[quote=earlyretirement]…You just have to remember BG that there are a lot of people that wouldn’t accept to live in certain parts of San Diego even if you gave them a free house. They would much rather live where they do paying a mortgage vs. taking a perfectly fine house in an area like Chula Vista. In fact, I’m one of those people. Even if you gave me the option of a FREE perfectly fine house in Chula Vista and promise to pay all property taxes…. I’d opt not to take it and pay a mortgage instead along with any applicable taxes. Nothing wrong with that…it’s just the way it is.[/quote]

ER, I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but about 5/8 of Chula Vista’s residential property owners pay MR. It WAS more like 2/3 of the population as recent as 2006, but since May 2007, ChulaV subdivisions have been retiring their MR bonds one by one.

FYI, developers within the City of Chula Vista (such as Lane Kuhn, Fieldstone and McMillin) DEBUTED the use of MR bonds in San Diego County. The next city to adopt them was Poway. The earlest ChulaV subdivisions built with 20 and 30 yr MR bonds with the first phases being sold in May 1987 (3 subd in Eastlake Shores) and 1991 (2 subd in Eastlake Hills) which have already paid off their MR bonds. RDR-II paid off their (20 yr) street bonds in 2012.

Having worked alongside several of these owners from the beginning, I’ve seen it all, first hand. The monthly HOA struggles, the HUGE property tax impounds, etc. A few of them hung in there and made it through to the retirement of the bonds but I’m not sure if this makes their properties more “valuable” than similarly-situated ChulaV properties which do not lie in MR areas OR if their kids got a “better” education than they would have had they attended schools in non-MR areas of the same district.

So, in a nutshell, I “get” the concept of MR but don’t know/can’t measure its true long-term fiscal value to an affected homewoner.