Living in IE, commuting to OC: where are the best spots to settle? (Santa Ana: renting)

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Hi all, I've seen some threads in searching for Corona topics, and wanted to gauge the audience from a wider perspective.

Currently:
Live in Anaheim (renting an apt)
Work in Tustin by the Flight (but working remote for the foreseeable future)
Married with one child (5mo old)

Wanting:
To buy a SFR home in the $450-550 range with
Good schools as well as nice/safe neighborhoods

That budget pretty much eliminates anywhere in OC with the exception of Santa Ana, but then the second criteria is hard to satisfy there with that budget.

So we expanded our search outside of OC to Corona initially. We've definitely seen a small sample of attractive homes/neighborhoods in that range, but want to make sure we're not missing out on other areas that could be similarly good for comparable (or less) money.

Does anyone know of any areas within Riverside, Norco, Chino, Pomona, etc. where home prices would fall into that desired bucket above, but still be comparable to the southern parts of Corona in terms of schools and neighborhoods?

On Zillow I can see a huge decrease in prices if I just go north of Corona to Norco, or east of Corona to Riverside (La Sierra area for example). Is this decrease for good reason? Or is that an opportunity I should jump on?

Are the commutes from those areas (and even like Temescal valley for instance) that much worse than commuting to OC from Corona? I look at Google Maps now and see Temescal Valley adds only an extra ~7mi and like 10minutes compared to houses I've seen along foothill Pkwy in Corona. But I recognize that a huge population of the workforce is not making that commute currently as a result of COVID, so I don't know how much stock to put into that Google maps estimate.

The flip side is we can of course find a small condo/townhome in OC with our budget, but if the commute isnt treacherous enough to be life altering, we would definitely prefer no HOA and a large lot/yard to have to ourselves.

Any help/insight/tips are greatly appreciated!