bearishgurl, I am a number person, so don’t assume that I have not used my calculator.

I actually don’t have the long-term water/sewer bond that TG has. My overall property tax rate is about 1.2%. So have you thought about the property tax savings might actually offset the utility costs by living in TV?

I have lived in Oceanside, San Marcos, Vista and Carlsbad before. And I have other family reasons to move to Temecula rather than staying in NC (I rented in TV more than 2 years before my purchase. So it was only a rent v.s. buy decision when I bought). But that’s beside the point. The point is, if you have read my previous posts, I have never claimed that buying in TV is the best investment that one can make. In fact, I have been arguing that it depends on the long-term appreciation potential of the neighborhood which I don’t have a crystal ball to forecast.

But all the Temecula haters seem to get so focused on all the negative points of living in Temecula that they refuse to see the different view points offered by the TV residents to correct those bias.
For example, why does everyone think that commute is a waste of life? It really depends on how you use it. It is not an extra 2 hours each day as everyone likes to describe it (first of all, you don’t live in the office, when you live near your company. second, there’re many other scenarios that TG and I tried to illustrate: work-from-home, job-that-requires travel and spend-commute-time-as-office-time!) While commuting and listening to educational CDs, I was actually able to move my career path in a direction that I want. Because my commute-time-as-office-time was spent on areas where my development is needed rather than being dragged in the direction that my co-workers expect me when I am in the office.

Again, if you want to understand “the psychology behind RE buyers who favor long-distance commuting”, that’s what I can offer. In the end, it is a very low-risk bet to buy in TV at the moment. Things may not work out (as for paramount), but so what? We have not yet seen evidences that he was financially wrecked by the decision to buy in TV. In fact, if one is a number person, it is hard to be financially destroyed by RE purchase that can be cash flow positive. I am not saying that it is not possible. Life is unpredictable and that’s the beauty of it. Yes, there are many factors which may or may not be within our control. But, the risk is considerably smaller because the math checks out, and you can rent out the property so it won’t be a drag in your financial reality when these unknown factors come in. There are of course factors that you can not react to with the best planning, but that doesn’t mean that we are not making rational decision based on the most likely scenarios.