My husband and I are looking for a house in the Encinitas area as well and I have been diligently following the market for the past 1.5 years. We are looking for a sfr and have really seen some decent declines in village park/ park place area.
When we started looking we could not find a sfr in village park/ cambria etc under 600k. Now there are REO’s and short sales in the 500’s. We definitely do not care if its redone, we just see ourselves having kids in less than 2 years and don’t want to have to move from a condo to a larger place. Good luck and keep saving, that is what we are doing. It is tough though b/c we intend to move to another rental the end of May when our lease is up. Hopefully we can find something decent to possibly be in for another 2 years!
In terms of schools, I think that the public schools are pretty good in this area. My husband is a high school teacher in the San Dieguito School District and LOVES it and his students