San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

It sounds like you have money for private school. If that's the case, I'd personally would send your kids to either La Jolla Country Day or Bishops. Those two school's reputation far surpasses even the best public school in San Diego. Since both of those two schools are in La Jolla, I'd pick La Jolla. You can't really go wrong with either of those 3 areas in term of prestige, house, view, etc.

We are used to paying $10 to $15K for tuition (per kid). I will research those schools. Thank you.

Check out Pacific Ridge school in Carlsbad also. It's newer and I've heard great things from friends who send their kids there. They brought in the headmaster from Horace Mann to run things. It's very small and individualized. Probably a bit pricier but you will save on housing.

You will get a lot more for your money housewise while still being in a great coastal community with one of the best public school systems in the county as well.

Bishops and La Jolla Country Day's tuition is about 30K per child.

As native San Diegans, my wife and I chose to send our kids to La Jolla Country Day School. My brother sent his four girls to The Bishop's School in La Jolla, and, as others here have mentioned, there are definitely other excellent options.

Another area, near Del Mar, called Carmel Valley, (zip code 92130) has excellent public schools as well as two private Catholic schools I know
of--Notre Dame Academy and Cathedral High School.

Depending on where you will be working, you might want to check out housing options by zip code in this and other areas at sdlookup.com.

With regard to particular areas of San Diego being family friendly--I would say that you should be fine in all of the areas you mentioned with regard to housing, schools, and building a wonderful life for you and your family in San Diego--but I would definitely check out Carmel Valley as another very strong option.

All the best!!

Not sure about your price range, but you can also check out Rancho Santa Fe as well.

If you don't want to pay La Jolla Country Day or Bishops tuition level for k-6, you should also check out Mission Bay Montessori Academy for k-6th grade.

Agree with checking out Rancho Santa Fe as well. I didn't mention it, because I thought the interest was elsewhere, but we've lived in RSF for years, and love it.

At sdlookup.com, you can pull up the 92067 and 92091 zip codes to take a look at housing options in those areas.

If the OP is considering beach cities, and local schools aren't an issue, what about Ocean Beach? Beautiful area, has a walkable "downtown" and less of a rowdy crowd than PB.

Oceanside have some killer ocean front houses for $2-3m, if that's what the OP is looking for.

Is downtown/beachfront O'side terribly kid-friendly?

The Poway Unified School District (PUSD) is excellent! It encompasses Poway, parts of San Diego (Rancho Penasquitos, Del Sur, Santa Luz), Rancho Bernardo, and some unincorporated areas (4S Ranch).

Thanks for the info. Again, the areas I mentioned have name recognition and since I know virtually nothing about the area, that's all I have to go on. I will definitely check out Pacific Ridge and Carlsbad when we come out.

Other than Carlsbad, do you know which towns have good public school systems? LaJolla Country Day and Bishops are too pricey for us.

I'll check out Carmel Valley & Rancho Santa Fe as well. Thanks for the quick feedback!

If you want coastal the public schools from Carmel Valley/Del Mar up to South Carlsbad are all excellent.

Santa Fe Chritian in Solana Beach and Cathedral Catholic in Carmel Valley are both well regarded schools also though on the larger side.

Out of curiosity, are you going to be commuting to work in San Diego? I *love* coronado, but it's essentially an island, which makes the commute getting on and off of it pretty challenging. San Diego has some bad rush hour traffic (although it's nothing like LA). We don't have good public transportation options like you probably have in New England, so keep that in mind when you're looking at areas to live. Coronado in particular is just a long drive to almost anywhere, except maybe downtown.

Those are all very ritzy areas of San Diego. La Jolla Country Day in particular has snobbery issues amongst the students. I knew a former UCSD professor who sent his kids there, they probably grossed at least $250K a year, and they were "poor" kids there and hated it. SD actually does have a couple Catholic schools, they are more centrally located. If you have money but want a more "walkable" neighborhood check out Kennsington and South Park. Kennsington in particular is a beautiful, old established neighborhood that is just isolated enough to feel extremely safe. You should at least drive through it to get a contrast to La Jolla and Del Mar. I've just heard too many people not from San Diego complain about how "fake" it is, when they only see La Jolla and the Gaslamp.

Maybe we should take a step back and ask the OP what their price range is, what they're looking for in a home, where will they work, what's their traffic tollerance, etc? I mentioned LJ Country Day and Bishops, because the OP mentioned Coronado, LJ, and Del Mar. I was assuming they're high baller. But I was totally wrong. So, maybe there are other areas that might fit their needs better than those 3, along with school. If those schools are also out of their budget, RSF is probably a bad suggestion as well.

With regards to Cathedral, I'm not too sure if they're worth the private school price (unless you must have a Catholic school environment). Based on their alumni's performance at UC schools, I'm not impressed at all. http://statfinder.ucop.edu/reports/schoo...

Excellent suggestion, poorgradstudent. rired, he is referring to St. Augustine HS (for boys), which is located in the prestigious "South Park" area of San Diego (92104).

http://www.sahs.org/

and the Academy of Our Lady of Peace (for girls), located in "Normal Heights" SD (92116), locally known as "OLP."

http://www.aolp.org/

Both HS's are surrounded by older, very well-built and well-located housing stock which tends to have larger lots but be smaller in square footage than homes in more distant outlying areas. However, homes over 2500 sf can be found in 92102, 92104, 92116 and 92115, which are all short surface-street drives to these HS's as well as the Blessed Sacrament Elementary School.

http://www.bsps-sd.org/

Both HS's serve students in grades 9-12 and are located approx 2.5 mi from one another.

An online perusal also shows a newer Catholic Elementary School (to grade 7) in Eastern Scripps Ranch (92131).

http://s393158953.onlinehome.us/

The tuition for St Gregory for 3 students in one family is just over $15K yr (for all 3) if the parents are parish members. This location is NOT coastal, however. There are large newer homes available out there for approximately $700-$900K and the larger older homes west of the school range in price from $500-$900K (all 92131). The property taxes are MUCH less in the older tracts because there is no "Mello Roos" bonds to pay on those tax bills. Since your kids would likely be attending private schools, I see no reason for you to pay the hefty annual Mello Roos (MR) tax of Stonebridge (the newer nearby avail homes, of which a very substantial portion of their MR ends up in the coffers of the Poway Unified School District [PUSD]). In any case, the vast majority of public schools located in the older section of 92131 (SDUSD) are also rated very highly!

Cathedral High (92130) and Mater-Dei High (91913) are both newly-built schools which migrated from much older campuses with decades-long histories in SD. Both have fantastic college-prep programs and their campuses are designed much like college campuses. I am aware that Mater-Dei (in Chula Vista) brought in all their teachers from a diocese in Ohio and ALL presumably have Doctorate degrees. Both campuses send buses to different areas of the county to pick up and drop off students and both offer a grade 9-12 college prep and advanced-placement curriculum.

http://www.cathedralcatholic.org/

http://www.materdeicatholic.org/

There are many more Catholic elementary schools to choose from in SD County serving students in grades 1-8. It all depends on where you need to live to mitigate the daily commute to job(s).

If I could have afforded it, I would have sent my last kid to Mater Dei High.

I'm not seeing this OP as necessarily seeking a "prestigious" address. They may have mentioned these locations because that is all they've "heard about." I'm getting from the OP that they desire a Catholic education for their four children (Grades 1-12). That can be done in SD. An Elementary Catholic education can be reasonable but Catholic HS comes with a price (which I think is worth it).

In any case, the OP has four young children to educate. This seems to me to be more important to him/her than housing considerations (which is secondary to where they will choose to join a parish and send their kids to school).

Correct me if I'm wrong, rired.

If you must have Catholic education, you should also check out Good Shepherd in Mira Mesa. They have K-8th grade. A lot of their students end up going to OLP for girls and St. Gregory boys. So, your kids will end up hanging out with the same group of kids.

It would be helpful to know what part of NE you are coming from and what your expectations are. Most of the posters here dont have a clue of what life in NE is like so you will get resposnes all over the board. My responses were based upon having grown up on the east coast (South Jersey/Philly Suburbs). My business partner grew up in Greenwich and a college roomate in Stamford. So my guess was upper middle class suburbia for you. I also know most east coasters moving to SoCal want to be close to beach (why move here if you cant be?). Thats why I think Coastal from LJ to Carlsbad may be your best bet.

The more background you can provide the better feedback you will get from this crew. Until you provide a frame of reference that most folks here lack on NE all you get is people's personal biases

"New England" could be rural Vermont or NH, for all we know!

Can't comment on other areas, but I have a kid that goes a school in Carmel Valley right now..

Send me a private message if you want more info of give you some specific information about this area. I don't want to post on the blog more details, because inevitably the it might end up digressing into "who's area is better than who's", which would be completely counterproductive.

Here's some links to help out.
Just the fact's ma'am...

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1. Elementary school is served by Del Mar Unified School District. For California, schools considered good. The best schools in the district are arguably Sage Canyon and Ocean Air (although part of this can be subjective)...

http://district.dmusd.org/pages/district...

2. Middle school and High school is serviced by San Dieguito Union
http://sduhsd.net/schools/carmel-valley-...

As far as the general area.

Carmel Valley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmel_Vall...

Del Mar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Mar,_Ca...

If you're looking at what the different kind of homes in the area

http://www.cv-home.com/

If you're looking for larger homes, Del Mar Mesa is the custom/large home area. According to my friends that live there, it's served by Sage Canyon for elementary.

Excellent suggestion for SD's finest coastal living (92106,92107), spdrun.

Small Catholic School in Pt Loma (Gr 1-12):

http://www.saint-agnes.org/religiouseduc...

Larger Catholic Elementary (K-8) in Loma Portal:

https://sites.google.com/a/saintcharlesa...

If I were you I would not make any decisions until you come out here.

I would also think 3, 4, or 10 times about places like Ocean Beach if I were raising a family. Similarly many families that send kids to Pt Loma don't live there. The La Jolla schools mentioned are fine. I like sdrealtors suggestion as well. However please, do yourself a favor and come out and look before you start making any plans.

There is good advice to be found on this board but you need to wade through alot of other advice made by people who like to think they are expert on any and all opinions.

Obviously, we all can agree here. It is clear this OP is completely unfamiliar with SD County.

SDR, try not to espouse your own values upon a distant stranger. You and sdr both have clear biases on where you believe the "best places" are in the county to raise a family. Neither of you are immune from "bias" and "categorizing people."

All local Piggs have their own preferences and priorities in this regard as does incoming relocatees.

I would also think 3, 4, or 10 times about places like Ocean Beach if I were raising a family.

Why? Yeah, you get some skells and characters, but it's less rowdy than PB. I'd say it would be broadly comparable to raising a family in parts of Brooklyn, NY.

Being a kid in an area where you can actually WALK and BIKE around without relying on Mommie and Daddie's Taxi Service is a wonderful thing.

I agree, spdrun. I know several people (both young and old) who had an "idyllic life" growing up in the PL/OB area. There are many local well-known recreational programs for children in that area of town. And SDR stated the public HS there (PLHS) takes in numerous CHOICE and VEEP transfers from around the city. True, as does his "home" HS, Scripps Ranch HS. I know kids in the Morse HS attendance area (92139) who are currently attending SRHS (from 30+ miles away)! And they are NOT alone ...

Tell you both what...

When and if the original OP comes to San Diego, if they want to live in Ocean Beach and raise a family there, I will gladly never ever ever post here again.

Will either of you do the same?

PLEASE SAY YES.

I will even throw in Chula Vista as well.

Oh yeah and how long ago was it that you raised kids bg?

OB is very similar in character to any number of New England or Long Island beach towns (in a good way). That would surprise me not at all, considering the origin of the OP.

The "how long ago did you raise kids" argument is spurious, as crime is basically lower now than it's been in the last 40 years.

And I spent summers 20 years ago in a town on the East Coast very similar to OB. An eclectic mix of bikies, tourists, old people, homeless vets, artists, and gay folk -- the last two before they became trendy and accepted :) Was biking to the beach alone or with friends to surf by the time I was 11 or 12. Fond memories here.

Then it is a bet!

I have 30 years of San Diego residency. My brother lived there for about 20 years.

You sound like you know it pretty well.

I guess we will see where the OP lands.