gn. This is an interesting debate. I am dealing with the same question. I love Fairbanks Ranch. It is very established with mature landscaping and most people in there can comfortably afford their homes. The homes are beautiful and of excellent quality, the community beautiful, and location ideal. The downside is that almost every house I have seen there is in desperate need of an extreme makeover.

Another area I am looking at closely is Santaluz. There I am looking at brand new homes in unestablished areas that need no change whatsoever.

Overall, I prefer an established area. But then you have to remodel and hope your neighbors do to keep the area in top shape and that costs lots of $$. I can tell you in Los Altos hills and Los Altos up here, there are lots of 60-100 yr old shacks next to huge new dream homes and it looks very very odd. Not that FBR has that extreme problem, since the oldest houses are a mere 20 yrs old or so.

With a new house you can find exacltly what you want (well I have in Santaluz) and just move in and be done. Presumably newer houses will drive your value up as they are built around you.

But in this market, buying in a new area should be a better deal since developers need to unload inventory. That is the odd thing, Santaluz is very overpriced compared to more established areas like the Covenant and Fairbanks Ranch.

So one key reason for me to more likely buy in FBR or the Covenant is that I think Santaluz is way overpriced for what you get, and then you have the Mello Roos taxes and Poway schools in Del Sur. But, that won’t stop me from still looking in Santaluz. The houses I have seen are just great and the landscape motif has grown on me. I still like the area. I just don’t want to over pay.

So still in play for me are new and old areas. Each has a pro and a con so who knows where I will end up. FBR ranch is still my favorite, but I may just as easlily end up in other established areas like the Covenant, or newer ones like Sataluz and Cielo.