Our apartment in Fremont, CA

Hi everybody!. We have finally managed to find a decent apartment in Fremont, CA. We have been scouting for the last 3 to 4 weeks - two weeks from India and the rest here, in the US.

We were looking for a one bedroom apartment with an inbuilt washer and dryer, as opposed to a commonly shared one. Apart from this, the other criteria that we had were a good school district, safe neighbourhood, and a convenient location - either near work or the general shopping area.

Incidentally, a lot of the rates for apartments in the US are decided on a bunch of factors. Apart from factors such as proximity to shopping areas, malls, public transport systems, the key factor is the school district. Most of the education in the US revolves around public schools and people residing in a particular district can send their children only to that district's Public school. The better the school, the bigger the influx of people in the district, which in turn leads to the rise in apartment rates in that area. We checked out a couple of places in central Fremont such as The Avalon, The Estates, Mission Peak, Presidio, Archstone, Waterstone, etc. and the rates ranged from $1245 to $1600. Astronomical and way over our budget!!!

We scouted some more, and finally managed to find an apartment in Ardenwood Forest, about 1.4 miles from work. This is a really nice place. There are a total of 862 units(apartments) here. Very well laid out. It also has basketball courts, tennis courts, swimming pools, saunas, club houses etc.

As of now we will be moving into a two bedroom apartment, as the waiting time for any of the one bedroom apartments is almost 6 months. But then again, by virtue of us becoming residents of the community, we will be placed on a priority list, and so the moment a one bedroom setup would be available, we would be intimated.

The inset photographs are the ones that I pulled off the web. Once we move in, which is next month I'll post some snaps up.