Have not seen anyone post about San Jose yet so here goes. Obviously a great place for tech jobs and fantastic weather with virtually no snow or ice unless you drive 4 hours into the Sierra - cool winters and long warm dry summers. Single folks seem to prefer San Francisco, but San Jose is a great place for families to raise kids in suburbia. Housing is expensive it's true but there are also manufactured housing parks that are much cheaper and really very livable. A few parks even own their own land collectively but most charge a space rent of around $1200/mo that includes utilities. This space rent is a similar amount to what you would pay in real estate taxes on a million dollar 3 bed 2 bath SFH and in San Jose is controlled by law to not go up more than about 3%/year.
Have not seen anyone post about San Jose yet so here goes. Obviously a great place for tech jobs and fantastic weather with virtually no snow or ice unless you drive 4 hours into the Sierra - cool winters and long warm dry summers. Single folks seem to prefer San Francisco, but San Jose is a great place for families to raise kids in suburbia. Housing is expensive it's true but there are also manufactured housing parks that are much cheaper and really very livable. A few parks even own their own land collectively but most charge a space rent of around $1200/mo that includes utilities. This space rent is a similar amount to what you would pay in real estate taxes on a million dollar 3 bed 2 bath SFH and in San Jose is controlled by law to not go up more than about 3%/year.