Santa Clara is a city in the Santa Clara County of California state, and was founded in 1777 to be incorporated later in 1852. It is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions – Mission Santa Clara de Asis – after which it was named. The Mission and its gardens are located on the grounds of the renowned Santa Clara University. The city has an estimated population of about 125,500 people, which is growing everyday as new settlers come to town looking for job opportunities and a place to live. Santa Clara apartments are a priority on every housing list with their spacious homes that are modern and easy to maintain. Santa Clara is located right in the centre of the Silicon valley. It’s economy is driven by the presence of numerous high tech companies located here. Some of the major names include Intel, Allied Materials, Sun Microsystems, and Agilent Technologies, besides dozens of others. Not only has this opened up a new vista for jobs in the city but a lot of new settlers have bought or rented out homes at the Santa Clara apartments. Also, the city owns and operates an electric utility called Silicon Valley Power, which bought over the Donald Von Raesfeld (DVR) Power Plant in 2005. The new combined-cycle gas turbine plant produces 147 megawatts of electricity for the city and its residents, making the going rate for electricity in Santa Clara considerably cheaper surrounding areas. A slow down in the home buying market and the delay to convert condominiums has kept the rental rates high in Santa Clara. In addition, with mortgage rates continuing to rise, may people are opting to rent or to stay in their rental. As a result, this will increase rental rates 5-6%. The average monthly rent has been hovering around $1280. To rent a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment you can expect to pay around $1450 per month.