Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
First time posters here. We have been transferred from MIA to LAX. We are interested in Ladera Ranch, Portola Springs, Woodbury. Anyone live in these communities or have any thoughts on each of these communities? Wife, 2 kids ages 7 and 4.
Schools throughout the area are rated well. Nines and tens at greatschools.com
So it comes down to the neighborhoods; the people who live in the neighborhoods, hopefully lots of kids, the infrastructure around them (hospitals, doctors, dentist, parks, grocery stores, town centers), etc...
It appears that the prices are lower in these neighborhoods, but that the prices are lower because taxes are much higher (1% vs 2%), and association fees are pretty high also.
Any feedback for this displaced family would be well appreciated!
Woodbury and Portola Springs are in the city of Irvine. Ladera Ranch is a little bit farther south located just east of the city of Mission Viejo. Ladera Ranch is unicorporated county territory.
-You should find high taxes in all three communities, specifically the painful "Mello roos" tax.
The quality of life is perfect for a family looking for a nice suburb. The homes are new and have nice architecture that represent a combination of East Coast and Spanish architecture. The community is master planned with swimming pools, clubhouses, walking trails, etc.. everywhere. Basically it is very pretty, very clean, and very family oriented. The biggest downside would be its inland location from the freeway and having to commute down the dreadful Crown Valley Parkway to get to the freeway.
--My husband drives to LAX for his business trips (we are in Mission Viejo adjacent to Ladera) and at rush hour it takes a long time, usually around 2 hours. Your husband will have a long drive, but I believe pilots often have schedules requiring them to drive to the home base airport only like 6 times per month, correct??? It shouldn't be that bad a drive if it is only a few times a month. I know some United and American Airline pilots that live in this area and they all think the drive to their base at LAX isn't that bad for being only a few times per month.
Best of luck with your move and I wish the best for American Airlines (I assume that is who you are with being from MIA). My brother in law is a pilot for Northwest (I guess Delta now) and I know about the tough financial cuts pilots and all airline employees have had to take in this economy. My sister had to get a job to help compensate for what her husband has lost in salary.
Actually I will be driving to ONT. Don't work for American, work for Big Brown. And should be driving 4x per month or so to ONT.
We were in Portola Springs today. We loved it. But the prices were really high. We really...I mean REALLY, don't know how californians do it with the prices of homes, and cost of living. It is going to cost us an extra 25k in cash for taxes to live here vs Miami. Yep. 25k.
And the realtor is telling us in Portola Springs that people usually buy a home a 5x their income here in CA. That is absolutely insane. And that is putting just 20% down on whatever they are purchasing. I am nervous about buying a home at 2x my income. Thinking that we will be cut to the bone monthly. After all, living in SoCal, you spend most of your time outdoors....it would be nice to have some spending money!
So no way 5x my income. To me, that just doesn't even make sense. And I don't think lenders in todays world are going to give that ratio of lending to a person anyway.
We would like to stay in the 600-650k price range. The realtor at Portola Springs told us about Ladera Ranch, citing the lower housing prices. Portola Springs, while beautiful, were about 850k for something we minimally liked. The structure was great. But no lots at all.
We figured if we were going to live in Temecula, we would go for the whole enchilada; elevated/pie-shaped 10,000 sq ft lot with a view, pool, cul-de-sac, 3 car garage, 3500sq ft +, upgraded on the inside to the max. You can get that for max of 550k. A gorgeous home.
But then you start thinking about the coastal regions and accessability and the drive to ONT. You are buying into a lifestyle in the towns closer to the ocean. And it's cooler. Temecula can be upwards of 30 degrees hotter than the west side of the coastal range. We were really interested in Carlsbad. San Elijo Hills in specific. But that is just plain too far. So we went northward in the OC. We like Yorba Linda. But there is no real town center there. So we started going south from there. Tustin Ranches, Lemon Heights, Villa Park, Diamond Bar, Irvine....all very nice. But very expensive.
Anyway, was interested in Ladera Ranch because of the less expensive housing. Does anyone know about the distress of the neighborhood with regards to the associations? Do they have enough people living there to cover the HOA? As I said, schools are great as shown at www.greatschools.com What is the stability of the area in this economy? You can drive in the neighborhoods of the towns I mentioned above, and you could drive for 10 minutes without seeing a, "for sale", sign. Ladera Ranches is a newer area and these are typically the areas that get hit in this economy. People getting in over their heads (5x their gross! YGTBSM!!), and losing their homes. Makes it rough on everyone; themselves first of all and the neighborhood second.
Sorry about the mix up with the airline, my bad for assuming you are with AA.
Ontario is not that bad a drive only 4 times a month so it is very doable.
Ladera housing is very nice. I think you will like how they have incorporated different styles into the architecture to make the houses something other than stucco boxes. There are three shopping centers in Ladera and everything else is a drive over the Ladera Bridge into Mission Viejo. Ladera has two grocery stores, a Chick's Sporting Goods, around seven restauraunts, banks, Kohl's, Staples Office Supplies, a few fast food places, a office area with a few dentists, hair cut places, etc..... The Shops at Mission Viejo Mall is ten minutes down Crown Valley into Mission Viejo, as is Mission Hospital and the Kaleidoscope Entertainment Center which has movies and such.
You will find a lot of people are financially hurting in Ladera. I was at a home accessory shop in Ladera and wrote out a check for the $30 item I was buying and they told me they don't take checks anymore because so many Ladera residents have checks that are bouncing. Lots of people bought homes in Ladera over 1.5 million and they are now worth $900,000 or they bought for $800,000 and it is now worth $599,000. The whole community bought at the top of the market and they have all lost value in their homes. You see a bit of over extension in Ladera too with young families the just have bought too much at a volatile time in their life with young kids and then they bought a $1 million dollar home, two BMW's, and vacation to Hawaii every year. Then when the economy went bad and they lost jobs these families were essentially screwed.
Still Ladera is very nice. It has excellent community facilities (not sure of the rate), many many families, and is very pretty. I suggest a visit if you can. Be sure to explore RSM, Mission Viejo, and San Juan Capistrano also because you will inevitably spend time in those neighboring cities also. Ladera is not huge so you need to go to the neighboring cities for stores sometimes.
We are going to Ladera today and check it out. My feeling is that housing prices are going to continue to fall, (or plummet), due to the fundamental difficulties of this economy. So we are in no rush to purchase and are renting a gorgeous home (that we couldn't afford to buy at 1.2m). So we are going to wait.
We are looking for a homogenous society of well educated people. People that care about their kids and are involved in their schooling. People that care about their homes and have pride in ownership. And take responsibility in their day to day lives. Although it sounds like the OC has a level of pretention, especially the closer you get to the coast, it is more doable to us than dealing with the other realities that exist out there in SoCal. I think it could be harder to keep a child grounded around ppl concerned with who drives what, the clothes they wear, and the house they live in. That would be the parenting to help children separate the material things from what is really important.
We were going to visit Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo, and Laguna Niguel, in specific, today. We really do enjoy the weather and topography of SoCal.....so different from Miami!
If anyone else has words of wisdom to add to this thread, please feel free.
And thanks missionhome! Keep the data coming! It's very good to hear from someone that knows the area!
there are plenty of nice communities closer to ONT that you haven't even mentioned that have what you are looking for. For example, Fullerton and Brea are very nice area with good schools and town centers. If you prefer it, the northern OC communities are much more established and aren't filled with cookie cutter homes, they have more 50s and 60s style ranch homes that IMO are much more unique than the spanish style stucco boxes of south OC. Much of Placentia is also very nice, which is the western neighbor to Yorba Linda. Placentia also has some newer developments that might interest you if you prefer the housing style of south OC.
As to temecula and the rest of the "inland empire", be aware that is suffering a huge falling market at present, more so than oc, and is not slated as a strong investment potential. And probably more importantly, it would require you traveliing on te 91 freeway to get into oc which is a very unpleasant proposition many times. In fact, the 15 north is no cake walk anymore either.
Id never consider anything in the temecula valley if you can hit a 650ish pricerange, theres enough closer in.
We are going to Ladera today and check it out. My feeling is that housing prices are going to continue to fall, (or plummet), due to the fundamental difficulties of this economy. So we are in no rush to purchase and are renting a gorgeous home (that we couldn't afford to buy at 1.2m). So we are going to wait.
We are looking for a homogenous society of well educated people. People that care about their kids and are involved in their schooling. People that care about their homes and have pride in ownership. And take responsibility in their day to day lives. Although it sounds like the OC has a level of pretention, especially the closer you get to the coast, it is more doable to us than dealing with the other realities that exist out there in SoCal. I think it could be harder to keep a child grounded around ppl concerned with who drives what, the clothes they wear, and the house they live in. That would be the parenting to help children separate the material things from what is really important.
We were going to visit Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo, and Laguna Niguel, in specific, today. We really do enjoy the weather and topography of SoCal.....so different from Miami!
If anyone else has words of wisdom to add to this thread, please feel free.
And thanks missionhome! Keep the data coming! It's very good to hear from someone that knows the area!
If I were you, I'd stick to Ladera Ranch (great facilities, schools, etc) but beware of HOA dues, RSM (Look into Dove Canyon and Coto de Caza), Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel or Aliso Viejo. The Foothill Ranch section of Lake Forest is also very nice.
I'd stay out of the IE (Inland Empire), even though your money will buy more house out there. There's a reason for that... Smog, heat, lower quality schools, more crime, traffic, etc.
I'm curious to hear what you think since you're going to visit... Please post your opinion afterwards.
Dont rule out Lake Forest, most of the young families here are extremely involved in their community, schools, life in general. We have alot of condos and apartments but the city is re thinking high density housing so hopefully no more of those. There is an area called Montberry if you are looking for the large lot large home without the taxes and crammed in feel of Ladera. The city of LF is totally awesome when it comes to community activities they put on a special event almost every weekend and holiday plus one heck of a good 4th of July parade. With the 241 toll road I can make Ont. airport in 40 or so min in the morning not bad at all. Avoid the IE.
This won't be very helpful, rather I'd like to thank you for posting such a good group of questions, and your impressions of the area. My family is also looking to relocate to the Irvine area, but we don't have an opportunity to visit. If we do take the job we will have to move very quickly so I like to have all my "homework" done in advance and the thoughts of each neighborhood gives me a much better impression. Good luck with your search!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
