census data on incomes the other day and noted that while MP, Woodside, PA, and other “real” BA cities only have about a fifth of their residents making over 200k, Atherton’s got about half their population in that demographic.
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Interestingly, the CNN link that Burbed quoted for “Big incomes, bigger houses”, contains only one city from the bay area. That is Ross in Marin county. Atherton, Hillsboro, Woodside etc. were not even listed.