Potential Move to Bakersfield: Questions (Orange, Vista: 2015, leasing, how much)

[audekat]

Hi! I have several questions about a potential move to the Bakersfield area. Background that might help you help me. I am a single mother of a school age child and I plan to keep him in Public schools. We will have my aged father residing with us as well. it is important to us that we have basic shopping, movie theater, parks, and other simple amenities around. Home budget is currently $250k, however I might be a able to flex a little depending on the outcome of the job opportunity. I have lived in many different places from Chicago to Wichita, and Orange county to rural Georgia....so I am not concerned about Bakersfield being different from the coastal areas,

1. Are there any current travel restrictions I should plan for that make touring the area, house hunting, etc difficult right now? I would be coming from Florida if that makes a difference.

2. My potential work is in Taft, recommendation from the people at the plant are 100% for Bakersfield. Do you all agree that Taft is not a great place to live?

3. What are current homes like is CA? Basement/Slab? Older/Newer? Flipped? What can I expect when i start looking?

4. Recommendations on school districts? Good, Bad, avoid at all costs?

5. Cost of living? What are current Gas prices? Electric (High/Low)? Grocery costs?

6. Anything else I should know or consider?

Thank you all.

[Mr5150]

I can’t address specifics, but in general most people who live in Bakersfield like it

[audekat]

I am going out for a tour of the area in about 2 weeks. Any suggestions where I should focus to get the best feel for the area?

Thanks

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by audekat

1. Are there any current travel restrictions I should plan for that make touring the area, house hunting, etc difficult right now? I would be coming from Florida if that makes a difference.

No restrictions. FWIW, though, Kern County has become the covid-19 hotspot of all counties in California.

Originally Posted by audekat

2. My potential work is in Taft, recommendation from the people at the plant are 100% for Bakersfield. Do you all agree that Taft is not a great place to live?

Curious if the job is out at the kitty litter plant out there? Or is this a power plant of some kind? The recommendation from others is correct. Taft is a tiny town that doesn't seem to be going in the right direction. It's heavily dependent on oil. I commute from Bakersfield to Taft quite a bit for work. It's not a bad drive at all though. You won't be in stop and go traffic. About 35 minutes if you live in the south west part of Bakersfield.

Originally Posted by audekat

3. What are current homes like is CA? Basement/Slab? Older/Newer? Flipped? What can I expect when i start looking?

I don't know of any basement homes. I'm sure if their are some they are probably old construction from the 60's or earlier. There is a good mix of homes of all kinds throughout the city. But general rule of thumb is the new constructions is all going west towards I-5. This has been the case for decades. Buy house as far west as you can today and in 15 years it will be more towards the center of town.

So with this being the case anything that is built in the last 30 years will be considered the west side of Bakersfield for the most part. There are some very nice older homes from the 50's and earlier near downtown in neighborhoods known as Westchester and Oleander.

Originally Posted by audekat

4. Recommendations on school districts? Good, Bad, avoid at all costs?

For the most part the good schools follow the newer construction. So again, more towards the west. Good high schools would be Stockdale High School, Liberty High School and Frontier High School. Independence and Cenntenial not too bad either.

Originally Posted by audekat

5. Cost of living? What are current Gas prices? Electric (High/Low)? Grocery costs?

I filled up yesterday for $3.25, gas is pretty expensive here. I could have drove a little further and found a place for $2.85.

PGE is the utility that you will get your electricity from and they are not cheap. Plus with the summers you have a need for electricity almost 24/7. Solar panels are very popular here. We added them to our house last September. Electricity usage varies of course but I would assume even with a small 1600 square foot home you would probably average around $300 per month in electricity usage during June, July, August and September. The good news is your heating costs will be pretty low.

Originally Posted by audekat

6. Anything else I should know or consider?

For the nicer parts of Bakersfield that i would recommend a $250K house budget probably won't cut it. If you can up that to $300-$325K you will be better off. Bakersfield is cheap compared to coastal CA when it comes to housing but still higher than much of the nation.

With your potential job in Taft you will want to focus on living in the south west part of Bakersfield to reduce your commute. That's a good thing though as the south west and north west are the nicest parts of Bakersfield anyway.


Best of Luck.

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by audekat

I am going out for a tour of the area in about 2 weeks. Any suggestions where I should focus to get the best feel for the area?

Thanks

Check out the River Walk Park. Drive to the park parking lot at Stockdale and Buena Vista. Walk the bike path/pedestrian path from the Park east a mile or two and back. Do this in the morning or evening when it isn't too hot. This bike path goes for over 20 miles East to West along the Kern River. The river is mostly dry though town right now with maybe a small trickle of water. It usually flows late fall through May. There is talk about keeping it flowing year round but there are a lot of legal issues around the rights of the water for local water districts and such. I've gotten back into cycling so i use that bike path 3-4 times a week on average.

Check out the CALM Zoo. It is on the very east side of town. Out of town really. There is also a nice large park there called Hart Park.

And just drive around the south west and north west areas. Maybe check out the oleander neighborhood if you want to live in an older style home and a little more central. I wouldn't recommend anything more east of that though since you will be working in Taft. There are some nice areas out towards CALM Zoo but they would be an hour commute at least for your work.

[audekat]

Thank you for the helpful response Bill. I will look at some homes on line in the price range you suggest.

[audekat]

I am seeing solar panels in a lot of the homes and in the listings I see that some are "Solar Owned" and others list monthly payments.

How much of difference do the panels make in monthly bills? Should be expecting any home I purchase to have payments remaining on a solar package? What are maintenance expectations for solar panels? What kind of questions should I be asking when i view houses regarding solar panels?

Thank You!

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by audekat

I am seeing solar panels in a lot of the homes and in the listings I see that some are "Solar Owned" and others list monthly payments.

Yep. Bakersfield is an ideal city for Solar. I'm not sure you can think of a city that would have more of a demand for solar panels. It's a combination of high electricity rates (statewide in Ca for the most part), lots of sun, and high average summer temperatures which creates the need for a lot of electricity consumption.

Originally Posted by audekat

How much of difference do the panels make in monthly bills?

Impossible to say unfortunately in your situation. The only way to have a really good idea of how much one will save is to know your personal annual usage and size a system to offset it. Coming in as a buyer, you are purchasing a system that was not designed for your needs.

Originally Posted by audekat

Should be expecting any home I purchase to have payments remaining on a solar package?

Only if it is a lease or Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Any add you see that says "Solar Owned" should mean the system is fully paid for by the home seller and there will be no payments for you to make. The seller will price whatever value they feel the fully paid for system they think adds to the house into the sell price.

Originally Posted by audekat

What are maintenance expectations for solar panels?

You just need to get up on your roof and spray them down with a hose every month or two during the dry season. Really nothing else. There are companies that do this but if you are in reasonable physical condition it's not too hard to get up there and spray them down every month or two. If you feel you can't do that I would probably only pay a company to clean the panels once of twice a year during the dry period. The whole point of the panels is to save money. Paying a company to come out and spray down your panels once a month or every other month would cut into the savings. I would question whether a company could save your hundreds of dollars over a year by cleaning your panels once a month when you figure they would probably charge between $60-$100 every time they come out depending on the size of your panel installation.

Originally Posted by audekat

What kind of questions should I be asking when i view houses regarding solar panels?

#1 Find out if the system is fully owned and paid for or if it is a lease or PPA.

#2 If possible avoid buying a house with a lease or PPA.

#3 If number 3 is not possible because you really like the house, ask to see the full contract and details of the lease and PPA. You want to know if you are charged a flat rate every month or if you are charged for the amount of power the panels produce and pay per kWh similar to how you would pay a utility for the kWh use use. You will also want to know if that kWh rate can go up every year and if so by how much? It can start at 15 or 16 cents and possibly go up to 23 cents or more after 5 or 10 years.

#4 For any system, lease, PPA or owned you will want to know what the annual True-Up bill is. You may want to google what a True-Up is. But basically it is the difference between the unused power your panels generated and sold back to the utility and the power you consumed from the utility. When you have solar the utility does not bill you monthly for your usage. Instead they bill you a connection fee to the grid which is about $10 per month and that is it. But annually, they will send you a bill for any power you used and took off the grid and was not off-set by power you sold back to the utility.

The True-Up amount is very important. It can be as low a $200 or less which is ideal, or as high as $2,000-$3,000. A system with a high True-Up likely means that system is undersized for that specific house. But of course, remember everyone's power usage is different so your True-Up could be more or less.

In terms of the mix of leased vs. owned systems on the market I would say the majority of leased systems were probably installed between 2010 and 2015 when leasing seemed to be more popular. But as systems have come down in price and more people have been wary of leases I would say the majority of systems since 2015 are now solar owned systems. But since people are probably less likely to sell a home they have been in for 5 years or less you might find leased systems more common today while home shopping.

[audekat]

Thank you Bill. This was, again, a very helpful response.

[audekat]

I'm Back again. I accepted an offer for the job in Taft. Now I need to find a home for my family and I. We have narrowed our location to southwest Bakersfield. I have questions again:

1. Recommended Neighborhoods in southwest Bakersfield?

2. Home cost per Square foot? What is a reasonable value here? I am looking for 4 bedroom home that is ready to move in. I am not concerned about it being 100% updated, but everything needs to be functional and safe.

3. School recommendations? I have a 5th grader and I hope to stay in this location through high school for my child.

4. Special considerations or questions I should be asking in my home search?

Thank you all, you have been very helpful and kind.