Should You Move to Marin County? Pros and Cons of Living in Marin in 2023

Marin County has earned a reputation for being one of the best places to live in all of California, and it's one of the reasons why the real estate market there has been so incredibly hot over the last couple years. But there are definitely some not so great things about living there that you don't hear about all too often. So in this video, I'm gonna break down the top 5 pros and the top 5 cons of living in Marin County. What's up everyone? This is Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent and real estate developer in San Francisco and Marin County. I've lived in the Bay Area for over a decade, giving me in-depth firsthand knowledge of what it's like to both live and work here. If you're thinking thinking about relocating or want more information about the San Francisco or Marin County housing markets, or you're thinking about just visiting, definitely reach out to me. My contact info is in the description below. I will personally answer every call, every email, every text, and I'd be more than happy to help you. And if you like videos just like this, please subscribe to my channel and don't forget to click the bell so you're alerted every single time I post a video. All right, so this video is all about the great and not so great things about living in Marin County. Marin County is located just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, and life in Marin is night and day compared to life in San Francisco. San Francisco and in a lot of other parts of California. Marin County's popularity for people looking to escape or avoid San Francisco, especially as remote work has become more popular and more prevalent among companies in the Bay Area, has made Marin one of the hottest housing markets in all of California. Marin County is definitely one of the most popular places to live in all of California, and while it has its perks, it also has its negatives. So let's start off with the reasons why everybody loves Marin County. Pro number 1 is that it is truly one of the most beautiful places to live in not just California, but in the entire country. So many Marin These are waterfront towns: Sausalito, Belvedere, Tiburon, parts of Mill Valley, Larkspur, San Rafael. Being so close to the water means incredible views, incredible sunsets. When you picture California, the, you know, fairy tale imagery that pops into your mind, that's real life in Marin. And there's so much more than just the San Francisco Bay. Marin has some incredible beaches, mountains, hilltops, lakes, creeks, rivers. Forests, and the best part of all of this in Marin is that these things aren't, you know, 15, 30 minutes away. Sometimes they're literally in your backyard. All of it is either directly in your property, walking distance from your property, or just a few minutes drive away no matter where you live in Marin. The second thing people love most about living in Marin is its proximity to San Francisco, Napa, and Sonoma. Marin has qualities of remote suburban living, but in reality, it's so close to one of the most vibrant and historic cities in the world, San Francisco. You know, there's some food and shopping in Marin, which I'll talk more about, but it doesn't compare at all to San Francisco. So if you happen to want to go to San Francisco, you know, on the weekend or, you know, during the week for a night out, it's really easy to do. Proximity to San Francisco is one of the reasons Marin is such a popular place to live. Um, you know, more likely if you live in Marin, you probably work in San Francisco. There's not a ton of big companies that are based in Marin. There are some, but most of them are going to be based in San Francisco, especially, you know, finance, law, and of course tech. So if you live in Marin and work in San Francisco or even in the South Bay, you're gonna have to commute. And actually living in Marin, it's really easy to commute to those places, which makes Marin very popular. Not only is it close to San Francisco, it's close to Napa and Sonoma. Sonoma is about 40 minutes drive depending on traffic. Napa, you can get there in under an hour. Napa and Sonoma are both north of Marin, so they're closer to Marin than they are to San Francisco. Third thing people love about living in Marin is the weather. Even though San Francisco is right next door to Marin, the weather here is night and day compared to San Francisco because of the geography of where Marin is located. Most of Marin is enclosed by hillsides and mountaintops, so it's shielded from the fog banks coming in from the Pacific Ocean that you see so often in San Francisco. So as a result of that, you have a lot more sunny days in Marin, and the days tend to be warmer. One caveat to that is Sausalito. Sausalito is the very first town you get to when you cross the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin, and it's not shielded by those hillsides and mountainsides like the rest of Marin is. —weather in Sausalito is more like San Francisco than it is the rest of Marin. But even in Sausalito, the weather is very mild, very temperate. It's a very popular place for hiking and biking and being outdoors. So it's not like there's bad weather there, it's just a little bit different than the rest of Marin. The fourth reason people love living in Marin is that it is an incredible location to raise a family. The communities in Marin are among the safest and cleanest in all of the Bay Area, night and day compared to some of the communities in San Francisco. And unlike in San Francisco, there's nowhere near the level of concern about crime, drug use, and homelessness that you have in certain parts of San Francisco. Beyond safety, uh, there are incredible schools in Marin as well. It's one of the most popular reasons that people with school-aged children move to Marin. It's because the public school system there is one of the best in the entire country, and that's true almost regardless of where you live in Marin. Almost every neighborhood that you choose is going to have great public school options, and there are a ton of great private school options in Marin as well. The fifth reason people love living in Marin is the abundance of outdoor activities that are available to you just a couple minutes away, if not directly in your backyard. Because of Marin's location among all that natural beauty that I talked about earlier, you have direct access to incredible biking, hiking, walking trails, jogging trails, kayaking, boating, canoeing. Mount Tam is close by, the Muir Woods are close by, there are redwood forests all around. You have Point Reyes, Stinson Beach, Tennessee Valley Trail, Muir Beach. That's just tip of the iceberg. You can honestly live in Marin for years and still not even begin to touch the surface of all of the amazing outdoor activities that are available to you living there. All right, now for the cons. Con number 1, Marin County is incredibly expensive. There's so much demand for Marin County real estate and such little supply in comparison that prices in Marin, especially over the past few years, have skyrocketed. The average cost of a single-family home sold so far this year in Marin is over $2.1 million, which is actually more than a single-family home in San Francisco. Now, not every neighborhood in Marin is more expensive than neighborhoods in San Francisco. There are some in San Francisco that are more expensive than Marin, and there are some in Marin that are more expensive than in San Francisco. It's going depend specifically on where in each of those places you might live. But on average, it is more expensive to own a single-family home in Marin County than it is in San Francisco. And with those high prices, you also get higher property taxes. So you're not just, you know, paying a bigger down payment to live in Marin and paying more for the house, you're paying more on a monthly basis as well because of property taxes. And it's not just home prices, you know, food, gas, groceries, all those things are very expensive in San Francisco. They're just as expensive in Marin. So it's not like you're saving money on your day-to-day living expenses leaving San Francisco and moving to Marin County or choosing to live in Marin over SF. So if you are thinking about moving to the Bay Area from outside of California, if you're thinking about, you know, Marin or San Francisco or Marin versus San Francisco, definitely be eyes wide open. There's not going to be a meaningful difference in the two. The second thing I hear residents in Marin complain about is that most likely if you live in Marin, you probably have to commute to work. As I mentioned before, there aren't a ton of big companies that are based in Marin. There are some, but most of the tech Tech and finance and law and all the other big companies are either gonna be based in San Francisco or the South Bay, which means if your company requires you to go to work at any given point, whether it's multiple times a week, once a week, or just randomly for an occasional meeting, even if you work fully remote, you're gonna have to commute. Depending on where in Marin you live, commuting to downtown San Francisco might take 25 minutes or it might take an hour and a half. It just depends on where in particular in Marin you live. It's not as bad as commuting in places like Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California, but it is going to add a lot of time to your day in the morning and the evening if you have to commute. In addition to the time it takes to commute, if you're going over the Golden Gate Bridge, which you're going to have to if you're driving to San Francisco or the South Bay, you have to pay a bridge toll. And then if you're going to downtown San Francisco, you're going to have to pay for parking when you get to downtown. Luckily, there are ways to avoid having to pay the bridge toll and pay for parking when you get to the city. You can take a ferry across the San Francisco Bay from multiple locations in Marin, Sausalito, Larkspur, Tiburon, you do have to pay a ferry toll, but it's a lot cheaper than paying the bridge toll and paying for parking in downtown San Francisco, which is, you know, sometimes $20, $30, or $40 a day. There are also commuter buses that go from different towns to both San Francisco and the South Bay. But of course, those buses, they have multiple stops, so they tend to take a little bit longer than either the ferry or just driving. So lots of different ways to commute. There are pluses and minuses to each of them, but chances are if you live in Marin, you're probably commuting. The third thing residents of Marin complain the most about is that there's not as much great food in Marin as there is, say, in San Francisco. If you're looking for easy access to a ton of Michelin-starred restaurants and a very, very diverse food scene, you're not gonna get that in Marin. Marin does have its fair share of great food, great burgers, great pizza, great fine dining, but it's nowhere near the level of San Francisco. So if you are looking for those things, you might have to commute over the bridge or take the ferry to San Francisco to get them. The fourth thing residents of Marin complain about the most is the potential for wildfires, a reality of living in most parts of Marin is that the area is very susceptible to wildfires. All the natural forest land that I talked about earlier, you know, it's beautiful to look at, but it does heighten the risk of fire. A lot of the homes sit on highly flammable vegetation, and you combine that with wind patterns in the area caused by its location among the hillsides and mountains, it does increase the risk of fire substantially. And not only is it dangerous, it actually can increase the cost of your insurance as well, and it can increase the cost of any renovations you're doing because you have to count for the danger of —fires. Con number 5, the last thing that Marin County residents complain the most about: traffic and roads. Traffic getting across the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour, it's not that bad, especially not compared to traffic over the Bay Bridge going from San Francisco to the East Bay or vice versa. There is some traffic, but really the Golden Gate Bridge isn't the problem. It's traffic on other parts of the highway in Marin County and on the main roads of Marin County. Where most traffic hits in Marin during rush hour is between Mill Valley and San Rafael on the highway during rush hour. Sometimes it can take 30 minutes just to go a few miles. And if you live in cities like San Anselmo or Ross or Kentfield, you probably need to take Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to get to your home. It's the main road that goes through those areas, and that road gets extremely backed up. The other thing about driving in Marin people complain about is the roads. So a lot of Marin is built into hillsides and mountainsides, and the roads that have been built leading to houses in those areas are very narrow. They're often often one-lane roads that are treated as two-lane roads. So if you're driving down them, chances are you might encounter another car coming the other direction, and you're either going to have to very slowly creep past them, or you or they are going to have to back up to make room for one of you to pass the other. Not every part of Marin is like that. There are a lot of flat parts of Marin where the roads are very wide and easy to navigate, but a good chunk of Marin is built into those hillsides and does have those very narrow roads. So something that you need to be on the lookout for if you're thinking about finding a home in Marin. Well, there you have it. Those are the biggest pros and cons about living in Marin County. There are so many other great and some not so great things about living in the area, and I'd be happy to share them with you if you're interested. If that's you, definitely reach out to me. My contact information is in the description below. I will personally answer every call, every email, every text, and I'd be more than happy to help you. And if you like videos just like this, please subscribe to my channel and don't forget to click the bell so you're alerted every single time I post a video.