IF you had one spouse working in LA and one in Irvine, WHERE do you live? (Los Angeles: condo, house)

[team_arts]

In a pickle.. curious how others might make a decision here...Where should we live? Husband and I both have dream jobs (the good news), the bad news, his is in Irvine and mine is in Los Angeles - we currently live on the west side of LA. His job has him carpooling with a group from his office in the morning around 9am and leaving the office at 7pm M-F, so it takes about 50 min down and 80 min back. My job has me driving all over Los Angeles about 3-4 days a week on and off between 8:30-5pm M-F. I feel like I already get crazy mileage in just doing my job in LA...going from Santa Monica to Burbank often in the same day...but we've agreed to try to come up with some kind of compromise since it's seeming that he really does love his new job in Irvine.

Aside from the jobs/commute issue, it is important to us to be in a "nicer" neighborhood with good schools. Having looked at the map a lot it seems the TRAFFIC patterns are key because it's not just as simple as picking something equidistance mileage-wise. Right now he's going opposite traffic commuting 405 south in the morning, and 405 north at night, but it's still a haul... however, me doing the reverse commute looks much much worse time and traffic-wise. Can anyone confirm either way?

Areas we've talked about moving to are Hermosa/Redondo Beach or Costa Mesa - Would it even knock enough time off to be worth it to either of us? Are we better off staying in LA with him doing the reverse commute and me having more time to handle other family stuff? Or is it worth it to knock time off his if it adds it to mine?

[owl6969]

Try to live halfway between if you can??

[veritasveritas]

I would take a look in Cerritos, La Palma area.

[team_arts]

This is my question sort of...what IS half way? In time, not miles... but skipping places without good schools...

[MarciaMarshaMarcia]

You have to drive around all day for your job & he can carpool? Stay on the westside. It's not ideal, but anything else would be worse, especially for you. I worked "in the field" for many years, you don't want to add a commute to that, especially if you have children.

[harhar]

There is no easy answer to this, one of you will be driving more than the other.

For about equal time, I would actually choose someplace like Los Feliz/Glendale/Atwater Village.

Going south on the 5 in the mornings one could probably get to Irvine (depending on how far into Irvine) within an 1h 10min. Coming home would be about 90 mins.

Getting to Santa Monica would also be a bit of a pain, but if you're driving around LA it might work.

Schools however I don't know about.

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Cypress/Cerritos/Long Beach might be other good options with Cerritos and Cypress being more suburban. Cypress also has one of the best middle schools/high schools in the country in Oxford.

You'd get to Irvine quicker, but LA...not so much. It's generally easier to go to OC in the mornings.

[NewbieHere]

How about Seal Beach? Borderline between LA and Irvine. It depends on where in LA.

[lvmensch]

Seal Beach, Los Alamitos...The Irvine commute is a dream. The LA commute sucks...but it actually sucks no worse than West LA....the reason being that you can break north up the 605 and Long Beach without having to slog north on the 405.

The school district is reasonably good. A single high school of reasonable capability.

Wife and I did it for 20 years.

You can go further south but it does not pay as the 405 will kill the LA commute which is already the bad one.

[jaminhealth]

Westchester or El Segundo area.

[kwong7]

I wouldn't say living equidistant is the best solution because the 405S during morning hours (7-9am) is pretty bad and the evening rush (4-7pm) is even worse. Carpooling or vanpooling is probably the best way to deal wth that. As for you, it looks like you cover a lot of ground and that there's no singular place that would be ideal for you since you're driving all over the place. The South Bay area is pretty nice, I'm quite fond of Manhattan & Redondo Beach, but I'm not sure how congested the surface streets are during morning/evening rush hours. It sounds like anyway you cut it, both of you will face a commute if one of you cannot switch jobs.

As for us, we bought a house in Newport Beach when my wife worked in Irvine. She now works in downtown LA, but she works from home 2 days a week and has flexible hours. She basically hits the road when Google Maps estimates the drive being 1hr or less. We contemplated moving to West LA, but the commute to downtown would still be about an hour.

We have friends who moved to Burbank from Newport Beach for the wife's job. Her husband is a teacher in south Orange County so he leaves his car down in Irvine and takes the train back and forth each day.

My wife has former colleague who switched jobs from Irvine to Pasadena. He ended up keeping his family in Laguna Niguel and bought a condo in Pasadena. His wife visits him once midweek and he comes back down to OC for the weekend.