Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
svelteParticipantWe’ve lived in the San Marcos area for about 20 years, and we agree with Bugs that you get a lot of bang for the buck in this city. Also like bugs, I’m not as much a fan of SEH but some people love it – more power to them. The high M-R and narrower streets do this area in for me. I’m not bashing it, it’s very nice.
We tend to like newer areas, so we think DH and Stone Canyon(s of 78) are great, and several developments n of 78 (Santa Fe Hills, Olive Hills, Twin Oaks Ranch, Sage Canyon Ranch) are all good choices. We have friends in each of those areas so we visit them fairly frequently. San Marcos Farms is also pretty nice if you like older homes, and if we wanted to spend well over a mil we’d probably be living on La Plaza Drive (take a drive there one day – it’s something else). As for other newer areas in San Marcos, I’ve left them off for a reason – I don’t think they are worth considering for one reason or another.
Though I used to abhor HOAs, I now favor them in order to keep the neighborhood looking decent, so I would give SFH a demerit for not having one. I would also give a demerit to Stone Canyon for having private roads and tight parking restrictions (no overnight street parking).
I have noticed that in DH, Poppy/Applewilde/Honeysuckle is used as a short-cut to Twin Oaks Valley Road for those living in the Stone Canyon area. You may want to walk the street you are considering at rush hour to ensure it is not too busy for you. Another word of caution about DH: as universities grow, students usually end up renting housing nearby so they can walk to class. Think about those implications on the long-term makeup of the DH area. Not that college students are bad, but they tend to like late night activities – beginning on Thursday eve and going through the w/e (we know – we’ve visited the condos along Twin Oaks Valley Road).
All of the areas I mentioned in paragraph 2 have very easy access to the freeway, Restaurant Row, the movie theater, Lowes and Home Depot, gyms (24 hr fitness and LA fitness), and most importantly Frys. 🙂 There is not a great deal of nightlife in San Marcos, but there are a couple of places and it has easy access to the rest of north county for other spots. The latest ‘in’ spot appears to be the bar at the new Elephant Bar on Las Posas, since it’s the newest place in town.
Contrary to the feelings of those on this board, the schools are actually quite good…a well kept secret IMHO.
We’ve also had little problem with crime. In those 20 years, my sons car was broken into once (he left CDs visible on the seat – duh!) and that’s it.
Take care and (hopefully) welcome to the neighborhood.
svelteParticipantWe’ve lived in the San Marcos area for about 20 years, and we agree with Bugs that you get a lot of bang for the buck in this city. Also like bugs, I’m not as much a fan of SEH but some people love it – more power to them. The high M-R and narrower streets do this area in for me. I’m not bashing it, it’s very nice.
We tend to like newer areas, so we think DH and Stone Canyon(s of 78) are great, and several developments n of 78 (Santa Fe Hills, Olive Hills, Twin Oaks Ranch, Sage Canyon Ranch) are all good choices. We have friends in each of those areas so we visit them fairly frequently. San Marcos Farms is also pretty nice if you like older homes, and if we wanted to spend well over a mil we’d probably be living on La Plaza Drive (take a drive there one day – it’s something else). As for other newer areas in San Marcos, I’ve left them off for a reason – I don’t think they are worth considering for one reason or another.
Though I used to abhor HOAs, I now favor them in order to keep the neighborhood looking decent, so I would give SFH a demerit for not having one. I would also give a demerit to Stone Canyon for having private roads and tight parking restrictions (no overnight street parking).
I have noticed that in DH, Poppy/Applewilde/Honeysuckle is used as a short-cut to Twin Oaks Valley Road for those living in the Stone Canyon area. You may want to walk the street you are considering at rush hour to ensure it is not too busy for you. Another word of caution about DH: as universities grow, students usually end up renting housing nearby so they can walk to class. Think about those implications on the long-term makeup of the DH area. Not that college students are bad, but they tend to like late night activities – beginning on Thursday eve and going through the w/e (we know – we’ve visited the condos along Twin Oaks Valley Road).
All of the areas I mentioned in paragraph 2 have very easy access to the freeway, Restaurant Row, the movie theater, Lowes and Home Depot, gyms (24 hr fitness and LA fitness), and most importantly Frys. 🙂 There is not a great deal of nightlife in San Marcos, but there are a couple of places and it has easy access to the rest of north county for other spots. The latest ‘in’ spot appears to be the bar at the new Elephant Bar on Las Posas, since it’s the newest place in town.
Contrary to the feelings of those on this board, the schools are actually quite good…a well kept secret IMHO.
We’ve also had little problem with crime. In those 20 years, my sons car was broken into once (he left CDs visible on the seat – duh!) and that’s it.
Take care and (hopefully) welcome to the neighborhood.
svelteParticipantIf the area has private roads that are covered by an association or some other written agreement as to how often the roads will be paved and how the cost will be divided up, then I would tend to agree with you, SD Realtor. That is probably the type of very nice area you are referring to.
However, if there is no binding, written agreement among the homeowners as to how often the road will be paved and who picks up the cost, that is where the problems arise.
I have known several people in this situation and they’ve all warned me not to buy on a private road. They’ve been frustrated with neighbors thinking potholes are good enough for them…they’ll only pony up $$ when the road turns to dirt.
I would certainly check into whether Red Hawk Lane has a written road maintenance agreement. Somehow, I doubt it does.
svelteParticipantIf the area has private roads that are covered by an association or some other written agreement as to how often the roads will be paved and how the cost will be divided up, then I would tend to agree with you, SD Realtor. That is probably the type of very nice area you are referring to.
However, if there is no binding, written agreement among the homeowners as to how often the road will be paved and who picks up the cost, that is where the problems arise.
I have known several people in this situation and they’ve all warned me not to buy on a private road. They’ve been frustrated with neighbors thinking potholes are good enough for them…they’ll only pony up $$ when the road turns to dirt.
I would certainly check into whether Red Hawk Lane has a written road maintenance agreement. Somehow, I doubt it does.
svelteParticipantIf the area has private roads that are covered by an association or some other written agreement as to how often the roads will be paved and how the cost will be divided up, then I would tend to agree with you, SD Realtor. That is probably the type of very nice area you are referring to.
However, if there is no binding, written agreement among the homeowners as to how often the road will be paved and who picks up the cost, that is where the problems arise.
I have known several people in this situation and they’ve all warned me not to buy on a private road. They’ve been frustrated with neighbors thinking potholes are good enough for them…they’ll only pony up $$ when the road turns to dirt.
I would certainly check into whether Red Hawk Lane has a written road maintenance agreement. Somehow, I doubt it does.
svelteParticipantIf the area has private roads that are covered by an association or some other written agreement as to how often the roads will be paved and how the cost will be divided up, then I would tend to agree with you, SD Realtor. That is probably the type of very nice area you are referring to.
However, if there is no binding, written agreement among the homeowners as to how often the road will be paved and who picks up the cost, that is where the problems arise.
I have known several people in this situation and they’ve all warned me not to buy on a private road. They’ve been frustrated with neighbors thinking potholes are good enough for them…they’ll only pony up $$ when the road turns to dirt.
I would certainly check into whether Red Hawk Lane has a written road maintenance agreement. Somehow, I doubt it does.
svelteParticipantIf the area has private roads that are covered by an association or some other written agreement as to how often the roads will be paved and how the cost will be divided up, then I would tend to agree with you, SD Realtor. That is probably the type of very nice area you are referring to.
However, if there is no binding, written agreement among the homeowners as to how often the road will be paved and who picks up the cost, that is where the problems arise.
I have known several people in this situation and they’ve all warned me not to buy on a private road. They’ve been frustrated with neighbors thinking potholes are good enough for them…they’ll only pony up $$ when the road turns to dirt.
I would certainly check into whether Red Hawk Lane has a written road maintenance agreement. Somehow, I doubt it does.
svelteParticipantYes, I have joined one in the past. No, I didn’t just jump on the bandwagon. Here’s the story:
We bought our home new from a developer who went BK shortly thereafter, during the 90s downturn. Therefore, we had noone to turn to for claims.
Fortunately, we had a house that held up well as did most (not all) of our neighbors. When the first class action was being organized, we declined because we had no issues to speak of. Several of our neighbors joined that first lawsuit and asked us to join, but we declined each time. I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether they had issues that needed to be remedied, but I have my suspicions.
That lawsuit ran it’s course, and they began to organize a second lawsuit. By this time, we did have a few relatively costly issues, nothing extremely serious but they did eat up a bit of cash (water damage, etc). We also had discovered things that were not uncovered by the initial walk-through, such as the fact that many of the roof tiles were not even nailed in and there was no paint whatsoever on the exterior trim that was very high off the ground. Obviously workers cut corners where they knew we wouldn’t look.
Again, there was no builder to turn to and the lawyers were quick to point out that the statute of limitations was about to run out on recovering any damages from the insurance carriers. Therefore, we joined the lawsuit. We eventually did get a settlement, and it basically covered the repairs that we had done to the house (by chance – they simply took the award and divided it amongst the homeowners). When we sold the home, we disclosed all of the above to the new owner and told them the exact repairs done.
One thing I did learn from the lawyers: even if the builder did not follow code and did unlawful things, they cannot be sued for that. From recent court rulings, you can only collect in a home defect lawsuit if the code violations, etc, led to some sort of secondary damage (water leakage, broken wires, etc).
Would I do it again? Probably – I was upset with the builder for leaving us in the lurch…there were several articles in the press about how they used clusters of companies to protect their assets from BK, complete with pictures of their mansions and expensive furnishings. And – I think I saw their name in the paper as owners of a new construction company awhile back, so they are still livin large (well, maybe not now in 2008 🙂 ). But I was also not real happy with the way the lawyers manipulated (in my opinion) the neighbors into feeling that they were all victims.
My advice: if you’re buying a new home, get an inspector up on that roof to tug on tiles and check paint pronto!
svelteParticipantYes, I have joined one in the past. No, I didn’t just jump on the bandwagon. Here’s the story:
We bought our home new from a developer who went BK shortly thereafter, during the 90s downturn. Therefore, we had noone to turn to for claims.
Fortunately, we had a house that held up well as did most (not all) of our neighbors. When the first class action was being organized, we declined because we had no issues to speak of. Several of our neighbors joined that first lawsuit and asked us to join, but we declined each time. I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether they had issues that needed to be remedied, but I have my suspicions.
That lawsuit ran it’s course, and they began to organize a second lawsuit. By this time, we did have a few relatively costly issues, nothing extremely serious but they did eat up a bit of cash (water damage, etc). We also had discovered things that were not uncovered by the initial walk-through, such as the fact that many of the roof tiles were not even nailed in and there was no paint whatsoever on the exterior trim that was very high off the ground. Obviously workers cut corners where they knew we wouldn’t look.
Again, there was no builder to turn to and the lawyers were quick to point out that the statute of limitations was about to run out on recovering any damages from the insurance carriers. Therefore, we joined the lawsuit. We eventually did get a settlement, and it basically covered the repairs that we had done to the house (by chance – they simply took the award and divided it amongst the homeowners). When we sold the home, we disclosed all of the above to the new owner and told them the exact repairs done.
One thing I did learn from the lawyers: even if the builder did not follow code and did unlawful things, they cannot be sued for that. From recent court rulings, you can only collect in a home defect lawsuit if the code violations, etc, led to some sort of secondary damage (water leakage, broken wires, etc).
Would I do it again? Probably – I was upset with the builder for leaving us in the lurch…there were several articles in the press about how they used clusters of companies to protect their assets from BK, complete with pictures of their mansions and expensive furnishings. And – I think I saw their name in the paper as owners of a new construction company awhile back, so they are still livin large (well, maybe not now in 2008 🙂 ). But I was also not real happy with the way the lawyers manipulated (in my opinion) the neighbors into feeling that they were all victims.
My advice: if you’re buying a new home, get an inspector up on that roof to tug on tiles and check paint pronto!
svelteParticipantYes, I have joined one in the past. No, I didn’t just jump on the bandwagon. Here’s the story:
We bought our home new from a developer who went BK shortly thereafter, during the 90s downturn. Therefore, we had noone to turn to for claims.
Fortunately, we had a house that held up well as did most (not all) of our neighbors. When the first class action was being organized, we declined because we had no issues to speak of. Several of our neighbors joined that first lawsuit and asked us to join, but we declined each time. I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether they had issues that needed to be remedied, but I have my suspicions.
That lawsuit ran it’s course, and they began to organize a second lawsuit. By this time, we did have a few relatively costly issues, nothing extremely serious but they did eat up a bit of cash (water damage, etc). We also had discovered things that were not uncovered by the initial walk-through, such as the fact that many of the roof tiles were not even nailed in and there was no paint whatsoever on the exterior trim that was very high off the ground. Obviously workers cut corners where they knew we wouldn’t look.
Again, there was no builder to turn to and the lawyers were quick to point out that the statute of limitations was about to run out on recovering any damages from the insurance carriers. Therefore, we joined the lawsuit. We eventually did get a settlement, and it basically covered the repairs that we had done to the house (by chance – they simply took the award and divided it amongst the homeowners). When we sold the home, we disclosed all of the above to the new owner and told them the exact repairs done.
One thing I did learn from the lawyers: even if the builder did not follow code and did unlawful things, they cannot be sued for that. From recent court rulings, you can only collect in a home defect lawsuit if the code violations, etc, led to some sort of secondary damage (water leakage, broken wires, etc).
Would I do it again? Probably – I was upset with the builder for leaving us in the lurch…there were several articles in the press about how they used clusters of companies to protect their assets from BK, complete with pictures of their mansions and expensive furnishings. And – I think I saw their name in the paper as owners of a new construction company awhile back, so they are still livin large (well, maybe not now in 2008 🙂 ). But I was also not real happy with the way the lawyers manipulated (in my opinion) the neighbors into feeling that they were all victims.
My advice: if you’re buying a new home, get an inspector up on that roof to tug on tiles and check paint pronto!
svelteParticipantYes, I have joined one in the past. No, I didn’t just jump on the bandwagon. Here’s the story:
We bought our home new from a developer who went BK shortly thereafter, during the 90s downturn. Therefore, we had noone to turn to for claims.
Fortunately, we had a house that held up well as did most (not all) of our neighbors. When the first class action was being organized, we declined because we had no issues to speak of. Several of our neighbors joined that first lawsuit and asked us to join, but we declined each time. I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether they had issues that needed to be remedied, but I have my suspicions.
That lawsuit ran it’s course, and they began to organize a second lawsuit. By this time, we did have a few relatively costly issues, nothing extremely serious but they did eat up a bit of cash (water damage, etc). We also had discovered things that were not uncovered by the initial walk-through, such as the fact that many of the roof tiles were not even nailed in and there was no paint whatsoever on the exterior trim that was very high off the ground. Obviously workers cut corners where they knew we wouldn’t look.
Again, there was no builder to turn to and the lawyers were quick to point out that the statute of limitations was about to run out on recovering any damages from the insurance carriers. Therefore, we joined the lawsuit. We eventually did get a settlement, and it basically covered the repairs that we had done to the house (by chance – they simply took the award and divided it amongst the homeowners). When we sold the home, we disclosed all of the above to the new owner and told them the exact repairs done.
One thing I did learn from the lawyers: even if the builder did not follow code and did unlawful things, they cannot be sued for that. From recent court rulings, you can only collect in a home defect lawsuit if the code violations, etc, led to some sort of secondary damage (water leakage, broken wires, etc).
Would I do it again? Probably – I was upset with the builder for leaving us in the lurch…there were several articles in the press about how they used clusters of companies to protect their assets from BK, complete with pictures of their mansions and expensive furnishings. And – I think I saw their name in the paper as owners of a new construction company awhile back, so they are still livin large (well, maybe not now in 2008 🙂 ). But I was also not real happy with the way the lawyers manipulated (in my opinion) the neighbors into feeling that they were all victims.
My advice: if you’re buying a new home, get an inspector up on that roof to tug on tiles and check paint pronto!
svelteParticipantYes, I have joined one in the past. No, I didn’t just jump on the bandwagon. Here’s the story:
We bought our home new from a developer who went BK shortly thereafter, during the 90s downturn. Therefore, we had noone to turn to for claims.
Fortunately, we had a house that held up well as did most (not all) of our neighbors. When the first class action was being organized, we declined because we had no issues to speak of. Several of our neighbors joined that first lawsuit and asked us to join, but we declined each time. I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether they had issues that needed to be remedied, but I have my suspicions.
That lawsuit ran it’s course, and they began to organize a second lawsuit. By this time, we did have a few relatively costly issues, nothing extremely serious but they did eat up a bit of cash (water damage, etc). We also had discovered things that were not uncovered by the initial walk-through, such as the fact that many of the roof tiles were not even nailed in and there was no paint whatsoever on the exterior trim that was very high off the ground. Obviously workers cut corners where they knew we wouldn’t look.
Again, there was no builder to turn to and the lawyers were quick to point out that the statute of limitations was about to run out on recovering any damages from the insurance carriers. Therefore, we joined the lawsuit. We eventually did get a settlement, and it basically covered the repairs that we had done to the house (by chance – they simply took the award and divided it amongst the homeowners). When we sold the home, we disclosed all of the above to the new owner and told them the exact repairs done.
One thing I did learn from the lawyers: even if the builder did not follow code and did unlawful things, they cannot be sued for that. From recent court rulings, you can only collect in a home defect lawsuit if the code violations, etc, led to some sort of secondary damage (water leakage, broken wires, etc).
Would I do it again? Probably – I was upset with the builder for leaving us in the lurch…there were several articles in the press about how they used clusters of companies to protect their assets from BK, complete with pictures of their mansions and expensive furnishings. And – I think I saw their name in the paper as owners of a new construction company awhile back, so they are still livin large (well, maybe not now in 2008 🙂 ). But I was also not real happy with the way the lawyers manipulated (in my opinion) the neighbors into feeling that they were all victims.
My advice: if you’re buying a new home, get an inspector up on that roof to tug on tiles and check paint pronto!
svelteParticipantTis true it is a good thing they keep an eye out…they just need to improve their algorithm.
We go to that store every 5 weeks and spend that amount of money each time. Nothing suspicious about it.
Now, when we go on vacation, we do call them and give them a heads-up they will be seeing unusual transactions in unusual locations.
We are trying to meet them half way, and minimize denials at the same time.
svelteParticipantTis true it is a good thing they keep an eye out…they just need to improve their algorithm.
We go to that store every 5 weeks and spend that amount of money each time. Nothing suspicious about it.
Now, when we go on vacation, we do call them and give them a heads-up they will be seeing unusual transactions in unusual locations.
We are trying to meet them half way, and minimize denials at the same time.
-
AuthorPosts
