Rancho Bernardo and Poway young families

[ocrenter]

[quote=sdduuuude]

Somewhere on bubbleinfo.com, Jim posted a map of the climate zones in San Diego county. Was pretty interesting. Might be useful.[/quote]

Country Living

here’s the link.

to the OP, just as long as you stay away from the dark brown you should be fine. my personal experience is the northern reaches of RB (aka the Trails) is essentially the border of that dark brown region on the map. And as the map demonstrates, the more north you go on the I15 corridor, the hotter it gets.

[bearishgurl]

ocrenter, that is a beautiful home for $799K in the link you provided (92084 zip). Being all one story (exc for “game room”) and very quiet, I think it would also make a great retirement home! Can’t find it on SDL so must be JTR’s exclusive listing?? Can’t determine if it lies within a CFD but am assuming it’s a custom or spec home. Perhaps it is in escrow or already sold.

Thanks for sharing.

[The-Shoveler]

[quote=ocrenter][quote=sdduuuude]

Somewhere on bubbleinfo.com, Jim posted a map of the climate zones in San Diego county. Was pretty interesting. Might be useful.[/quote]

Country Living

here’s the link.

to the OP, just as long as you stay away from the dark brown you should be fine. my personal experience is the northern reaches of RB (aka the Trails) is essentially the border of that dark brown region on the map. And as the map demonstrates, the more north you go on the I15 corridor, the hotter it gets.[/quote]

New meaning to the term green zone.

[ocrenter]

ER, plus you can just pay off the MR. After that, you figure $100 for cable is already counted. So $300 plus HOA for guard gated community. I don’t think I’ve seen any gated communities with HOA less than $250 around here.

Did you ever find out what the pay off is for the MR in santaluz?

[earlyretirement]

[quote=ocrenter]ER, plus you can just pay off the MR. After that, you figure $100 for cable is already counted. So $300 plus HOA for guard gated community. I don’t think I’ve seen any gated communities with HOA less than $250 around here.

Did you ever find out what the pay off is for the MR in santaluz?[/quote]

Exactly Ocrenter! We do plan to pay off our MR this year. I’ve been so busy traveling around that I didn’t have time to check this yet. We’re gearing up to travel to Europe for the summer (3 months) but I plan to do it when I get back.

We plan to be in the house for the long haul until the kids are out of high school so it definitely makes sense to pay off the Mello Roos for us.

You are so right about the cable/internet/garbage pick up. By my calculations it’s really only around $270 a month when you back out all the other things that are included. An added bonus is the internet is supposed to only be 10 MB service but I get 20+ MB download speed throughout the house (I’m not sure if this is like this with all the houses but in my house it’s always super fast). I have the entire house wired and we have Netflix in almost every room and never any problems. We also use our Ipads quite a bit all throughout the house.

Yes, most of the places we looked the HOA in nice areas was at least $250 and they provided almost nothing. At least here we have long walking trails, I go biking around the development, everything is so immaculate, there is an 11 acre park where our kids play quite a bit. The security is amazing and they even have roving security patrols that are always driving by. So it’s not just guard gated but they actually have people constantly driving around all the neighborhoods patrolling.

Plus everyone here is so friendly and I actually like the strict HOA rules because we are always assured of peaceful living, no noise, everyone taking great care of their lots,no one painting their house an offensive color, etc.

The quality of life out here is truly amazing. I mentioned it before in another post but I will here as well. At Christmas, all our immediate neighbors all brought Christmas gifts for one another. I’ve not experienced something like that in communities that I’ve lived before.

They also have a block party every year as well and they have several events as I mentioned throughout the year.

Easter party, July 4th celebration including fireworks, Movies on the green where they play a movie on a big screen in the park, Fall Festival (they brought some Clydesdale horses last year and gave kids hay rides) and at Christmas they hire a Santa Clause for all the kids to give wish lists to. (Of course you aren’t going to buy a house just for these types of extras but they certainly are something great if you have kids).

Like I said..there is a real sense of community here. I can’t imagine a better lifestyle community in San Diego.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=flyer]Although most points have been well covered, just thought I’d add my two cents.

Some friends of ours recently started looking for a home in San Diego with similar specs as the OP.

After considering Carmel Valley, locations East of I-15, Santa Fe Valley–near 4S, Del Sur, etc., etc., they decided on Santaluz.

As many here have mentioned, HOA and MR are high, but they wanted a larger lot, West of I-15, but East of the “Sun-Line,” (that’s why we love living in Rancho Santa Fe), so you might want to at least check out that option as well.

One resource you might consider to get a feel for what’s available and pricing in this general area, is sdlookup.com. Santaluz is in the 92127 zip code, and you can also check out other zip codes in which you might be interested.

We’ve lived many places in the world, but San Diego has always been “home.” I know you and your family will enjoy living here–Welcome![/quote]

Like Flyer’s friends, we were also looking in the same price range when we bought last year. We looked at houses in Carmel Valley, Rancho Santa Fe, 4S Ranch, Santaluz and the surrounding area and we also decided to buy in Santaluz and absolutely love it!

I posted some past posts so you can do a search if you’re interested. I’ll just give my 2 cents on some of these areas.

First of all, Rancho Santa Fe is really great but it’s sad to say but you can’t buy anything of quality there for $1 million there. You will spend much more than that. We looked at a few houses there but we just didn’t like them as much as other homes we saw in Santaluz.

Also, even getting past the more expensive prices, parts of Rancho Santa Fe just feels too rural for my tastes. I guess unless you had horses or something and wanted that kind of environment. In fact, in several parts of RSF you will see horses.

Carmel Valley we saw the most homes here. All of them were over $1 million and to be honest we were just not impressed with most of them as there was a real lack of privacy, on super tiny lots. They did have some beautiful homes but most of them had a lack of privacy.

Our friends own in Poway and they enjoy the no HOA but they bought an older home as many of the homes there are older and we don’t like the style and feel of most of the homes we see when we drive around. Plus the main reason is it’s much warmer there. Some days we can leave our house and go drive over to visit our friends and it can be a full 8 degrees warmer there.

Paying Mello Roos is not fun but I agreed with one of the posts above that spoke of looking at it almost as an investment in the area to send your kids to quality schools. It’s worth it to me to pay Mello Roos. At first it was a harder pill to swallow but honestly it is so worth it to me.

Santaluz is really amazing and they have a real sense of community here. The location is really great as you avoid the Marine layer of Del Mar. You are far enough inland where you still get the cooler weather yet you avoid the marine layer. And especially nice that you avoid the warmer temperatures once you cross I-15.

We are literally adjacent to Fairbanks Ranch and also Carmel Valley. We can take Carmel Valley road and there is almost no traffic at all and can make it to the Del Mar Heights shopping area in 5-7 minutes. When we want to go to the beach we usually just go to Del Mar and we can take the same road and be at the beach in 15 minutes.

Yes, the HOA are higher at $440/month (they actually lowered it $10 this year from last year). But you have to figure it includes 10 MB high speed internet, digital cable and garbage pick up. 24/7 Security and the grounds are impeccably maintained.

This is actually one of the few times in my life that I feel the HOA fee is good value for the money. I own many properties and most of the time I feel like I’m being ripped off with HOA but this is far from the case at Santaluz.

The security here is also really great and very secure neighborhood. Several CEO’s live here as well as sports stars like SD Charger’s QB Philip Rivers.

There are TONS of families with young kids here in Santaluz. They have several events throughout the year where you can really get a good sense of just how many kids there are. The last one, the Easter Celebration was packed with kids.

We saw several homes here before decided and liked the homes and they were much higher quality then houses we saw in other areas. And again the entire development (3,900 acres) is so well looked after.

I agree with the others that the “Keeping up with the Jones” isn’t too bad in San Diego vs. other areas. It’s NOTHING compared to Orange County.

They will never build anything like Santaluz again probably anywhere in California so close to the Coast. I really feel it’s a special place and we love living here. It’s part of the Poway Unified School District which is really amazing.

Also, it’s so convenient for us. We have easy access to I-56, I-15 and I-5 so nothing is too far. If you’re working from home you will find it very convenient. Like some others, I’m not too big of a fan of Poway just due to the style of houses and the warmer temperatures. Yes it’s more affordable but I find it’s well worth it to spend more money, especially considering that you can find some good houses in your budget if you have $1 million or a bit more to spend.

I totally agree with Flyer that you will LOVE San Diego. I’ve lived in several cities and a few different countries and moving to San Diego was the best decision of my life. It’s an amazing city! You will love it here.

[sdrealtor]

Sounds awesome and very much like to community I live in though not gated. There are some real gems in San Diego

[Jack]

Have you considered other areas of SD such as North County or does it have to be RB/Poway?

I live in San Elijo Hills (zip 92078) which is about 20/25 minutes northwest of RB with my wife and 2yr old son. I would say most of the people that live on our street are in their 30’s and early 40’s. There are *at least* 30 kids on our street ranging in ages from 0 – 10 and quite a few stay-at-home moms. Our neighbors are super friendly, there always seems to be a weekend party somewhere, block parties during the summer, and the beach and Lego Land are about a 20 minute drive (though I have yet to go to Lego Land). My mother-in-law helps babysit sometimes and takes her 45 minutes from South OC. As a bonus, I’m only about 15 minutes from several breweries and Phil’s BBQ (a local fav that serves up the best BBQ I’ve found in SD so far).

Prior to SEH, we lived in Carmel Mountain/RB (zip 92128). My experience living there was that the families were on the older side, and kids were high-school+ aged. The location is ideal, centrally located to almost everything. We initially wanted to live in Carmel Mountain when we started looking for a home, however, all the homes we liked were out of our budget. At the time, we could buy a bigger, newer house in SEH for less. So far, that move has worked out great for us (though I had my doubts when I was having to commute to Mission Valley). Yes, we have Mello-Roos, but that only adds approx $150/month to our property tax bill.

RB is a nice area (I like Carmel Mountain), so I’m not trying to pursuade you otherwise. Just wanted to throw out another area that seems to mesh well with the criteria you listed. Best of luck on the move and the house hunting.

[flyer]

The excellent comments regarding why the OP might want to consider Santaluz are exactly why our friends have pretty much narrowed it down to that location. The “West of I-15” thing is also a big factor for them.

I agree that Santaluz is probably a much better choice than RSF for a young family. When we settled into RSF there was no Santaluz, so it was the best option for us, since we wanted a lot of space not far from the ocean. In retrospect, the home in RSF proved to be a real bargain, when compared to today’s real estate pricing.

Also, our kids were into horses, and we are all into golf and tennis among other things, so it was a perfect fit. The kids had lots of friends, but it was a lot more effort to get them to and from all of their activities–more so than it would be in Santaluz. Also, if one is into boating or flying, as we are, access to the freeways to get to those destinations is great from Santaluz or RSF.

When you have a choice, as the OP does, it all boils down to preferred lifestyle, and I think everyone has shared with him a great range of choices from which to make his decision.

[earlyretirement]

Also, something that I forgot to mention is that probably a few years ago I would have said prices were too high in Santaluz and I wouldn’t have probably bought a few years ago. But from peak prices, you can see some houses down 35% to 40% in Santaluz from 2007 prices. I feel now is a great time to buy here. The cost to rebuild a house is going to be more than the asking price on many properties here now.

Also, the only negative thing I feel compelled to mention if you are considering Santaluz is having to buy into the country Club (Santaluz Club) to have access to use the pool, gym, tennis courts. Or even access the Cafe/restaurant.

My wife and I aren’t golfers but we do enjoy tennis and the pool. You can’t use these things unless you buy into the Country Club here which was $12,500 and then you have monthly fees of $205 a month. So you have to consider those additional fees if you want to use the pool and the tennis court and gym. (And the Golf package was a $45,000 buy in with $1,000 monthly membership dues).

They have a French Roast Cafe Restaurant here that is open daily and the food there is actually pretty good but it’s a non-cash facility so you only can charge it to your account with your Member #.

The gym is nothing to write home about and rather small. Although we are members, my wife still pays for a membership at 24 Hour Fitness. The reason is she takes spinning classes and some other classes where Santaluz charges you a fee for each class. That is something that I think is a negative. To spend $12,500 up front and $205 each month $2,460 per year) and then having to still use an outside gym seems like a waste.

We do enjoy the tennis courts and the pool we go to often with the kids and they really love it. We eat lunch at the Cafe there or when we go to the pool but keep in mind if you don’t you still must spend $450 a year on food at the cafe. If you don’t spend at least $450 a year, they will bill you for it. We have no problem spending that but you should still consider all of these things before buying here.

That is the only slightly negative thing I see. I don’t regret joining the Country Club here (it’s called the Hacienda Club) as we use the pool quite often. But honestly I would have much preferred if they included this free.

But that is the only thing I can find to complain about here at Santaluz.

[larrylujack]

[quote=moscin]We are considering a move from CT to either Rancho Bernardo, specifically the trails or Poway, probably the heritage.[/quote]

Live in Poway, work in CV. I’d never live in CV, Poway more laid back, better community feel, larger lots, far less cookie cutter mcmansion dreck than in CV (at least in the RB trails and heritage areas you mentioned, based upon these your budget must be at least 1M+).
Others mentioned CV, but CV is about as milktoast a community as San Diego has, the primary upsides being the schools and coastal proximity. For the same $ plan on getting less house/property in CV.

[Doooh]

Mt Woodsen and Archie Moore RD are just 7 minutes up the road from Poway with much better weather.

It has it’s own micro Ecosystem that thrives off the coast air that is funneled into our small valley from Torrey Pines / Del Mar cliffs and bounces off the north side of Mt Woodsen.

If your looking for brilliant weather, county taxes and no city building headaches, no HOA’s, and Elementary and Middle schools that are at the top of the heap, then come on buy and be our neighbor. We like the Christian type so if your opposed to our values you need not apply I say that as some of the poster on this thread have voiced their opposition.

If you want Golf course Country Club living we have that next to our 8 acre agriculture zoned lots with custom homes. $400-$800k price points.

[zk]

[quote=Doooh]Mt Woodsen and Archie Moore RD are just 7 minutes up the road from Poway with much better weather.

It has it’s own micro Ecosystem that thrives off the coast air that is funneled into our small valley from Torrey Pines / Del Mar cliffs and bounces off the north side of Mt Woodsen.

If your looking for brilliant weather, county taxes and no city building headaches, no HOA’s, and Elementary and Middle schools that are at the top of the heap, then come on buy and be our neighbor. We like the Christian type so if your opposed to our values you need not apply I say that as some of the poster on this thread have voiced their opposition.

If you want Golf course Country Club living we have that next to our 8 acre agriculture zoned lots with custom homes. $400-$800k price points.[/quote]

Doooh, your views on these matters are as impressive as your spelling and your grammar. Nobody said anything about christian values. Said values are irrelevant anyway, as christians don’t live up to them any more than non-christians do. You don’t get to pick who lives near you. And your schools are not “top of the heap.”

[ocrenter]

[quote=Doooh]Mt Woodsen and Archie Moore RD are just 7 minutes up the road from Poway with much better weather.

It has it’s own micro Ecosystem that thrives off the coast air that is funneled into our small valley from Torrey Pines / Del Mar cliffs and bounces off the north side of Mt Woodsen.

If your looking for brilliant weather, county taxes and no city building headaches, no HOA’s, and Elementary and Middle schools that are at the top of the heap, then come on buy and be our neighbor. We like the Christian type so if your opposed to our values you need not apply I say that as some of the poster on this thread have voiced their opposition.

If you want Golf course Country Club living we have that next to our 8 acre agriculture zoned lots with custom homes. $400-$800k price points.[/quote]

mental note, be sure to stay away from Mt Woodsen and Archie Moore RD. However, if I ever meet a Fundie Christian, I’ll be sure to send them over.

[Doooh]

[quote=zk][quote=paramount]OP: You would probably be better off in Temecula.

Better schools and a family christian atmosphere.[/quote]

Quite curious to know what makes you think moscin wants a christian atmosphere. That sounds positively awful to me, and a lot of people share my view. I’m curious why you assume moscin is not one of them.[/quote]

“Positively awful…” ZK your have issues with God, it’s ok. Take them up with him sooner than later, your eternity is at stake so my suggestion is sort things out sooner than you’d like.

We assume that the OP Mosocin is a family values kinda guy because he stated that he has a stay a home spouse. Most folks who make that sacrifice do it for reasons that are bigger than themselves.

[Author]

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