Downtown

Downtown San Leandro might not look exactly like you might expect a place called “downtown”. It is fairly residential for a “downtown” area. Like most downtowns, this one too does have a number of restaurants—nothing crazy special, just a couple of Mexican places and a ton of East Asian food, the best of which are probably the sushi bars.

There are a handful of bars as well, including most prominently Cunha’s—a true dive bar—and Englander’s—a pretty typical sports bar.

About 2 of 3 properties for sale here are condos, with single family homes making up the rest. Prices run from $100K to $300K roughly with the median home/condo price being around $175K. Homes here are typically of the pre-WWII bungalow style home—the kind that are a dime a dozen in Oakland, and are fairly worn down looking.
There are also lots of those 1960’s style boxy apartment with open center courts. These go for about $1000/mo for a 1 bedroom and $1500/mo for a 2 bedroom.

All the other typical problems that you associate with San Leandro are present here as well: schools are pretty terrible and crime—though not as bad as in some of the Oakland neighborhood just a little ways to the north--is still pretty bad. In terms of assaults, for example, there have been more than 50 assaults here in the last six months.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot one of the most important things about this neighborhood—it is the home of the San Leandro BART, so it is a good area for commuters heading up to the City, and maybe one day down to San Jose when they finally put in the much anticipated BART extension.

Overall, an okay neighborhood, especially for singles and commuters.