We got a “notice to vacate” letter. Owners are very happy with us, but want to sell their Millbrae house. We must leave at the end of the lease in April. They said, and I quote the realtor, that “renting out is not as attractive anymore” and “we want to get out after this huge run up”.
We are looking to move down to Palo Alto. Better schools, and honestly, Millbrae strikes me as a place in decline… my wife has made friends with some locals and they all say the same thing. The Nextdoor group is certainly in agreement. The schools have been blah… Lots of unemptied trash cans, growing homeless “hygiene issues” and a generalized “not my job to clean that” attitude.
In the 9 months we have been here, that I can recall right now, a local teenage kid got stabbed outside the Millbrae library by a homeless person, a high speed chase crashed two houses down from us at 2AM (helicopters, K9 units, cops searching our backyard for suspects, news trucks outside our door…), and just the other day an out-of-state couple got robbed at gunpoint at the Millbrae Pancake House down the street on ECR at 1:30 in the afternoon. Links below. Again, this is all literally within a mile radius of my house where my kids walk to school and hang out after school and on weekends). Links below. Not sure this is a statistical fluke or normal for the Bay Area in general
We have been shocked to find Palo Alto rents not that much higher (in fact, even cheaper) down in nice areas southwest and close to the main strip on University Drive. I work in SF near Caltrain. My commute will only be 25 minutes longer on Caltrain. (in fact, I have a pretty long walk to the Millbrae station now, so depending on location it may be the same or shorter)
Soooo, just thought I would share those observations with the group with my Sunday morning coffee… Not trying to insult anyone or Millbrae, just what I think are objective observations. I hope this is not the case for the Peninsula as a whole… because the commute from WalnutCreek/Danville to SF sucks!
