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Wow, people are so often negative in these forums. I've lived in Hemet since 2003. Retired here from the Navy (was stationed on Coronado in San Diego). My experience in Hemet has been great in most ways. A few thoughts:1. My personal choice would be East Hemet over any other part of it. It's quiet here and still has a rural feel to it. When I go out running before dawn I hear chickens, horses, etc and watch dawn break over the San Bernardino/San Jacinto Mountains. I live in a house that was built in 2002, but not in a big "Abrams tank garrison" tract addition. You can find good deals on newer and well-kept middle-aged homes in this end of town, and you can't beat the quiet and relative safety. Parents let their elementary school kids walk to Bautista Elementary, which is about 6 blocks from me.2. The lowest "bargain" prices you'll find for new homes will be in the big tract additions. Your choice, as to whether that suits you or not. I notice a lot of empty, foreclosed homes, rentals with ratty yards, etc in those neighborhoods, but that's a generalization. And nothing lasts forever, so this situation could change in a few years. In most of East Hemet you can get a home with a good-size yard substantially cheaper than in Murrieta or Temecula, but unless you buy a bank foreclosure in one of the newest additions, you'll get a good but not "unbelievably fantastic, can't-believe-this-is-legal" kind of deal. Somewhere around $200-250K should get you into 4 bedrooms with a landscaped yard and everything in working order.3. Someone here mentioned that the schools in East Hemet are considered better and safer than the ones in the west end of town. Pretty accurate. There's a lot of parent involvement in the schools overall, and school and youth sports are pretty big. There's a good park/recreation area at the boundary of Hemet with San Jacinto, with a lot of offerings, from kids' soccer to tennis lessons, tai chi, craft classes, nature walks and lectures, etc.4. You're definitely further from the freeways, shopping, and culture in East Hemet. The eastern edge of town is about 10 miles down Florida Ave from the major intersection of Hwys 74 and 79 in West Hemet (or Florida Ave and Sanderson Ave, to the locals). And Hemet is built out considerably west of that intersection now. Shopping is not great here. Some of the discount chains (Marshalls, Ross) have moved in and there are two WalMart Supercenters. Technically one is in San Jacinto, but Hemet and San Jac abut one another so it really doesn't matter. There's a good sprinkling of Starbucks, but no chain bookstore (or true retail bookstore of any kind. Have to go to Temecula for a Barnes & Noble. Fortunately, mail and UPS work fine). There's a little mall with one each of a quarter-size Sears and Penneys. Two movie theaters with (I think) 12 or so screens each. No indie films. There are amateur music groups, and Mt. San Jacinto College sponsors theatrical productions, but Hemet is an hour or more from any place with a symphony orchestra, ballet, or selection of theatrical companies.5. Night life there's not a lot of. Hemet makes up for that in proximity to nature. From my house in East Hemet it's less than half an hour to Idyllwild, a jumping off spot for a lot of adventure in the mountains. Great hiking or pretty much whatever you want to do. A lot of people go ATV-ing not far from here. Model airplaning, gliding -- it's a good, less-developed area for hobbies that require space. Diamond Valley Lake, on the southern side of Hemet, has good recreational offerings, fishing, boating, hiking. There's a Western natural history center there that's getting rave reviews. (Haven't been yet.)6. Hemet has grown by 20% in the last decade, which could be pretty disruptive, but hasn't actually been that bad. The main way most people feel it is in the daytime traffic through town. It's definitely gotten worse on the city streets since I moved here. Frankly, it's no worse than most other places I've lived, but you'll definitely know you're in suburban SoCal when driving on Florida Ave at 3:00 PM. Crime has also reportedly increased, but I have to say, we don't see that at all in East Hemet.7. Weather. Anyone who lives in SoCal west of the desert knows this is an incredible place for low utility bills. Even in Hemet mine are low. When it's hot, it's almost always dry, meaning it doesn't feel nearly as hot. Trust me, it doesn't. I've lived in central Florida, south Texas, Oklahoma, Norfolk (VA), Washington, DC, Naples, Italy, and Yokosuka, Japan -- and I'm here to tell you, it really doesn't feel as hot when the humidity is less than 10%, even when it's over 100 outside. I rarely ever use my a/c. The highest electric bill I've had was $68, after a rare July in which there was a week when it didn't cool down at night. The nighttime cool-down saves us here: it almost always gets down below 65 at night. Here in East Hemet you throw the doors and windows open and let nature be your a/c.My opinion: the hardest three months run from Jul 4 to the second week of Oct. The other 9 months of the year it's just fantastic. Winter lows are rarely below freezing. Six months out of the year it's in the upper 40s to 50s at night and gets into the upper 70s or 80s, or maybe 90s (but again, as dry as it is, 95 here doesn't feel anything like 95 in Houston). Much drier climate than you're used to unless you come from, say, Phoenix or Vegas. Not much rain. It rains a few times between the end of Oct and the second week of April, and not at all outside of that.Incidentally, Hemet is served by two man-made lakes for public water -- Lake Hemet and Diamond Valley Lake -- and is not under the water rationing being experienced by the coastal communities. For many SoCal dwellers with grass, the water bill is either the largest monthly bill, or competes seriously with the electric bill. Mine runs, averaged annually, about $100 a month. I have grass over about 40% of a near-quarter-acre.8. Access to freeways, etc. Hemet's biggest drawback for commuters is its location, relatively inconvenient to the major thru-ways. It's about 20 minutes to I-10, and about 30 minutes to I-215. The access to 215 has improved with the addition of a parkway from south central Hemet (Domenigoni Pkwy has been extended all the way to 215, basically). 215, on the other hand, is a miserable, pathetic excuse for a freeway, still 2 lanes one way for much of its swath into Riverside. If you're going to commute from Hemet, I'd recommend not trying to work further away than downtown Riverside or Temecula.(For comparison, when I was still in the Navy I left Hemet at 3:30 AM in order to get to Coronado before 5:00 AM. That was about 80 mi one way. If I left any later, I ran into freeway slowdowns in Escondido, and had to sit doing the stop-and-go for 30-40 minutes to get through the gate at the Navy base. Plenty of commuters -- and I do mean plenty -- leave Hemet before 4:00 or 4:30 AM to get to jobs closer to the coast. If you're working west of about Corona or Ontario, you're going to have a LONG commute from Hemet. It's about an hour, maybe 70 minutes, to Palm Springs, an hour or less to San Bernardino, 45 minutes or less to Riverside. These are all based on traffic moving and no slow-downs; and much of your time is spent on local roads and highways on which you make a lot of stops at traffic lights.)The major airport you want to use is in Ontario. It usually takes me about 50-55 minutes to get there, but I time departing flights so that I'm not driving to the airport during the heaviest traffic. The airport is conveniently situated right off I-10. Palm Springs has a big airport too, but fares are more expensive going through there. Airport parking is cheap at Ontario, at least in SoCal terms. (Meaning it doesn't cost you $24 a day to park in a lot that's a 15-minute ride from the airport on a bus, as it does in San Diego.)9. One more note on utilities. You pay a bit of a premium for cable/internet here, over what service costs in the older urban areas. I have "everything" service with the cable provider (Time-Warner), and it runs about $140 a month for phone with the usual perks, basic digital cable (200-some channels but no premium ones) and high-speed but not mega-high internet. The same service ran $120 in San Diego.All in all, Hemet is a very family-oriented place. 10-15 years ago it was mainly known as a retirement community, but its vibe has changed considerably in that regard. There's a humorous post-card that's completely black on the front, except for the title "Hemet at Night." It's not quite that bad, but if you're looking for a nighttime urban scene, this ain't the place. It doesn't have much in the way of wonderful architecture (e.g., like the old Craftsman bungalow communities), but it does have quiet, who-knew? neighborhoods of very well-to-do homes on winding paths up the sides of the local mountains. "Old Hemet" is mostly smallish, nothing-special bungalows from the 1910s-40s, and the expansion outward was pretty slow, encompassing mainly high-end senior parks and 60s-era ranch homes, until the building boom that started a decade ago.Lots of churches. All varieties. A small but thriving Jewish community. The obligatory nearby Indian casino (the Soboba band). And, perhaps the funkiest local attraction, a big Scientology compound in Gilman Hot Springs, where Tom Cruise is said to have taken Nicole Kidman before they got married.
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living in Hemet
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