My advice is ONLY buy what you can comfortably afford. You mention things like “in good financial situation”. Well, I’d hope you were in a good financial situation with a secure job if you’re going to buy a $850,000 house with annual $6,000 Mello Roos taxes along with 1%+ property taxes each year.
You mention “financially tight for a few years”. It’s difficult to ascertain if you’re saying that this is more than you are comfortable with or if you’re saying that you’re blowing most of your savings and emergency savings to buy the house.
None of us can tell you if it’s worth it. That can be a really subjective question. That area is really great and the schools are EXCELLENT in that area. Me personally, I don’t think the build quality over in many of those areas of 4S Ranch is anything to write home about. But that’s just my opinion.
It’s a VERY nice area for raising kids. Definitely you’re paying a premium to be in the PUSD.
IMHO, you don’t have too many options if you want to be in this area and want a relatively big house like this. Sure, you can save money and go further out to areas like San Marcos, which may or may not be an option for you.
As to Mello Roos, I also think you have to look at your personal situation and circumstances. There is a “no size fits all solution” for homeowners. As mentioned, if you are confident you will stay in the home over 10 years then it’s a complete NO BRAINER to prepay it off.
Anyone that thinks that they won’t raise it the maximum annual 2% heading into the future is deluding themselves, IMHO. Plus, several districts have already refinanced to a lower rate. You can get a lot of detailed information on the Mello Roos thread that someone mentioned.
The truth of it is that in a hot market like now, with limited inventory, you will definitely be able to get every $ you prepaid towards it. We’ve gotten several unsolicited offers from private individuals to purchase our home. And they could already see from the tax rolls that we paid off our MR and offered to reimburse for that.
We aren’t interested in selling our house and probably will never sell it. But I truly believe it’s one of those things in a hot market you will always be able to get back what you prepaid and in a really horrible real estate market it will be tough.
The question to prepay it off would depend on your personal situation. We knew we would keep the house so it was a really wise move paying it off and I have no regrets at all.
I can’t emphasize enough to NOT bite off more than you can chew. Again, difficult to tell from your post but it almost sounds like you’re buying something that you might not be able to comfortably afford.
I have several friends that formally lived in the area and they had to move. Not only leave the area but left San Diego due to a job loss by either them or their spouse. Really plan and make sure that your bases are covered in the event of a job loss and taking time to find another, etc.
It sounds like you love the house, area, and IF you can comfortably afford it and you are confident you will be in the house longer term, I wouldn’t get too stressed about capital appreciation, etc. IF you don’t know for sure if you will be in the house too long and therefore have to worry about capital appreciation concerns, then my opinion is you should wait until such time where you feel you will be in the house longer term and also considering a possible not so good/worst case scenario with job, etc.
