Arden-Arcade, California

Housing in Arden Arcade is insanely varied. There are inexpensive apartment buildings just blocks from multi-million dollar homes. It’s a slightly strange place for that reason – young professionals making it work on smaller budgets, and plenty of wealthy families living la vida loca in their McMansions. If you want to live just outside Sacramento on a “budget”, this could be your home. If you’re loaded on Sacto/Bay Area tech money and want to live large this could be your home.

Arden-Arcade is an unincorporated community that is Sacramento’s “cash cow” because there is so much business here. The unincorporated status means despite all the commercial activity it does not receive typical revenue streams that a “city” its size would normally receive. This means some infrastructure elements lack and locals are vocal about shortages in the police department, transit, and a lack of homeless support services.

Arden-Arcade is a suburb of Sacramento and many live the quiet suburban lifestyle in family-friendly neighborhoods. Much of the lifestyle of those who stick to Arden Arcade is spent shopping at the big box stores and the mall in the area. More adventurous socializers drive into Sacramento, which is just a few miles outside the city center, and enjoy the social and cultural options the state capital offers. It’s a classic suburb for that reason - a mix of quiet suburbia and bigger city options close by.

It must be noted though that the location of Arden-Arcade, just east of Sacramento, makes it about as ideal as it can be for heading east to Lake Tahoe, the Eldorado National Forest, Bear Valley, etc. You’re in about as ideal a spot as you can be for being around a major metro and yet having really quick access to some of the most amazing mountains on the planet. The Sierra’s run just an hour east of Arden and for those into an outdoor lifestyle it's a pretty perfect combo.

As was also noted though, Arden has an incredible variety of housing and neighborhood options and so there are also walkable and younger population neighborhoods for those who are just looking to live a less expensive life outside Sacramento. There are tons of apartment buildings and inexpensive restaurants/bars and shopping if you’re working hard to build a nest egg. For those weekends when families want to stick closer to home but still get the kiddos outdoors, there are tons of parks in the city. Arden Park, Arden Creek and Larchmont are great park options, with community pools, sports fields and courts, open green spaces and playgrounds to keep the kiddos (and grownups) busy and healthy.

We highly recommend visiting Arden-Arcade and staying in the community in a VRBO rather than a hotel to get a feel for living among the locals. You can receive discounted fares on travel via our partnership with Expedia as well.

Arden Arcade is part of the San Juan Unified School District. It rates a B+ on niche.com. One of the more notable characteristics of the schools is how varied the performance of the school districts is, similar to the great variety of housing types. There are A-rated quality schools and C-rated quality schools so if you’re paying close attention to standardized scoring on niche.com or Greatschools.com then keep an eye on how the neighborhoods are zoned.