[Ty Ford]

My CA search for a soft landing (possible relocation) has now identified
Santa Cruz or San Rafael as possibilities.

real estate in SC appears less expensive than in SR.

Anyone know much about it in terms of work viability?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demos http://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

[[email protected]]

On May 13, 6:56 am, Ty Ford wrote:
My CA search for a soft landing (possible relocation) has now identified
Santa Cruz or San Rafael as possibilities.
real estate in SC appears less expensive than in SR.
Anyone know much about it in terms of work viability?
Thanks,
Ty Ford
--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demoshttp://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

San Rafael would be commuting distance to Pixar Studios in
Emeryville(Oakland), probably someone with your level of expertice
would have a better chance in the greater bay area like San Rafael.
San Rafael is very expensive, probably $650,000 minimum for a 3 BR 2
Ba house in Marin County. Santa Cruz is a bit more affordable maybe
$500,000, commuting distance to San Jose. The first year here is the
toughest. I moved out here at 20 and it was very tough way back then.
Oh... Digidesign's (pro tools hardware) main building is in Redwood
city area, South San Francisco.
Good luck, where are you moving from?

[Jay Kadis]

In article ,
Ty Ford wrote:

My CA search for a soft landing (possible relocation) has now identified
Santa Cruz or San Rafael as possibilities.

real estate in SC appears less expensive than in SR.

Anyone know much about it in terms of work viability?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demos http://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

San Rafael is closer to the action, but Santa Cruz is very nice if you
don't mind a half-hour of sometimes-hellish commuting into San Jose. We
have some people teaching in Palo Alto and working at Universal Audio in
Santa Cruz, so it is a possible commute if you can arrange your schedule
appropriately.

There are a lot more locations in the Bay Area: what are your main
criteria?

-Jay

--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x ---- Jay's Attic Studio ----x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x---------- http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jay/ ------------x

[Ty Ford]

On Mon, 14 May 2007 12:17:20 -0400, Jay Kadis wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
Ty Ford wrote:

My CA search for a soft landing (possible relocation) has now identified
Santa Cruz or San Rafael as possibilities.

real estate in SC appears less expensive than in SR.

Anyone know much about it in terms of work viability?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demos http://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

San Rafael is closer to the action, but Santa Cruz is very nice if you
don't mind a half-hour of sometimes-hellish commuting into San Jose. We
have some people teaching in Palo Alto and working at Universal Audio in
Santa Cruz, so it is a possible commute if you can arrange your schedule
appropriately.

There are a lot more locations in the Bay Area: what are your main
criteria?

-Jay



Hi Jay,

Bette and I are considering the move from Maryland.

1. She hates the cold winter. I hate part of July and most of August.

2. We both will want to find work. She's a medical lab tech at Johns Hopkins
Hospital. I'm, well, you know, recording, producing singer/songwriters,
writing articles, voicing spots and narrations, teaching, and now shooting
and editing video.

I'll probably have to find work AT some place for a while and hope that
"takes." I'm not against the idea at all, but market forces back here have
been favorable for doing it this way for about 20 years.

2a. Real estate prices are pretty steep in California, although they appear
to be coming back down. In Oceanside, CA. A little place 6-8 blocks from the
beach was about 1.2 mil last summer. Wow! Too far away from work, probably,
but a nice town. I saw some places in Santa Cruz (on the web) that were +/-
$800K that didn't look like crap.

3. Proximity to metro areas is pretty much a must, I think.

4. San Diego has the weather, but maybe not the business.

5. LA is LA. So big it's hard to get your brain around it and it does get
pretty hot there in th summer.

6. San Francisco's weather is more appealing. Seems to have not as much
business as LA, but I can probably get connected there as well.

7. Santa Cruz is as you said, just too far away from San Francisco.

8. San Rafael is closer but the real estate prices right now are higher than
Santa Cruz.

9. I have always had a home studio. My current one is in the basement, 25
x35. A friend in Alameda says there are no basements to speak of. Certainly
not in Alameda. he's also right under the air path for Oakland airport.

Emeryville? Oakland (if you can figure out which way the neighborhood is
going in which block)?

I think we'll be coming back out in August to snoop around some more.

Regards,

Ty

--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demos http://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

[hank alrich]

Ty Ford wrote:

I think we'll be coming back out in August to snoop around some more.

You might also want to look into the areas north of SF Bay, like
Sebastapol, Novato, etc. Tonebarge's studio was in Petaluma.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[Richard Crowley]

"hank alrich" wrote...
Ty Ford wrote:
I think we'll be coming back out in August to snoop around some more.

You might also want to look into the areas north of SF Bay, like
Sebastapol, Novato, etc. Tonebarge's studio was in Petaluma.

Some amount of production (audip & video) appears to have
moved up into the Simi Valley, also.

[Mike Rivers]

On May 15, 11:30 am, Ty Ford wrote:

1. She hates the cold winter. I hate part of July and most of August.

Ditto.

Oceanside, CA. A little place 6-8 blocks from the
beach was about 1.2 mil last summer. Wow! Too far away from work, probably,
but a nice town.

I looked at Oceanside when I was out there for the NAMM show in
January, based on the suggestions from folks on this forum. I didn't
look that close to the ocean and saw some perfectly nice houses, as
houses go, for $650-$700K. But they were all in those kind of
developments where you need to look at the house number to be sure
you're going home to the right house. And they're spaced about ten
feet apart.

The real estate agent suggested that next time I come out, I look at
Vista, the next town inland from Oceanside, so I did that after the
NAB show. The houses that we looked at were in the same price range as
Oceanside, but most were on half-acre or at least quarter-acre lots,
and many of them had an outbuilding or "improved" garage that would
serve nicely as an office or studio. I still didn't find just what I
was looking for, but I thought that Vista was closer to where I could
live than Oceanside, and a lot less expensive and less smoggy than the
Arcadia-Pasadena area where I was first looking.

As to being near where you might find clients, it's less than a half
hour from most of San Diego, and as little as an hour from parts of
LA, though it could easily take another hour to get across LA. Lousy
commute but not bad for picking up or delivering work, or an
occasional meeting.

5. LA is LA. So big it's hard to get your brain around it and it does get
pretty hot there in th summer.

True, but most of the time it's dryer than here.

6. San Francisco's weather is more appealing. Seems to have not as much
business as LA, but I can probably get connected there as well.

It can be cold and damp in the winter, not terribly pleasant.

9. I have always had a home studio. My current one is in the basement, 25
x35. A friend in Alameda says there are no basements to speak of. Certainly
not in Alameda. he's also right under the air path for Oakland airport.

That's true, but I saw three houses in Vista on just one hunting trip
that had good potential for studio space. There are both new and older
houses there (the area of Oceanside where I was looking is mostly new
houses) and some of the older houses have been extensively remodeled.
Some are a little silly, but others are pretty well thought out.

I have a friend who owns a studio in Berkeley and has been out in the
Bay area for about 40 years now. He's lived in several places in the
area, currently in Lafayette, and can get just about anywhere in the
area in an hour or so. That's the cheap town of which Walnut Creek is
the expensive town.

[videochas www.locoworks.com]

On May 13, 6:56 am, Ty Ford wrote:
My CA search for a soft landing (possible relocation) has now identified
Santa Cruz or San Rafael as possibilities.

real estate in SC appears less expensive than in SR.

Anyone know much about it in terms of work viability?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demoshttp://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

Santa Cruz is a real nice place to live, but it is separated from the
places you will most likely find work by very difficult obstacles...
from San Jose and San Francisco by a mountain range with a gridlocked
highway (17) and from Los Angeles by 400 miles of lonely freeway.

San Rafael is fairly close to San Francisco and is near Industrial
Light and Magic HQ.

[thepaulthomas]

On May 13, 6:56 am, Ty Ford wrote:
My CA search for a soft landing (possible relocation) has now identified
Santa Cruz or San Rafael as possibilities.

real estate in SC appears less expensive than in SR.

Anyone know much about it in terms of work viability?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demoshttp://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

Ty,

HWY 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose can be a real mess and I
suspect you'll be finding most of your work outside of Santa Cruz so
you'll be commuting a lot. The further North that you travel up the
peninsula (towards SF) the longer the travel time to other parts of
the bay area. Once you're in SF if you need to get to the East Bay the
bay bridge can be a huge variable. I've gone from my place in Twin
Peaks (SF) to Berkeley in 30 minutes. I've also been in traffic from
Burlingame to Berkeley that took me 2 hours.

Have you considered Fremont or Hayward? I don't know what the real
estate prices are like but you're halfway between Berkeley/Oakland and
San Jose and you can easily drive over the San Mateo bridge to access
the entire peninsula and SF. You should also consider driving further
up 80 towards Sacramento. Some place half way between Sac and SF
(Vallejo, Fairfield, Vacaville, etc.) is likely to be much more
reasonably priced and will still keep you within short driving
distance of many places where you're likely to find work.

-Paul

[Jay Kadis]

In article .com,
thepaulthomas wrote:

On May 13, 6:56 am, Ty Ford wrote:
My CA search for a soft landing (possible relocation) has now identified
Santa Cruz or San Rafael as possibilities.

real estate in SC appears less expensive than in SR.

Anyone know much about it in terms of work viability?

Thanks,

Ty Ford

--Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services
Acting and Voiceover Demoshttp://www.tyford.com
Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZJ9MptZmU

Ty,

HWY 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose can be a real mess and I
suspect you'll be finding most of your work outside of Santa Cruz so
you'll be commuting a lot. The further North that you travel up the
peninsula (towards SF) the longer the travel time to other parts of
the bay area. Once you're in SF if you need to get to the East Bay the
bay bridge can be a huge variable. I've gone from my place in Twin
Peaks (SF) to Berkeley in 30 minutes. I've also been in traffic from
Burlingame to Berkeley that took me 2 hours.

Have you considered Fremont or Hayward? I don't know what the real
estate prices are like but you're halfway between Berkeley/Oakland and
San Jose and you can easily drive over the San Mateo bridge to access
the entire peninsula and SF. You should also consider driving further
up 80 towards Sacramento. Some place half way between Sac and SF
(Vallejo, Fairfield, Vacaville, etc.) is likely to be much more
reasonably priced and will still keep you within short driving
distance of many places where you're likely to find work.

-Paul

Fremont's overpriced, but there are some good deals left in Hayward.
It's considered a less desirable location due to questionable schools
and some depressed areas, but there's a state university and the
downtown is improving. It's very centrally located and there are lots
of one-of-a-kind homes in the hills that would be great for building a
studio.

-Jay

--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x ---- Jay's Attic Studio ----x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x---------- http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jay/ ------------x