Shared housing is a way that many Silicon Valley employees work around the high cost of renting a home here. A bonus is that if you’re relocating to the San Jose – Cupertino – Palo Alto area or nearby, it’s that much easier to meet people in a communal living situation. For many, that means renting a house with a number of other people. In some cases, it translates renting a bedroom in a house where the only other residents are members of the same family. Either way, it helps to beat the high real estate costs, and may enable those who choose to live in a group setting to save faster to buy their own home.
To many, shared housing seems like a new concept, but I remember doing it when I was just out of college and teaching in the Los Angeles area, where rents seemed sky high to me at the time. When I returned to grad school, I did it again. Both experiences, though, convinced me that a longer commute and living along OR a shorter commute and living in a smaller space (a studio apartment) was a good trade off. Of course, this was in the 1980s, and we did not have web tools to help us to screen and find like minded roommates or house mates. I suspect it’s a lot better now.
Not having used any of these shared housing services, I cannot endorse any, but there are a number of sites to find house mates or communal living, and there are some companies which specialize in matching people to openings. If any of my readers can endorse a company or site, please let me know by email and I’ll update this article with that information. My word of caution, though: never send money by wire to someone you don’t know for an apartment or home you have not seen. There is a very serious problem with wire fraud, and you do not want to put your hard earned money at risk. Be safe out there!
Read more on the Silicon Valley real estate market:
Read about the various real estate markets by area within Silicon Valley: http://sanjoserealestatelosgatoshomes.com/
Get market stats for San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, and Santa Cruz County: http://popehandy.rereport.com
