[earlyretirement]

I agree most of 92127 zip code has higher MR taxes. I’m reasonably confident the schools in this school district will continue to do well over the long-term.

I might consider paying off the MR taxes. We will definitely be in the home for the long haul. Our kids are young and we plan to live in the house until they finish high school. Our youngest is 2 years old so needless to say we have a long while to go!

I don’t feel too much pressure on the MR fees. I think most buying in this area aren’t broken one way or the other by MR fees. Yes, it sucks paying it but it’s not going to make or break me. I personally feel it’s still worth paying the MR fees to live where we do. Others may disagree. I think it’s a very personal decision.

Someone PM’ed me a while ago that was looking in the Santaluz development that they called to check on the pay off amounts for the Mello Roos taxes.

I hope they don’t mind I’m posting it below as I find it’s very educational and will benefit others. (Here is what they wrote below in quotes between the lines).

_________________________________________

“The other thing is I just called and talked directly with the city tax assessors and companies managing the mello roos. FYI, the CFD#2 which is the main one is on a 30 years bond which started in 2000 and ends 2030.

To calculate the pay off amount on your property will cost $500. The CFD#4 which is the Poway Unified is on a 40 years bond. They charge $100 to calculate the pay off amount, but will deduct it from your actual pay off if you choose to do so.

Since you are planning to live there for a while, you may want to consider paying off the CFD#2. Here are their numbers if you are interested in the actual calculation for your parcel.

CFD #2: 949.955.1500
CFD#4: 877.250.1503 or direct 949.250.8300

(picked up # when they called me back.)
I did the math, it’s worth while to pay off the CFD#2 but not #4. But of course you can do your own calculations.”

_______________________________________

I have been busy so I haven’t bothered yet to do this. Plus wasn’t excited about paying $500 to get the pay-off amount. But I will probably end up doing this as we plan to be in the house for the long haul.

[earlyretirement]

We looked at a few houses in PHR as well last year. They had some nice houses but to be honest, for the most part, the houses were piled on top of one another with NO privacy at all. Yeah, there were a few streets that weren’t as bad or corner lot houses that were better. But MANY houses had absolutely NO privacy at all with some as many as 5 houses immediately looking into the tiny back yards.

Schools: The schools are great in both locations. I wouldn’t get too caught up in API scores to judge school districts. I think most parents would agree both school districts are great relatively speaking compared to other districts in San Diego.

Mello Roos: I agree Mello Roos sucks no matter which area you’re in. We bought in nearby Santaluz and it’s not fun paying $5,500+ a year in Mello Roos taxes. However, I feel like once you bite the bullet to live in a MR area, there isn’t much you can do about it. You can complain but who will listen??

Parks: I agree with the lack of parks in the PHR area. Yeah, 4SR was better but we didn’t find anything to write home about in way of parks in 4S Ranch. But yes, if this is important 4S Ranch has the nod here.

Weather: We were renting a townhouse in Carmel Valley while we were waiting to move into our house. I found the difference in weather VERY negligible between Carmel Valley and the Santaluz area. Maybe a slight difference. However, we noticed the biggest difference once we passed I-15 but the difference is very little between the PHR area and where we live. But past I-15 for some reason it can drastically vary. For example a few weeks ago, I was meeting a friend for lunch. My car said it was 71 degrees at Santaluz but when I went to lunch at Brigintine’s in Poway it was 79 degrees!

Lot sizes: I totally agree PHR had super tiny lots for the most part. I’m not one of these people that need some huge yard. For us, an 8,000 sq. foot lot is plenty for us. To us, it’s not so much lot size but the way it’s utilized to provide privacy from neighbors and much of PHR was horrible.

Shopping: This wasn’t too high on the priority list for us at all. True PHR doesn’t have anything really to speak of in the area. However, although we don’t live too far from the 4S Ranch town center area …we’ve almost never been to that shopping area. I don’t think in the grand scheme of things shopping is too great there relatively speaking either.

I think both general areas are really great compared to many other areas. Most people that choose to live in the area are doing so I think for school district reasons.

We really LOVE living in the area. The quality of life is excellent for us. We couldn’t be more pleased with the area, the schools and just general high quality of life conditions.

To answer your question, I didn’t find the premium worth it price per sq. foot for PHR vs. other areas. In fact, quite the opposite. I couldn’t understand the desire for many people to pay so much for those houses.

[earlyretirement]

I agree it could just be a dream type situation with the buyer. I had a situation like that back in 2008 on a vacation summer home that I owned. I didn’t even list it for sale. I bought a house and totally gutted it, added an in-ground heated pool and used it for myself for long weekends and rented it.

I was a bachelor at the time so it was GREAT! I rented it during high season for insanely high rental prices.

One of my rental guests from Europe (wealthy banker) asked me once how much I’d sell the house for. I explained to him that the house wasn’t for sale and I just bought it and gutted it and furnished it. It was a ton of work. He kept upping his offer.

Long story short, I ended up selling the house to him at an insanely great profit. He even ended up buying everything in the house with all the furnishings.

All with no realtors involved for either of us. We just had a lawyer draft up the paperwork and it went super smooth. It was an all cash deal so that made it easier.

It was a dream like situation. Wish that sort of thing happened more often! I never intended to flip it but it would have been crazy not to have sold and I don’t regret it for a second.

[earlyretirement]

Hey I say if you love the house and area and plan to be in it for the long haul, it’s a fine time to buy. It looks like a really beautiful house that is move in ready.

I wouldn’t get too obsessed about trying to catch the absolute bottom. There is still strong demand in the area on pristine homes in move in ready condition. From when we looked last year, there was a lot of crap on the market but all the totally pristine, move in ready homes are ALL long since sold.

We bought in nearby Santaluz last year and LOVE the area. I waited on the sidelines for many years before finally buying last year and don’t regret my decision to buy in the area at all. It’s really incredible and we absolutely LOVE it.

Congrats…I hope the closing goes smoothly and welcome to the area. Let me know once you’re in the area and coffee is on me.

[earlyretirement]

Did you move on it? Looks like sale pending as of 2 days ago. That went fairly fast..

[earlyretirement]

[quote=sdrealtor]Sometimes people buy houses to save marriages. Never seen it work but I have seen it tried a few times[/quote]

Yeah that’s a good point sdrealtor. I know a friend that tried that but didn’t work. But in his case at least he got to enjoy his house a few years rather than a few short months. Haha.

[earlyretirement]

Well divorces don’t usually happen suddenly overnight. Most of my friends/clients that have gone through one knew the signs well ahead of time.

Typically you have periods of separation ahead of the divorce. It just seemed odd to me to buy a $1.4 million house in May only to dump it at a loss a few months later….

[earlyretirement]

Yikes…you would have thought if a divorce was imminent they would have waited to purchase the property in the first place. Rather than buying and then selling a few short months later….

Oh well…Thanks for sharing that information on the old seller. I always find situations like that interesting when a home gets bought and then sold quickly at a loss.

[earlyretirement]

It will take several years…. The question really isn’t IF it will happen… it’s simply… WHEN.

All you can personally do is be prepared for such a scenario….

[earlyretirement]

Ah…yeah that would seem to make sense. I didn’t take the time to Google the old owner. I just saw it was an LLC and one of the principles seemed to work at another company as well.

I guess $1.3 MM isn’t too high if someone was willing to pay for it. 🙂

Thanks.

[earlyretirement]

Please don’t get me wrong. NOT all of 4S Ranch has what I’d deem subpar construction. It was just a few communities driving around. Some of the communities actually had nice looking houses.

But definitely some of the stuff didn’t look anything special for the $700s to $800’s price tag it had on them.

4S Ranch is such a big area with many homes. So I don’t think it’s fair to generalize that all are subpar construction because I’m sure it certainly isn’t.

Definitely I think if you can find a great deal on a home that you like, now is an OK time to buy if you will stay in the home for the long haul.

[earlyretirement]

Yeah I realize that probably very few contact realtors/owners via Zillow. But most people I know that are interested in properties, still check out Zillow. Even if they are using a traditional realtor, Redfin or other sources.

I’d think you’d want to make sure there aren’t glaring mistakes on Zillow. Even if you aren’t getting leads/emails via Zillow the point I figured would still be to keep it up to date and accurate just for people that are checking it out even while using other sources.

During my search, I never once contacted a realtor via Zillow. However, I always at least checked out information on Zillow as well.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=sdrealtor]HINT: Most realtors dont pay attention to Zillow.[/quote]

sdrealtor,

But don’t they at least check out their own listings?? I realize they probably don’t care about other listings but wouldn’t it make sense for a realtor to pay attention to all their listings?

All the successful realtors I know around the USA do pay attention to their own property listings that are on Zillow.

[earlyretirement]

Yeah, I’m surprised that the realtor didn’t correct it. Zillow takes a lot of flack but the truth of the matter is that people check it out and even if the numbers can be too high or too low…..the price listed does psychologically impact both buyers and sellers.

[earlyretirement]

Thanks Hobie for those suggestions. Yeah, it sounds like a booster pump will do the trick. It’s just it’s not been so easy to find someone that seems interested in that.

I’ve had great luck with AngiesList.com for various vendors but the ones I emailed/called about installing a Booster Pump don’t seem too thrilled for some reason?

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