Empty Nesters from Chicago

[cruitr]

The best realtors specialize in an area of town. No body can know everything about every place.

I'd try to narrow your search down to a specific zip code or area of town on your own. Once you've identified your target area, then find a realtor who knows that area.

[Oerdin]

Both sets of my grandparents, before they passed away, moved into Leisure World in Laguna Woods, CA (they also have one at Seal Beach, CA) in Orange County. It's a gated community for people 60 and over where everyone owns their own home (they have single family places, town houses, and apartments to choose from) with lots of parks and open spaces taken care of by the home owners association plus there are lots of group activities and interest groups all with people in the same age bracket making it easy to meet people for social activities.

[CatWarmer]

So we did visit in mid-May and toured around with a realtor (we had a substitute since the one I was working with had to go out of town). In the end, we now have Mission Hills, University City, Loma Portal, and Del Mar on the highly liked list, and North Park and Carmel Valley on the maybe list. We did like Scripps Ranch but felt it was too far out and too family oriented. I liked Encinitas but my husband thought it was too far away from the metro part of San Diego. We would add La Jolla but that's too far out of our price range, although we did raise our upper limit to $800K just to see what shows up on the listings.

I saw references on these boards to Bay Ho and Bay Park and started looking online at those listings. Those neighborhoods look like strong possibilities for having the kind of homes we want. My question - why didn't the realtor mention them? We do want to feel comfortable with the neighbors - are there enough empty nesters and early retirees in those areas? The realtor was based in La Jolla - did she think Clairemont was not upscale enough? Was she fixated on school systems and resale value? BTW I am willing to give up some walkability to have, for example, beaches within 10/15 minutes.

We did visit the JCC (very nice) and drove by a couple of synagogues. Two thoughts on those synagogues, especially for one of the big ones: (1) how to climb all the steps to the sanctuary and (2) how to ever get out of the parking lot - or even get a space in the first place - on the High Holidays!

[loveautumn]

I wouldn't give up on Encinitas...it has just about everything in terms of stores, restaurants, beach, etc. and if you want to go downtown SD, then the Coaster train can get you there. San Diego County is complicated in terms of its cities and towns. there are really micro-communities even within each "town" which is different than alot of cities in the midwest. All of the six towns you mentioned are very unique in their own way and different from each other, so it really depends on what you are looking for. As far as driving to places for entertainment, basically traffic is bad everywhere. There is so much going on in North County that I doubt you would find the need to go to downtown SD all that often, unless you are really urban people, and I didn't get the impression that you were.