A Frank and Unbiased Opinion on Living in Elk Grove (Sacramento: sex offenders, homes)

[DontKnowIfImComingOrGoing]

Hi,

I've lived in Elk Grove for about a year now. I see lots of questions about it and believe I can give an unbiased opinion. Why? Because I have no connections to Elk Grove (EG): I'm from another country, I've lived in quite a few places now all around the world and CA and I don't have a vested interest in EG fortunes (that's a long story).

Firstly and most importantly, EG is a wide about 4.5 miles from I5 to 99 city so
you shouldn't draw broad conclusions particularly with respect to extreme behavior.
I've heard people talk about getting mugged. There are parts of EG I would not walk in at night and other parts I let my wife walk around at night alone. It's like any other city.
It's really a patchwork and you need to know your area boundaries. For example,
some areas HOAs have after hour security patrols and other ajoining ones do not.

What I list below is general trends.

Pluses
=====

+ Very family oriented, there is literally a park around every corner.
+ Good (for CA) housing stock. By good I mean there is a large variety
of housing styles and they appear to be well built. In contrast Land Park
has a great street scape but relatively poor housing stock.You can get your
tract homes or even the beautiful mansion like homes on wooded lots just
north of Valley Hi Golf Course.
+ Excellent *elementary* schools, particularly in West Elk Grove (Laguna area).
If you live in Stonelake, Laguna West or Lakeside your main elementary
school has an API rating of 9+ and so do the backup/overflow school.
This is unlike other areas of Sacramento where perhaps your local school
is great, but the backup school is not. Most good schools are at capacity
so knowing your backup school is important.
+ Most places are very safe. In all of Laguana area there are just 6 sex offenders.
However, the central bit of Elk Grove that is well north of Laguana Blvd and
ajoins south sacramento is not so safe.

Negatives
=======

- A large proportion of people commute a long way, such as to the
bay area. Hence the social activity set is not so great since people are
exhausted from their commute. They are still friendly, but don't count
on playing tennis after work!
- Not many trees so its the opposite of land park.
- It's the burbs, so there isn't much to walk to.
- Demographics can be quite skewed. This is important, I bought in a more
upscale area and was surprised by the huge number of "Yes" on Prop 8 signs
and absence of "No"on Prop 8 signs. So make sure you can stand your neighbors
politics!
- Very two family working class. During the day the suburb is dead, but if you
work from home, you get the restaurants,local pool etc. all to yourself!

That's it for now I'll try to add to my list as things come up.

[Majin]

Suburb.

[DontKnowIfImComingOrGoing]

A lot of people PMed me about why I choose Elk Grove
given I wasn't glowing about it.

The reason is that its one of the few places where the
property prices have corrected to historically correct
values. The other I know about is Natomas.
So I'm fairly sure I won't lose my shirt when I sell
in a few years (but I could lose my underpants)

I bought my property for $10K below what it sold for
new in 2001. I won't make money on it in a few years,
but I'll probably sell it for close to what I bought it at.

Compare this with Davis (which I'd love to live in) but
the 1800 sqft homes in Mace Ranch sold new in 1998 for $180K
at the peak they cost $535K (I tracked this) but now still
cost $450K.

I don't expect to buy it for $180K since Davis was undervalued,
but paying 2.5 times the price just 10 years ago is not smart
either.