Future of Santa Luz – 92127?

[earlyretirement]

FYI…I did get them to email me PDF’s of all the HOA rules and regulations, CC&R’s and the last year’s worth of association board meetings and minutes as well as full finances and accounting certification of operating expense and reserve fund budgeting. Man there are a lot of rules in Santaluz!

But the way I figure it…it will lead to a better quality of life having those kinds of rules and almost all of them are things I wouldn’t want to see anyway as a neighbor.

The only thing after reading all of them is they really seem hardcore on fines. Have any of you that live there ever gotten fined for anything?

I’m curious how they even monitor speeding there within the grounds. Fines look steep there so it got me curious how they even enforce the speeding there?

I also found it interesting that they budgeted for the 2011-2012 year for landscaping and lot maintenance almost $1 million. As well as $764,000 on security services for the year. A good chunk of change…. I’ll also have to do a bit more research on what goes into this “discretionary spending” which they budgeted $266,000 for this year.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=ocrenter]http://www.bubbleinfo.com/2011/05/12/mello-roos-to-increase/

what is the exact financial structure and soundness of the Santaluz golf club/gym/spa? what is the larger Santaluz community’s financial obligation to the club/gym/spa? .[/quote]

I just got the Annual Audit Report for the year ending in April 30, 2011 so I thought I’d post an update on this topic.

“The Replacement Fund in which Santaluz Maintenance Association accumulates money to repair or replace all of the associations major assets, finished the fiscal year funded at 100% with a balance of $3,394,098. This places Santaluz in the top one tenth of one percent of community associations in California and the nation and insures that as the roadways, gate facilities, landscaping and other common elements require major maintenance or replacement, the funding will be there”.

As far as I can see the Association is very well run and managed. There are always workers out working on the landscaping and they just resurfaced the street by my house. Also, they got rid of the old transponders to open the gates and put in modern stickers for cars that open all gates.

Everything is very well run and I’m happy with my decision to buy here.

Also, a VERY small world. since I moved to the area, I had to find a new primary care doctor. I just went in for a physical exam and to meet my doctor and we were chatting and it turns out he lives a block away from me at Santaluz… Small world…

[earlyretirement]

I thought I’d take the time to post an update as I’ve now been living here in Santaluz for over a year now.

I’m glad that this thread has helped several people. I’ve received several PM’s from people that ended up buying in Santaluz or are in the process of closing on houses now as they said the information on this thread was valuable.

I don’t regret for a second buying here. In fact, everyday my wife and I wake up thankful that we live here. It’s a wonderful community and we remain absolutely thrilled with living here.

There has been no downsides or negatives at all with the house, the neighborhood or the development.

The development is very well managed and all the staff from the security guards, to the employees at the Club to the management staff are all professional and friendly and great with communication and always quick to get back to me any time I had a question.

I honestly feel like the HOA is great value for the money. The HOA fees actually decreased in the past year from $450/month to $440 a month. And in that as mentioned before I get digital cable included and also high speed Internet from Time Warner which is very fast. I routinely get 20 MB download speeds. Also, garbage pick up is included as well.

The development is immaculately maintained! In fact since buying they have resurfaced the entire development streets.

It’s always clean and the security is really really top notch. I’ve been impressed with that.

We really feel a sense of community here and last year our first Christmas here, all of our immediate surrounding neighbors brought gifts to our house.

They also have an annual block party which we just had a few weeks ago and it’s a great way to meet your neighbors and their kids.

Especially in our block it’s great as almost all of the people around me are original owners and have been here since the development started in 2003. Everyone around us are professionals (lawyers, doctors, engineers or business owners).

We are members at the Club and people there are friendly as well. We’ve met a few members there where they have invited us to their homes for dinner. You can’t ask for nicer people. As mentioned in another post, my personal physician happens to live here as well in Santaluz.

I personally like that they are so strict with their rules because the quality of life is very high. But it does annoy people that they can only paint their house one color, paint their garage door one color, etc.

But I love the fact they force people to maintain their lots nice here. Most of the people around us all have gardeners/landscapers that come every week.

They are very strict here with things like speeding since there are so many young kids here in the development. The development is 3,800 acres! So it’s quite expansive and big. They have patrols that have radar guns within the gates and set up stations that say how fast you are going and supposedly cameras to issue tickets.

I’ve never gotten a ticket but a few times I think I was going over the limit so they just flashed the lights on top of the roving security patrol. I’m not sure if people actually get speeding tickets.

The only person that I heard getting fined for noise was one of my neighbors down the street that I didn’t meet before. She told me she had to get rid of her dog. Apparently she has a very difficult neighbor and he kept calling in to complain about the dog barking.

She said the first time she got a warning. The 2nd time she got a $100 ticket along with a 3rd time getting another $100 noise ordinance ticket. I’m not sure how loud the dog was but she said she worked during the day as well as her husband and she felt so nervous and worried about getting more tickets she got rid of the dog.

That goes to show you they are very serious about noise ordinances, which I think is actually a good thing. I’d hate to have a neighbor with a noisy dog. It’s nice not having to worry about those types of things.

The development and home surpassed our greatest expectations/hopes and we LOVE living here and I never see us moving until maybe when the kids are out of the house and we won’t need such a big house.

The house has been perfect with no problems at all except we did have to replace a spring on a garage door that went bad a few weeks ago. But other than that absolutely no problems at all with the house or the development.

We LOVE being so close to the beach. It literally takes us no more than 15 minutes getting to the beaches in Del Mar taking Carmel Valley/Del Mar Heights and I go to the beach about 4 times a week.

It’s great having easy access to I-56 or even to I-5 just taking the back way to Rancho Santa Fe on San Diegito Road. And also being close to I-15 as well. We can pretty much get anywhere we need to without it taking too long.

I met a few people from this board that currently own houses here or previously owned here and all were class acts and enjoyed meeting them.

For us, this is as close to Paradise as it gets.

[sdduuuude]

Interesting, er. I was just in the Santaluz home of a friend.

What are the numbers on your purchase ?

Cost, home sq. ft, garage size, lot size ?

Thanks.

[ocrenter]

Thanks ER for the update.

Always nice to hear about first person accounts of various neighborhoods around the area.

[earlyretirement]

Also, one thing I forgot to mention is that the delinquency rates on HOA fees is almost zilch.

I own several properties around the world (some also in upscale developments) where the homeowners are constantly late or don’t pay their fair share of HOA fees, which can cause a burden on existing homeowners. It’s quite annoying dealing with that.

Watching how Santaluz deals with them is an eye opener and they truly don’t mess around.

For example, since the digital cable and high speed Internet are included in the HOA fees, you stop paying and they cut off access to that.

Also, the entire development is controlled by high tech stickers that you have on your car windshield or license plates to allow you entrance in one of several entrances into Santaluz.

They can deactivate those so it’s not convenient and you have to go through the security guard each time which I imagine could be much slower and a pain vs. the automatic gates which automatically open and have a separate lane.

They also mentioned they don’t hesitate to “rapid filing of small claims court actions to secure judgments”.

Me personally as a homeowner, I enjoy this extremely low delinquency rates and the actions the management company will take for those that don’t pay on time.

I found it very interesting these techniques and maneuvers. 🙂

It gives me a great feeling knowing that Santaluz is among the top 1% of community associations in the USA and will have the funds there to properly maintain the development into the future.

[ocrenter]

[quote=earlyretirement]

For example, since the digital cable and high speed Internet are included in the HOA fees, you stop paying and they cut off access to that.

Also, the entire development is controlled by high tech stickers that you have on your car windshield or license plates to allow you entrance in one of several entrances into Santaluz.

They can deactivate those so it’s not convenient and you have to go through the security guard each time which I imagine could be much slower and a pain vs. the automatic gates which automatically open and have a separate lane.

They also mentioned they don’t hesitate to “rapid filing of small claims court actions to secure judgments”.

[/quote]

wow, that certainly works. hey, maybe the security guards are even given instructions to harass the delinquents.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=ocrenter]

wow, that certainly works. hey, maybe the security guards are even given instructions to harass the delinquents.[/quote]

I doubt the security guards would harass them. They are SUPER friendly here. I think it’s just to make it so it’s inconvenient. Sometimes the lines for the non-residents (guests/vendors) on the left hand side can really be slow as every single guest has to go through security.

So it sounds like they just want to inconvenience them. Sounds like it’s working. I’m told before they took measures like this the delinquency rate was higher. But now it’s almost nothing.

In other places where I own, they print a list each month of the actual balance of all the people in the building so you can see when your neighbors are behind. But even that doesn’t seem to always work.

[ocrenter]

[quote=earlyretirement]

In other places where I own, they print a list each month of the actual balance of all the people in the building so you can see when your neighbors are behind. But even that doesn’t seem to always work.[/quote]

That actually sounds like a really good idea, if the non-paying owner is actually engaged in the community, but most likely the non-payer would be one of those “drive in and garage down” types.

I have to say the Santaluz model of cutting cable/internet/gate transponder is one of the best I’ve heard of.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=ocrenter]

That actually sounds like a really good idea, if the non-paying owner is actually engaged in the community, but most likely the non-payer would be one of those “drive in and garage down” types.

I have to say the Santaluz model of cutting cable/internet/gate transponder is one of the best I’ve heard of.[/quote]

“Drive in and garage down types”. LOL. Exactly. That’s the problem with that type. In some condos where I own, you can take the garage to park your car and then the elevator goes directly up to each apartment so you don’t actually have to face the “walk of shame”.

But still I’d imagine it’s embarrassing for everyone in the building to see how much you owe and are late. That usually guilted people into paying on time. When that didn’t work, the building started assessing big interest on the late amount and that helped.

But yes, I thought it was ingenious how they used those methods to get people to pay. Apparently it’s working very well as my HOA fees actually came down this year from last year. I think some of these things they are doing are new because they used a different system with the gates last year.

But this new system with the stickers is very high tech and they can deactivate them. Or for example, if you had some regular employee (some of my neighbors have live in staff/maids/nannies) in the event of a dispute, you can just give them the sticker # and Santaluz can deactivate it. Previously they used transponders which once someone had they could open. This is a much more secure system.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=ocrenter] but most likely the non-payer would be one of those “drive in and garage down” types[/quote]

I’d say that’d be very difficult in Santaluz. The only thing within walking distance is the clubhouse and the golf course, from which non-payers have likely been black-balled.

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