[quote=all][quote=earlyretirement]
There were some STEALS back then. I remember seeing some HUGE houses in the $1 million range. People that picked them up at the lows must be happy. The area is really great but I was always curious how it was back there. [/quote]

I made a couple of offers in 2008-2009. The lady of the house thought we would be stretching, the area is not walkable and it would be too much hassle to maintain the house and the yard, so I gave up.[/quote]

Yeah, I agree about the area not being too walkable. We do enjoy riding our bikes quite a bit. The things that turned me off was the proximity to the school there. I imagined that traffic would back up in the afternoon on Carmel Valley Road/Bernardo Center Drive and indeed I do notice that there are TONS of cars at the end of the day when parents are picking up their kids.

Also, I did NOT want or need a HUGE lot like that. Some of those houses are on 1/2 to 1 acre spreads and that was actually a huge turn off to me to have to maintain a yard like that. To me more important was access and close proximately to great parks and playgrounds so Santaluz worked out PERFECTLY for my family.

The weather is pretty incredible in this area however as you avoid the marine layering yet you avoid the hotter temperatures a bit further beyond passing I-15. Best as I can tell those people that bought did VERY well. Picking up houses like that at the time and the prices they did will pay for a lot of water to water the huge yards. LOL.

How was the quality of construction of the houses all? Was any of it custom homes or was it lower end nothing special stuff like some of what is in 4S Ranch? From some of the listings I remember the houses look like they used good materials and they looked really nice. Quality of construction looked solid although I didn’t see any of the houses in person so I was always curious. It didn’t appear to be the cookie cutter type house that so much of the area has.