[earlyretirement]

[quote=ocrenter]

btw, they should have told you the interest rate on the MR as well. for mine we were looking at 5% and 7.5%. Which again makes the decision to pay it off a relatively easy one as well.[/quote]

I didn’t ask them the rate but I recall seeing it online on some website before and yes the interest rates were high.

I’m sure the % of people that pre-pay these off is very very low. But I also think many people only have the mentality about worrying about today and not thinking about 10+ years from now. I’ve always been the type that likes to think further down the road into the future.

I can’t imagine a scenario where the taxes and fees are going to get any lower or better for the PUSD.

I’m not one of these people that don’t think you don’t get some value out of these Mello Roos taxes. If I didn’t have any kids then I’d feel differently I’m sure but having kids, I feel it’s well worth it being in the PUSD.

I’d be spending a whole lot more sending my kids to a private school vs. PUSD schools. If I lived in another area within the SDUSD, I’d definitely have to send my kids to private school which would cost a fortune.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=ocrenter]ER, Dolinka’s estimates is pretty much on target with my MR. So doubt you’ll get any surprises going with the estimate until you are ready to do the payoff.

I agree, the more I look into it, especially given PUSD’s recent funny business with bonds, the MR payoff makes a lot of sense for long term home owners.[/quote]

Thanks ocrenter. Hopefully it’s on the lower end of their estimate rather than the higher end. 🙂

I just sent off the letter to PUSD this morning requesting the pay off quote and mailed the $100 so looking forward to getting that.

Yes, I just figured this totally makes sense for any homeowners that are confident they will be in their house long-term. We definitely won’t be moving, already did the renovations on the house and have it perfect how we want to live in it for the foreseeable future.

The only wildcard I can think of is if we have twins or triplets when we go for our 3rd child next year. LOL. In that case I guess I’d have to turn my home office into another bedroom. 😉

[earlyretirement]

[quote=sdseeker]I was told about the new bonds coming by Dolinka Group who handles all the payoff info for PUSD. For those who are interested they also confirmed that once you make the payoff you are out from under the Mello Roos even if they do issue new debt. However in my case 9/21 is the cutoff date and after that I was told the payoff amount would increase. I guess that would be the result of extending the period for the MR beyond the current 2034.[/quote]

I wasn’t too impressed with this Dolinka Group. They are the entity whose phone number is on the property tax bill. I called them several times over several days and no one ever answered the phone. It always went to voicemail.

Finally about 4 days later someone called me back and said he would email me the details to pay it off.

He did email me this below which I’m cut and pasting. (He also gave me a general pay off quote of $15,000 to $20,000 for the CFD #4 Poway Unified). I get charged about $1,000 a year on my annual property taxes.

And he said that as it stands now the CFD #4 for PUSD doesn’t end until 2041 and might get extended for further into the future. I imagine they will do the maximum % increase each year as well.

They did confirm once you pay it off it releases you from further obligation if they extend the bond. I’m leaving on a business trip but once I get back I’m planning on paying this off.

I also called to pay off my CFD#2 which is the main Mello Roos for Santaluz. That quote is $400 if you want to get the exact quote.

They gave me an estimate of $45,000 to $50,000 to pay it off completely but said once I want an exact quote to call back and then I need to pay the $400 and then they will apply it towards the pay off. (I get charged $4,600 per year on my annual taxes). And that bond isn’t set to finish until 2030. It wasn’t clear with me if they were able to extend this bond.

Again, I assume they will raise it the maximum % they are allowed to each year. But even without any % annual increase, it seems like a no brainer to pay this off as we plan to stay in our house 15 years until the kids are at least out of high school.

This is what they sent me below:

_______________________________________________

Prepayment of Annual Special Tax Lien Procedure

1. All requests for prepayment amounts must be received by the Poway Unified School District (“School District”) in writing no less than 30 days prior to the date in which the party wishes to prepay and must include the following information:

a. The name of the party wishing to prepay;
b. The address of the property;
c. The development the property is within;
d. The valid Assessor’s Parcel Number;
e. The Tract and Lot number; and
f. The Annual Special Tax the party is wishing to prepay (i.e. infrastructure or schools).
g. A payment of $100.00 for each prepayment to be calculated. The check(s) are to be made payable to “Poway Unified School District” and
is/are to be included with the written request.

All prepayment requests are to be sent to:
Poway Unified School District
c/o Kari Zipp
13626 Twin Peaks Road
Poway, CA 92064

2. The School District will forward the request for prepayment to Dolinka Group, LLC. Dolinka Group will provide the requesting party with the prepayment
amount within thirty (30) days and send a letter informing the requesting party of such amount. A copy of the response will also be sent to the School District.

3. All parties wishing to prepay must send a check in the prepayment amount made payable to “Poway Unified School District” in writing and send to the School District at the address listed above. The prepayment should include a copy of the letter requesting the prepayment and a copy of Dolinka Group’s response to the request.

4. When the School District receives the prepayment, the School District will send a copy of the prepayment check and accompanying paperwork to Dolinka Group so the parcel can be removed from the Special Tax levy for the following Fiscal Year. The School District will then send the prepayment to the Fiscal Agent to be deposited for the purpose of calling bonds or to be used by the School District at a later date to construct facilities. The School District will also record a “Notice of Cancellation of Special Tax Lien” on the property at the County of San Diego Recorder’s Office.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=4slive]I did paid-off last year. I just checked my property tax bill, it shows .00 next to CFD items.[/quote]

Great! Thanks so much 4slive. I really appreciate that. I was always curious about that. It’s good to know about that. Thanks for taking the time to share the info.

[earlyretirement]

Now that I’m done traveling on vacation and back in San Diego, I’m going to move forward with paying off our Mello Roos taxes.

We definitely will stay in the house for the long-term until the kids are out of the house (15+ years). So it seems like a no brainer to get it paid off.

For those of you that paid it off, on your annual property tax bill with the city, does it still show the CFD on it and just have $0 next to it? Or is it completely vanished from your bill?

I was curious how they have it on the property tax bill once you pay it off. I’ve never known or spoken to anyone personally that has pre-paid it off ahead of time. But I was really curious how it lists on your annual property tax with the city of San Diego.

I’d appreciate if anyone knows.

I’m going to pay mine off here in the next month or so. I’ll report back how the experience went.

[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.

[earlyretirement]

Yep exactly. Looks like a large Arizona resort already had that name. I wonder if Davidson realized it on their own or if the resort found out and threatened legal action.

I just thought it was funny to see signs for a new one. I’ve been gone the past few months on vacation in Europe but I did a double take when I drove by after I came back and saw it with a new name…

[earlyretirement]

Anyone else notice they had to change the name of this development from Miraval to Maricel because someone else had the name trademarked?

You would have thought they would have checked before naming the development. Oh well…

[earlyretirement]

I agree ocrenter.

We didn’t look at homes in Mirasol but we did in Santa Monica last year. There were some beautiful homes on large 1/2 acre lots. The only thing I didn’t like were all the power lines around Santa Monica. I’m not sure if that is the case with Mirasol as well.

Onthesideline — Just out of curiosity, why are you against gated communities? Some of them are really great and it’s not like your kids would be spoiled or anything for the mere fact you live in a gated community.

I don’t think it’s the same thing as sending them to private schools. I was just curious on that one.

We looked at homes in 4S Ranch and we really didn’t see the attraction there. Much of the houses there looked to be of inferior quality to other areas.

Carmel Valley we felt was definitely not worth it, especially in areas like Pacific Highland Ranch which had mostly million dollar homes on postage size lots where all your neighbors could see into.

Even Collins Ranch with bigger homes on bigger lots didn’t seem too special to me either.

[earlyretirement]

I was having dinner at one of my neighbors house down the street. His lot is about 1,000 sq. feet bigger than mine but he doesn’t have as much landscaping as he has a big outdoor patio with flagstone in much of the backyard.

I asked him what his last water bill was. His had no clue as his wife paid the bills. He went to go get it and was shocked it was $580 for the last bill (60 day cycle). He also has 2 young kids.

Hopefully the next bill isn’t too bad but I’m guessing mine will be at least that with the shower, etc.

[earlyretirement]

Who would have thought the subject of circumcision would be so popular these days.

I was reading my Wall Street Journal yesterday and there was a piece on it. That article was written by someone that was for it.

He was trying to paint a picture that the healthcare costs are going to rise dramatically in the future because less and less people are getting it.

I don’t buy that argument at all.

As to the healthcare benefits….I don’t honestly know which side is right…it sounds like they are still debating on that one.

But my personal feeling is the possible benefits are so small it wouldn’t be worth it at all.

I think it’s GREAT that the # of procedures done in the USA has fallen so drastically. That’s a clear sign that parents are waking up.

And honestly, if a girl didn’t want to be with some guy because he was/wasn’t circumcised, I certainly wouldn’t want them with my kid. I doubt the vast majority of the guys out there will have ANY issues with girls.

[earlyretirement]

NavyDoc,

Thanks for the follow up post. Yes, as you mentioned, I saw something in the paper the other day swinging back to saying some Academy recommended it.

As a physician, would you recommend to go to a Pediatric Urology specialist for another opinion even though our Pediatrician says it will probably correct itself later ?

We had it done before we moved to San Diego and I always just assumed that physician would never admit that it was done wrong and it was easier to say, “it will correct itself later”.

Our Pediatrician is very good and I didn’t want her to think we were second guessing her opinion. I try not to think about it but this post just reminds me of the regret I have in doing it.

[earlyretirement]

Oh and if you think my situation was an isolated incident, just Google it.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/partod/msg1218152032703.html?14

http://www.circleofmoms.com/stay-at-home-moms/circumcision-question-581216#_

All sorts of parents have had the same problem. And the worst and most frustrating thing is that the doctor says “it’s just normal…give it time”. And you don’t know if it will correct itself or not. Our son was chubby when he was younger but not so much anymore and it is still like that.

So now we are struggling with, “do we go see another specialist” and “what happens if indeed they didn’t cut enough off”? Because even if we didn’t cut enough off, I can’t bare to think of having it done again but then we think about the potential for our son to say later in life, “if you knew when I was a baby they screwed up…why didn’t you fix it when I was a baby”.

I can’t tell you how frustrating it is.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=cvmom]Earlyretirement, just wanted to say thank you for the well-thought-out, heart-felt post.[/quote]

You’re welcome. Anytime I hear anyone talking about this subject I always give them my opinion on it.

[quote=desmond]
I guess understanding sarcasm wasn’t one of the things you did “very well”[/quote]

Sorry, I have never read any of that OP’s posts and I don’t know the personality’s on this board enough to know who is kidding or not. Trust me, I’ve read some very wacky things on this and other boards that wasn’t sarcastic in nature when I thought it was… 😉

[earlyretirement]

[quote=Blogstar]
Didn’t have my three boys circumcised, now 9,8&5. Have been wholeheartedly congratulated by each of the two regular pediatricians we have used, one is Jewish.

Had heard it is actually somewhat of a trauma and that the health benefits were debatable(negligible if any). Doubt they will be teased, or if so, that it would bother them. My own situation with regards to topic had no weight whatsoever, nor did any religious concerns.[/quote]

And as a parent, I congratulate you as well! I think as a parent, it’s the only thing I would have done differently.

Back when I was younger, it was much more common to be circumcised. I remember as a younger guy and watching pornos…. I mean all the guys were circumcised….it was very strange to see someone that was not.

But I think these days it’s more common and normal not to be circumcised.

I congratulate any parent that decides not to have their kid circumcised.

[quote=Blogstar]My kid aced the 3rd grade CST and reads Hugo Cabret in Spanish and Lord of the Rings in English. This is also because of our decision on circumcision.[/quote]

I’m glad you didn’t get your sons circumcised but I’m not sure you can make the connection they are doing so well because they didn’t have it done. After all, I got circumcised and I did very well. 🙂

[Author]

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