Re: affordable housing
My husband & I bought a house in Martinez exactly 1 year ago and, for the most part, we love it. We had previously lived much further out & had been commuting up to 3 hours per day. Martinez suits almost all our needs and wants -- a smallish town closer to where we work & closer to his elderly parents & his son who live in Richmond. My commute via BART to Oakland takes about 40 minutes each way & my husband commutes to Pinole which is about 20 minutes each way.

We looked at a lot of different areas in both Concord & Martinez -- Clayton was a little too expensive for us and not as accessible for commute purposes. We were drawn to sections of downtown Martinez area but nothing came available during the time we were looking that we liked -- a lot of the places were either too expensive, too much fixing-up, or too small. We like the downtown area very much &, if the right thing would have come available, I know we would have been happy there.

We ended up with a house about 7 minutes from the N. Concord/Martinez BART station in a small rural pocket off Highway 4 & 680. The only real downside is we do have to drive to the nearest stores & it is not a great "walking" area. The prices are remaining pretty stable as far as I can tell. Two houses in our area, 3 bed./2 bath with a little bit of acreage, are being listed for $310,000 & $389,000. The one for $389,000 has a pool/spa but isn't anything spectacular. It has been available for about 3-4 months so we think it is priced too high. I have been inside the one available at $310,000 but it isn't anything fancy nor does it appear to be a dump. It does have a huge fenced in yard, double garage & several fruit trees but low maintenance landscaping. There seem to be a lot of townhouses/condos. going for $230,000 or so.

One area we liked in Martinez was off Alhambra Avenue, by Alhambra High School (which is supposed to be a really good school). But again, the houses we looked at there tended to be too small, too much or need lots of work. Another friend of mine bought a townhouse off Morello Avenue & Highway 4 and just loves it. She is a single mother who just moved to the area & found a lot of support & activities for her two kids. She is very pleased with the Martinez elementary school her children attend. Both the high school & junior high school have been recently redone.

I think Martinez & some parts of Concord & or Pleasant Hill are definitely worth investigating. You're probably not going to find the same level of neighborhood services available in N. Berkeley but there is a revitalization going on in downtown Martinez. We frequent a great pastry shop & a small new/used bookstore as well as a few okay restaurants (nothing spectacular), a wonderful waterfront park, tons of antique stores & a very active Amtrack station. Good luck. Vanessa