thinking move from Nashville, TN to CA soon. OC or LA? (Irvine: HOA, how much)

[bluewoods]

Thinking to move to CA soon just because love to move to a bigger, more exciting city, plus closer to west coast. However, had no friends and relatives there. Not sure if we need to consider OC (Irvine) or LA (Pasadena, South Pasadena, Walnut, Diamond Bar, Chino Hills, etc)? We prefer nice public school system (from elem. all the way to high school) with safe and neat neighborhood. Any suggestions?
We both work in IT with $160,000 annual income here in Nashville (2 elem. kids). We now live in a $330,000 house (3000 sq). We are thinking to get higher paid in CA to get a house around 2000 sq. How much will that be in LA or OC a good area?
Appreciate if any CA insiders could give us some inside sugguestions?
Thank you soooo much!

[Charles]

Where will you be working?

I am seeing nice suburban neighborhood homes around $250/sqft but I've seen some like this one in the low $200s/sqft.

This one is over 9000 sqft lot, 2900 sqft, 5BR, YB 1996, needs some work but mostly a cosmetic makeover from what I have seen. Going for $625K, (sold in 2004 for $930K). This home dropped $100K in ten days. HOA is around $50/month, pretty cheap for south Orange County, however this Wagon Wheel neighborhood seems to lack the luxuries amenities such as pools and community rooms. Its schools are superb.

60 Gingham St, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92679 | MLS# S581779

HOA and Mello Roos are big monthly layouts too, maybe between $200-$400/month for both.

Use the tools in this thread I started to continue your research:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/orang...ing-tools.html

[bhcompy]

Rossmoor seems to be anywhere from 340$-500$/sqft right now in listings. The schools there are top notch from top to bottom and it's a great family community. The real problem though is you can point out some neighborhoods, but if you work more than a few miles away the traffic will get to be a real problem.

[bluewoods]

We are thinking nice school district around $500,000 or more at 2000-2500 sq, but we want the schools to be the top. If the house has to be more expensive, that is ok too.

[bluewoods]

Rossmoor? Which city is this in? Still in Irvine?
Thanks!

[bluewoods]

thank you for recommending this house, Charles!
Let me take a look!

[bluewoods]

Is 20% down payment the required criteria in CA for this $625,000 house?

[bhcompy]

Rossmoor is an unincorporated area in Orange County, it more or less resides within the city of Los Alamitos. Commute to Irvine is ~45min during rushhour. If the job is in Irvine, you should probably look elsewhere, but you didn't specify. One thing to know about Rossmoor and other areas in western OC is that your property tax bill will be much less because there is mostly no Mello Roos and most neighborhoods also do not have HOAs, so there are no dues there either. The school district is the Los Alamitos Unified School District, which rates among the best top to bottom in Southern California statistically(second best overall district API in the county, only Irvine Unified is better).