Best Family Neighborhoods from 500-550k? San Marcos Discovery Hills?

[t0rk]

Hello, My wife and I have targeted San Marcos Discovery Hills for our next move. It seems to be a mix of empty nesters and families with older children. We have a daughter starting kindergarten and one starting the following year and hoping there will be plenty of kids her age to play with. A inside scoop on this neighborhood would be appreciated.

Many thanks!

[svelte]

Hi t0rk,

I’m a long time San Marcos resident. My kids went all the way through school here and we’ve owned homes here since the early 1990s.

Discovery Hills is a great neighborhood – excellent place to buy. San Marcos schools are excellent also, including the one in Discovery Hills.

If I’m not mistaken, lpjohnso is a Discovery Hills resident with small kids. You might PM her and see if she’ll give you the latest scoop on the neighborhood.

If for some reason you decide to widen your scope to other areas in San Marcos (not that you need to), I did a quick review of various neighborhoods in this old 2011 thread (July 27, 9:41 PM post):

http://piggington.com/arbor_ranch_in_san_marcos_advice_please

Geez, have I really been hanging out on this site that long? What’s wrong with me?

[skerzz]

I’ll second svelte that Discovery Hills is a great area of San Marcos. I’ve lived in San Marcos since 2009 and own in the Coronado Hills and Twin Oaks/Borden Rd. area neighborhoods. Don’t have grade-school age children yet, but I believe Coronado Hills is in the new Double Peak K8 school district.

[t0rk]

Thanks for the info. You are correct, we went to orientation at Discover Elementary a few weeks ago and they told us that once Double Peak is open, kids East of Twin Oaks and South of 78 will go there. Discovery picked up Lake San Marcos area.

[t0rk]

Thank you! I will go through the thread. We are cashing out of another San Marcos home and looking to rent near or in Discovery until a home in Discover Hills come on the market we can agree on. We are expecting to really like it there, but we thought the same about the neighbor hood we are in now, and that did not work out as planned! thanks again for the info.

[lpjohnso]

Hello t0rk! Yes, svelte has a great memory. 🙂 My husband and I have lived in Discovery Hills for the past 3+ years with our 3 young children. Discovery Elementary rates 9/10, San Elijo Middle rates 10/10, and the brand new San Marcos High School rates 9/10. Our son has attended Discovery since kindergarten (he will be starting 3rd grade this year) and we are very, very happy there. The city-maintained walking/biking trails and Discovery Lake are beautiful. Shopping, restaurants, and the 78 are at your fingertips. The beach is only 9 miles away. Discovery Hills is extremely safe and there are no registered sex offenders living there per the Megan’s Law site. Weather is perfect in my eyes: far enough inland to not get the gloomy marine layer, but not so far inland where you are dying of many +90F days in summer. And did I mention no HOA or mello roos?! At least there aren’t any on my block.

All of that, and you can still find a single family home for less than $550,000. Best bang for your buck in North County, HANDS DOWN. Someone please challenge me on this.

If you and your wife already live in San Marcos and are targeting Discovery Hills, I’m telling you things you already know. 🙂 In regards to young families with children, we understand your concern. We only had empty nesters and families with older children living all around us when we first moved here. Since then, we have come to realize there are about 8 kids under 10 years old living within 1-2 blocks from us. One of which is a girl who will be starting kindergarten at Discovery this year. I think it does depend on which street you are on. You won’t find a ton of kids playing outside in the neighborhood, but the demographic could be changing as the empty nesters are moving out to down size. We have found the playgrounds on Via Vera Cruz and at Discovery Lake to be great resources for finding new neighborhood friends and play date opportunities.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with. We would love to have a fellow Pigg and family as neighbors!

[t0rk]

lpjohnso you are absolutely correct. We run the trails at least twice a week with our little girls. I also really like the Ralph’s and proximity to Kaiser. Not to mention close to the 15 which now has an almost painless commute South to RB (where I work) and Carlsbad where my wife works. I think we will hold off on selling our home in East San Marcos until we find something in Discovery and close escrow. We don’t want to go through the pain (and risk) of selling, renting and waiting to buy. Thanks for the response!

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