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I'll chime in for French Valley area. The French Valley area is an unincorporated area...basically right where Temecula, Murrieta, and Winchester meet. Depending on where your house is, your address will be either Murrieta or Winchester. Depending on where the house is, you are either in Temecula or Murrieta school districts (with the very small exception of some houses that are in the Hemet school district...stay away from those). Frequently when people say they live in Winchester, it's French Valley. The "town" of Winchester is more rural, different school system, etc. French Valley is more like a neighborhood of Murrieta or Temecula.
Benefits of French Valley - Very low taxes. Larger homes. Newer homes. Larger lots can be found. Homes per square inch are cheaper but nicer. Great schools in the area, including if you decide to go to the Charter School or Temecula Prep, which are in this area. There are plans to expand the area - French Valley Parkway was approved which will help access to the highway...there was also supposed to be a Target, but I heard they backed out. Once Clinton Keith Road is finished, shopping should be easier to access. Right now, it's about 15-20 minutes to shopping except for Stater Bros, Vons and Albertsons (grocery stores). Lots of young families live in French Valley because of the affordability.
Downsides of French Valley - FLAT! Far away from the highway (20 minutes to get on the highway).
As an overall opinion of the Murrieta/Temecula area, overall I think they are like sister cities....I really find very little difference between the two. Temecula is a bit more established, but I like them both. Schools overall area great. You're going to get people who think that one particular school is bad, but overall they are all good.
The fact that you mostly work from home is a huge plus for moving to this area. If you don't have to frequently do a commute, I think it's a great place to raise a family.
Reading the post about French Valley prompted me to post additional piece of information about Copper Canyon I forgot: highway I-15 is close, about 5 minutes down the Clinton-Keith. You said you work from home, so that's probably not very relevant either way. But it's nice if you're going toward SD or the OC/LA areas (for whatever reason), just hit the south 15 or north 15 (respectively) off of Clinton Keith.
Both Murrieta/Temecula have a good location within SoCal that way: you can be in San Diego, Orange County or LA in about an hour of highway travel outside the rush hours, Carlsbad more like 50 minutes. With traffic it will be more of course.
Wow, thanks for all the info, everyone! A few things:
- Murricula! - thanks for the tip about Redfin... I had stumbled across it previously in Google searches, but never knew it was much different than other RE search engines. It's actually quite good, now that I look at it more closely. The tax info is solid, but I still don't see much info on HOA dues. No matter, though - I'll start to track that down when we get closer to choosing something. Up to this point, I've been using SoCalMLS Portal | Southern California MLS homes for sale to find listings - but I'll work Redfin into the routine.
On the topic of Copper Canyon - we just took a spur-of-the-moment road trip out there today, and it's beautiful! So much for the idea of needing an HOA to keep your neighborhood looking nice... but I have to admit, a lot of the area is out of our price range, as we're looking to stay below $300K. Any thoughts about some of the subdivisions nearby? On first glance, I thought that both Copper Creek and Sycamore Ranch were appealing, as well as some of the areas on the opposite side of Washington... but I couldn't tell where one area ended and another one started, so I'm not sure where to draw the lines in our search. Any advice is appreciated... love the area, and we'll definitely look closer.
- Vahnessuh - appreciate the agent recommendation offer, but I think I'm going to self-represent on this transaction. I used to be a licensed salesperson in AZ before we moved out here, so I'm working to get my CA license over the next couple of months. I don't doubt that local realtors will have much more knowledge than I - but I hope to learn enough just to select the right house for us, and then the contract (from my perspective) is not a big deal.
- Nanseev - I admit, I've been curious about Winchester/French Valley for the reasons you specify. I have some worries, though, about living in an unincorporated area. What services do you get there? Police? Fire? Trash pickup? I mean, if I lived in an unincorporated area with a Murrieta mailing address, how would my experience (commuting aside) differ from someone who lived within Murrieta borders? Also, how's the weather on that side of town? When I was on the west side of Murrieta this afternoon/early evening, it was relatively mild and breezy. Is French Valley noticeably hotter? And... apologies for all the rapid-fire questions... I've also heard that it's inevitable that the area will be annexed by Murrieta or Temecula at some point. Is that a topic of local concern, and should I worry about something like that? I've just never dealt with an unincorporated area, and we're hoping to buy once and settle in until both kids are off to college (~17 yrs from now), so I'm looking for a minimum of hassle. I'd love to get a bigger, cheaper house, but only if it's a relatively low-risk proposition.
Again, thanks to all for the continued advice... very much appreciated!
- Nanseev - I admit, I've been curious about Winchester/French Valley for the reasons you specify. I have some worries, though, about living in an unincorporated area. What services do you get there? Police? Fire? Trash pickup? I mean, if I lived in an unincorporated area with a Murrieta mailing address, how would my experience (commuting aside) differ from someone who lived within Murrieta borders? Also, how's the weather on that side of town? When I was on the west side of Murrieta this afternoon/early evening, it was relatively mild and breezy. Is French Valley noticeably hotter? And... apologies for all the rapid-fire questions... I've also heard that it's inevitable that the area will be annexed by Murrieta or Temecula at some point. Is that a topic of local concern, and should I worry about something like that? I've just never dealt with an unincorporated area, and we're hoping to buy once and settle in until both kids are off to college (~17 yrs from now), so I'm looking for a minimum of hassle. I'd love to get a bigger, cheaper house, but only if it's a relatively low-risk proposition.
Trash pick up is not included..it's through Waste Management...i think it's around $65 or so for 3 months. I forget if my trash pick up was included when I lived in Temecula...I want to say it may have been with the HOA? Your services are mostly the same for police and fire I believe...I have to admit I'm not sure. The police station is right down the street, so I've never been worried about it, nor have I needed it. We have Riverside County Sherriff Dept, and I see police around all of the time though. There's actually a fire station right near the French Valley Airport, so fire is extremely close. Weather is the same, except for the Rainbow Breeze that you would get at 4pm on the western part of town. We get it a bit later...but honestly, not a big difference in weather that you'd notice. On the hottest days, maybe a 5 degree difference, but nothing that you can notice. As far as annexing, here's my take on it. You've got areas in Temecula school district and areas in Murrieta school district, and both have spent money to build schools. If French Valley were to annex, which town would take it? They've both invested big $$ in the area. Or would there be two annexes? I personally don't see it ever happening because of that.
For me, the only thing I miss with being in an unincorporated area is having easy access to Temecula Community services (through the Rec Center), but you have access...just as a non-resident. And as much as I'd like to believe that I would use some of the community programs, I never did when I lived in Temecula, so I guess I really don't miss it...make sense?
It's definitely worth looking at this area. I do like Copper Canyon too, don't get me wrong. But you will get more bang for your buck in French Valley. I'd also check out Paseo Del Sol, Paloma Del Sol, Harveston, Crowne Hill and other communities in Temecula. Harveston may be out of your price range though. There are so many nice neighborhoods it's really just what is your preference, where you want to be located geographically within the town, and finding the right house with the right neighbors.
As a side note, I enjoy being in an HOA as a whole. Although I do feel the $$ is wasted, I like knowing that my neighbors can't park their RV's for longer than 24-48 hours, which you will frequently find in neighborhoods without HOA's.
Both Sycamore Ranch and Copper Creek are good places to look.
You can find quite a few homes in Copper Canyon for less than 300K. I opened redfin map of the area and just to illustrate I found a few without looking at all of them (as of today Sep 25, 2011):
A word of advice about the prices: sometime prices are 'real' in a sense that you can't get them lower. Sometimes they are negotiable. When I bought the house here, I managed to bring the price down 26K by refusing a counteroffer. The price was over 300K and I got it for less than that. There is really no rule. Some sellers will negotiate, others will not. What we did was we found a number of homes (in areas we liked) that we would potentially consider and we put out offers on a good number of them. These things move slowly and some didn't even reply. This way, at least we knew which properties had motivated sellers. In my experience, bank owned properties are more likely to negotiate, but I have no proof of that.
Both Sycamore Ranch and Copper Creek are good places to look.
You can find quite a few homes in Copper Canyon for less than 300K. I opened redfin map of the area and just to illustrate I found a few without looking at all of them (as of today Sep 25, 2011):
A word of advice about the prices: sometime prices are 'real' in a sense that you can't get them lower. Sometimes they are negotiable. When I bought the house here, I managed to bring the price down 26K by refusing a counteroffer. The price was over 300K and I got it for less than that. There is really no rule. Some sellers will negotiate, others will not. What we did was we found a number of homes (in areas we liked) that we would potentially consider and we put out offers on a good number of them. These things move slowly and some didn't even reply. This way, at least we knew which properties had motivated sellers. In my experience, bank owned properties are more likely to negotiate, but I have no proof of that.
I've never used Redfin, thanks. How would I see just Copper Canyon homes? I tried putting in the zip code but it seemed like the area was too large to be just one neighborhood? I'm looking to spend under $400k, pool, 4 bedrooms, playroom, decent yard. Thanks!
I am going to describe how I get to Copper Canyon homes through redfin. Note that I am using one of the latest versions of Firefox, but I think this will work just fine with Internet Explorer, just in case something looks different.
First go to redfin.com. Then in location type in:
West Murrieta, CA
and then click Search Listings. You will see green circles on a map of Murrieta, each circle has a number of homes for sale. Click on the west-most one. This will expand the area. Now you will see little green houses. As you hover a mouse over each house you can see bed/bath info as well as the price. This way you can pretty much cover the area.
Also note at the bottom you have a full listing of homes. Click on location. You can now browse West Murrieta homes only. You can also click on price and see homes sorted that way. You'll probably need to use a scroll bar on the right to get to homes you like.
You can use zoom tool in the top right to zoom into the map. If you click on the home, on the right you can see the home details. There you get some basic info. For example if home is for sale, is it a short sale, or is it sale pending etc. If you click View Details on the right, it opens a new window where you can see all the info about the home.
Homes west of Clinton Keith Road are Bear Creek Gated Community. They have HOA. If you don't want HOA skip this paragraph. Otherwise, Bear Creek is a nice place with a nationally accredited golf course. Berry Bonds used to live here.
East of Clinton Keith and west of Washington Ave and north of Vineyard Pkwy is mostly Copper Canyon. The south-east corner (of this area) is Copper Creek and part of east is Sycamore Ranch. Some parts at the very north I am not sure what they are.
For well under 400K you can find a home with over 3000 sqft, with a nice pool, huge yard (likely over 12000 sqft), granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, hardwood/marble etc. (from what I've seen, or good combinations thereof). Homes here are built in 2002. A home between 330K and 400K will likely have unobstructed view of Santa Rosa Mountains (no neighbors behind) which is truly a sight to behold. On the flip side you get more critters in your yard.
You can get nice homes (similar to above) but with 2200sqft or 2600sqft going for 260K-330K, depending on the features. Probably every single house in Copper Canyon will have a view of the mountains, it just depends if it's 100% unobstructed or less than 100%.
I noticed that sometimes the info on houses in not exactly correct. Redfin, just like Trulia for example, gets its info from public sources. Some houses we saw were bigger than stated, for example had more rooms than specified. Some had bigger yards, some smaller. I guess it's best to pound the pavement and find out if you like the home.
Also, I would suggest not to rely on listing fed to you by the agent alone. Sometimes they miss nice homes. Feel free to ask them to show you a house if it's not on their list.
to meet your req's on no MR and HOA...northeast side of town behind Meadowview in between La Serena and Nicolas. Has no MR or HOA.
We relocated from San Diego in January for the same reasons you listed. I'm a SAHM and my poor husband still commutes to Balboa Hospital, but he's been surviving. We ended up in the area above and couldn't be happier. No HOA's or Mello Roos and there's pride of ownership, so it's not like there's cars parked on people's lawns or anything like that. Personally I prefer Temecula because it seems "greener" to me and I love that I can drive two blocks east and can see wine country. I have a very good friend that swears by West Murrieta, but it seems too removed for me.
Wine Country is one of the reasons we moved to the area. West Murrieta is about 10 minutes north up the I-10 from Rancho California Road which goes through Temecula Wine Country. Or you can just take streets, about 15 minutes down Jefferson Ave to Rancho California.
I must say that the the Wine Country has gone a long way. It's truly become on par with Napa Valley in terms of quality. Take it from me and my better half - we are true wine connoisseurs, and I lived in the Bay area for a long time, been to Napa and Sonoma many a times.
Our favorites are heavy reds - smooth and dry. I've seen recent TV story about lots of money flowing into new wineries here (about $500 million) and it shows! If you're considering buying anywhere in the area, you should go up and down Rancho California (in Wine Country) just to take in the sights, and if you're so inclined to try the wines out. My favorites are Monte de Oro (spectacular reds and amazing views and grand architecture!), Wilson Creek (awesome grounds and wine), South Coast (classic), Doffo's (hilarious host in a small operation, but wine may be one of the best around), Miramonte (great wine and a big black dog that is a mascote - they even have T-shirts with him!).
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