[NewBuyerConflicts]

Dear Cato1974,

Thank you for your shared insight and I can’t imagine having to make such a decision from afar. I know my husband and I have the luxury of visiting all the new builds within Del Sur and the surrounding areas.

For those who are interested here is the link regarding the final numbers for Design 39. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9YxRGceO414M04xYXBubnk3azg/edit

The numbers look like what we were thinking of and again if it was the situation where we had school age children this would be a slammed dunk decision. I am wondering where is CFD 14 seeing it has the most allocated spots even compared to Del Sur.

Overall,

I want to thank everyone. It wasn’t more of a choice between gated versus non-gated but what was the best choice for us and our kids’ future education. We didn’t want to be swayed with the sales pitch of guarantee spot placement just because of Del Sur without hard numbers and knowing that for us it would be 5-6 years.

We want to thank everyone for their thoughts, experiences and comments. It takes a lot of time and we truly appreciated it. In the end, we decided on going with the Lakes. For us, it was because the home was already built out and we could move in before our little one comes along. In addition, knowing that we can’t place our kids until after Del Sur is fully built out that at that point we would most likely be playing the numbers/lottery game with either CFD. We do love the sense of community Del Sur offers but we admittedly are more the type to take our kids out hiking, to the beach or play dates. Both of us will be working and won’t be able to just have one of us go and enjoy the parks and pools much. So a combination of the home, the lot (without power lines), the lateness in when we will be placing our kids, and the final number we did chose the Lakes.

Thank you again,
NewHomeOwner and expected Mama 🙂

[NewBuyerConflicts]

[quote=rshanbhag]Hi,
Just read this and hope you were able to make a decision on your new home choice. We purchased a home in Marston and will be closing next month. We relocated here from Atlanta last september and started looking in areas like La Jolla to Carmel Valley to Solana beach and landed up in Del Sur to see the Sentinels one weekend. We were almost set on buying that when we chanced upon Marston. We did look at the Lakes too, loved their floorplan but as someone mentioned we wanted park/pools, etc for our kids who were 2 and 4 at the time. So, we picked Marston for the beautiful indoor/outdoor view-feel as you mentioned and for the kids. We were at a stage in life when we wanted a community feel…and always saw families with little kids in the park, etc. If it was a different time in our life, we would probably buy in some other area… So, I guess, my two cents would be that if you are looking for a long stay at a home, look for what would really matter to you – prestige, gated, community, etc…

Regarding admission to Design39 school, if you bought in Marston, you are guaranteed a seat this year in that school. My son who will start kindergarten in August got in as it belongs to CFD 15. I was also told by the teachers that my daughter shouldn’t have a problem getting in next year as they would be opening up more seats for our CFD. There were lotteries for other CFD’s like 6 which I think belong to 4s Ranch area as I believe there were like 200 seats and 800+ applications. Btw, we are from India.[/quote]

rshanbhag,

Thank you for your insight and it is great to hear that you son got in. Del Sur’s main appeal is that it is in CFD 15. Now like you said your daughter shouldn’t have a problem getting in b/c more seats will open up, but our concern is our first one is arriving this year and hopefully another one soon after that. So, by the time our son is ready for kindergarten we are looking at 5 years from now then 6 or more for our second. The fact alone that only the first year are they willing to guarantee spots for Del Sur residents says they realize as time progress it will get harder and harder for later entering children. Now, it is just a question of whether or not it will be as competitive as say 4S or the other CFD. Who knows…maybe not but it will still end up being more a numbers game and not a sure thing.

That said, I do love Marston. Did you buy in the power line side or non? If you did buy on the power line side does it bother you? WE are not concern but are worry about resale and more of the “general” negative perception most people and agents have against them. If you got the non power line side, was it b/c of your concerns with them or you just happened to like the lot or that they were the ones available during that release?

Thanks for sharing. It seems we are on the same boat but just a few months behind in regards to home buying and a few years behind in regards to school age.

[NewBuyerConflicts]

The questions then begs to be ask. If education plays a factor but it is more of who you know and not what you know, then is it better to say buy in Del Sur where you get to meet a lot of people. Your kids makes friends from a wide range of families with different background and social economic experiences. Or go somewhere in a private /gated community where the “standard” is that most individuals there are already in an affluent time of their life? But you may be limited due to the less individual families within and also limited in other ways.

[NewBuyerConflicts]

[quote=joec]
Not sure what it will be like in 5 years, but having purchased in 2009 (5 years ago you could say), we didn’t get into Design 39 and of all the families we knew, only 1 person got in and the kid was starting 6th grade…A friend said no one she knew got in and that was 15+ people from her kid’s classroom.
[/quote]

JOEC,

Did you buy in Del Sur and are the families you mentioned also in the Del Sur CFD that didn’t get in? If so, that is scary.

One of the “sales pitch” that we got from Marston, was that our kids were pretty much guarantee to get into the Del Sur Schools and that for D39 we had “priority” over the other CFD neighborhoods. By buying into Del Sur, our CFD meant our kids pretty could chose to go to D39 or the existing school there.

They made it seems like if we didn’t get into D39 (highly unlikely) we were at least getting into the schools already in the Del Sur neighborhood.

[NewBuyerConflicts]

All,

Thank you so far for all your comments. If I didn’t directly reply or quote you, please note that I did read and appreciate your thoughts.

It is a great help because even though we are home owners right now. It is quite different going from a condo for two working professionals to looking at a potential forever home for a growing family. Plus “gulp” to save for so long and to put this in my mind so much money to spend for a residence compare to most anywhere else in the US this amount would be considered insane.

So, listening/reading your thoughts and your experience do help alleviate some of our worries. Plus it is nice to see there are quite a few of you out there that went through the same process and thoughts.

Your experiences and insights are greatly appreciated from this expected mom!

[NewBuyerConflicts]

[quote=anonlawyer]
Disclaimer: We wound up buying a 2955 sq ft at Hawthorne… smaller than we would have liked, but 300-400k less on a lot that looks right down the canyon and isn’t anywhere near power lines. Not really the same market as Marston/Lakes, but it made a lot more sense for us.[/quote]

Anonlawyer,

That is pretty much the conclusion I came up with. Hawthorne is the perfect price point for the area and the design reminds me of Marston. I do agree that right now there is no concern about kids getting into the Del Sur schools or even the new D39.

Perhaps, I am just factoring too much in but with a newborn and most likely soon to be second our kids won’t start school for another 5-6 years. Therefore the advantage of Del Sur residents having priority or a higher allocated spot may be moot. My concern is that by that time, the Del Sur area will be built out plus all the townhomes/condos that are plan means that even with the higher allocated seats the competition or the ratio of seats/kids would be just as much percentage wise as say the Lakes. But at least there even with the lower number of seats if you take that into account the few kids vying for them made me come to the conclusion that we might have the same “chances” come 5-6years when our kids enter the school system.

[NewBuyerConflicts]

[quote=duchess]
Not sure if you’re set on new construction, but have you looked at the resales in the Crosby? Since you’d be driving to school anyway, the schools are different and the district seems to be run in a more fiscally sound manner than Poway.[/quote]

Duchess,

We did look at some resales at the Crosby and Santa Luz. We are trying to stay under 1.5M and for the price point, the lot size is a bit smaller than we like. With one kid on the way and the dream of a second, plus a dog, two kitties, we wanted a bit of a yard for them to have access to.

I think it is just trying to figure what we can get for the biggest bang for our buck while keeping in mind the main focus. That is that this ultimately is home for us for hopefully the next 10-20 years. 🙂

[NewBuyerConflicts]

kcal09,

We did look at Ballasario and they were lovely homes. But for us, it is too far of a drive seeing that they are more inland than either Marston or the Lakes where it is more of a straight line off the 15.

We do agree that $1.2 Million is a lot for that area and at this time the high end of the Del Sur neighborhood. If it wasn’t for the great design of the home meaning the indoor to outdoor which we have yet to see much in new builds we wouldn’t be as tempted.

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