Questions about Elk Grove (Sacramento, Citrus Heights: appointed, for sale, apartments)

[misterdammit]

I've heard alot about how terrible Elk Grove is (gang infested, etc). However, supposedly the schools are great. I go there all the time, and it *looks* like a nice place.

So...what's the problem? Is the crime rate really any higher than Sac?? I've never seen anyone there who looks like a gang member. And I thought that areas with tons of gangs didn't tend to have good schools. Are there just certain places there that should be avoided?

Just wondering because we're hoping to buy a house soon.

[cedew]

I think it's like Natomas, or West Sacramento, there's a good side and a bad side.

[CityGirl72]

Elk Grove is right on the border of South Sac. South Sac seeps downwards, bringing gang activity with it. Gangs do not usually do "their business" in the day - you wont see it. But you will see some dangerous characters at night and lots of home break ins.

And the cheaper the houses get the easier it is for lower income people to buy there (not saying all lower income is bad, just that sometimes the bad ones follow)

I used to live there for a spell, it's too bad, it was rather nice there. I think it's still nice there, but even 12 years ago I was concerned that the "yuck"from South Sac might travel more south...making Elk Grove just SOUTH SOUTH Sac.

[Mr. Ozo]

No Elk Grove is not that bad at all, I'm there all the time and it's perfectly safe. It's a very large place, and yes the northern part sort of blends into South Sac, and the southern edge is sort of a ghost land where development stopped. It's way, better planned out than Natomas by a long stretch. It also doesn't really compare to West Sac, because West Sac's older city is still quite larger than the newer part, while most of Elk Grove is less than 15years old or usually even less. If you want a house in Suburbia and drive everywhere, it's a fine place, very family oriented. I could never live in the suburbs but that's me.

As they say, don't believe the hype.

[misterdammit]

Well, I mainly go to places on Laguna, Elk Grove Blvd, and Elk Grove-Florin. I've been to Elk Grove several times at night, but mostly during the day. Maybe I'm just not in the very northern part that bleeds into south Sac? I've heard the Western part of Elk Grove is better. True?

[ghost123]

Originally Posted by Mr. Ozo

No Elk Grove is not that bad at all, I'm there all the time and it's perfectly safe. It's a very large place, and yes the northern part sort of blends into South Sac, and the southern edge is sort of a ghost land where development stopped. It's way, better planned out than Natomas by a long stretch. It also doesn't really compare to West Sac, because West Sac's older city is still quite larger than the newer part, while most of Elk Grove is less than 15years old or usually even less. If you want a house in Suburbia and drive everywhere, it's a fine place, very family oriented. I could never live in the suburbs but that's me.

As they say, don't believe the hype.

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Yeah, I thought Elk Grove was supposed to be this uppity type neighborhood? I'm confused. The houses look gorgeous..but they're cheap and there's TONS of houses for sale there-which isn't a good sign.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by ghost123

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Yeah, I thought Elk Grove was supposed to be this uppity type neighborhood? I'm confused. The houses look gorgeous..but they're cheap and there's TONS of houses for sale there-which isn't a good sign.

Elk Grove has had a very rapid rise and fall. They grew from a little farming town with less than 20,000 people in 1990 to about 140,000 now. A ton of big houses were built there, on the assumption that poor people would never be able to move to Elk Grove because the houses were too big and expensive. They charged high Mello-Roos fees so they could fund very good schools, and a development called Laguna West got a lot of attention as a model for "new urbanist" master-planned development (even though it was basically a big suburb of big houses with big driveways, nowhere near anything urban.) During the housing boom, Elk Grove was the Place To Be if you wanted a big McMansion and had the income to pay for it (or at least the subprime loan to pay for it.)

Then a couple of things happened. Because Elk Grove has things like gas stations, convenience stores and other working-class jobs, the people who worked at those places needed somewhere to live. Since they couldn't afford the big houses on their own, they often pooled their resources so several families shared one big expensive house. Because Elk Grove's transit system is not very extensive and mostly focused on taking commuters to downtown Sacramento (they refused a Light Rail line to Elk Grove, based on the assumption that it would make it easier for poor people to get to ElK Grove, and formed their own transit district) all of those folks need cars, resulting in overparking on the streets...and the lawns. Eventually some developers started building apartments.

Now, the folks who moved to Elk Grove with the expectation that they wouldn't ever have to see a poor person except at the JiB drive-through are very disappointed. The city is still comparatively affluent, crime is still comparatively low compared to Sacramento, but the fact that it didn't remain an exclusive paradise for the wealthy has been most upsetting for many residents.

[edwardius]

You can find the latest map of foreclosures in the Sacramento region here.

http://www.shra.org/Content/Housing/Foreclosure/HCD/2008Q4.pdf (broken link)

If the lack of nearby housing for the working class was really the problem, then we should see a major epidemic of foreclosures in Rancho Murietta, which is in the middle of no where yet amazingly expensive. The people working in the stables, in the gas stations and the convience stores there really need to commute far to find affordible housing.

I think there is much simpler explanation. Look at the places that were hit hardest by foreclosure crisis, it hit the neighborhoods affordible to the poor and places that were being built out during the housing bubble the hardest. In the poor neighborhoods, you had the highest concentrations of people using subprime loans. When the subprime loans went bad, those neighborhoods got hit really hard.

Between 2002 and 2006, was the local peak period for people using stated income pay option adjustible rate loans - all of those weird loans. In newer neighborhoods like Elk Grove, you had an entire neighborhoods sold out during that period. In older more established neighborhoods some people will move in and out of the neighborhood, but you also have people who have been living in the neighborhood for 10, 15 heck 30 years plus. In an older neighborhoods only a very small percentage of the homes were sold during the peak period for insane housing finance.

When those types of loans blew up, the neighborhoods with the largest exposure to homes sold during the period of 2002 to 2006, got hit the hardest. Why Citrus Heights has faired so much better than Elk Grove is that Citrus Heights had a lot less residents who bought a home in the period between 2002 and 2006. If you bought your house in 1988, the run in prices was nice, but probably didn't do that much to you one way or the other. In Citrus Heights, you have lots of residents who bought in 1988. In Elk Grove you would have very few.

[wburg]

Rancho Murieta is a very different place than Elk Grove; it has a population of 4000 and is a private HOA in the unincorporated county. Thus its economics, and its service-employee needs, are very different than an incorporated city of over 100,000 that derives a significant chunk of its revenue from sales tax.

The issue of foreclosures in Elk Grove and other communities that built like hell during the housing bubble is separate from the issue of Elk Grove's image problems, although the two things are related.

You are also correct in that many older neighborhoods and communities, and established neighborhoods with less turnover, have fared better in the recent collapse, but many of those areas would also be considered "ghetto" by the people who would look at Elk Grove and declare it "ghetto" because one can drive down its streets and occasionally see cheap cars parked on lawns, or fashionably-dressed youth (aka "thugs") walking down the street right in front of everyone.

[Jimbo15]

The largest employer in the Sacramento region is state government. State government hires a lot of African Americans. If you are African American and you are looking for a community with better schools, yet find schools with students who look like your kids, Elk Grove is going to be one of the places you look at.

Some people equate young black teen equates with gang member, but that really isn't the case.

Look at the crime rates. Elk Grove, like Roseville has a crime rate below the national average.

http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime/CityCrime2008_Alpha.pdf

Then look at the Sac Bee crime mapper. You aren't seeing the gang activity in Elk Grove that you see in South Sac.

Online feature - Crimemapper - sacbee.com

Elk Grove is one the suburban communities that middle and upper middle class minority members are moving to. But that doesn't mean the place is gang infested rat hole.