Where in Southern California can you find land for Building a home? - Page 2

yes, changed my name. not an architect though, just a longtime fan with a few close friends who are or who work at archi firms.

while i'll be moving closer to work in about two weeks, South Pasadena has been my home for many years and if you're planning to raise a family, it should be near the top of your list. quiet, small town feel, great schools, but at the same time, you're a 20-30 minute drive (ok, no traffic) to just about everything that's worth driving to in Los Angeles.

view lots come up for sale every so often in the Monterey Hills area that are usually priced from 200-300K.

-Jeff

a 3800-4500 is going to cost you about 600,000+ to 700,000+ to build with a 350,000 lot you are at a million. Arcadia or San Marino have great schools. You can get a home is these areas for $1mil to 1.5 mil. Might be worth a look.

Why are you moving for your kid's high school options?

Is there a problem with the district he is in? Is there a good reason to pull him out from the kids he already knows there?

I know everybody likes to flog the american dream of home ownership...but why not rent?

Find somewhere nice that you can lock in a 4-5 year lease with the option to extend. You can probably get into a great school for a good price. This gives you 4-5 years to figure out where to live and whether or not you want to build. You can take whatever funds come out of your current house (if applicable) and put them into some short term investments. When the kid finishes high school, you no longer have the need to be in the good district but you have a big pile of money to throw at your new home and time to work in the details since you can sit in your rental for a bit longer.

Diamond bar is pushing it in terms of 1 hour since there's always traffic. Santa Clarita, Irvine, and Valencia are well over 1 hour.

Search for "Pasadena" in google maps, and pretty much all the cities south to Alhambra and Rosemead and east to Monrovia are good choices and should be able to fit your original criteria. I agree about the rent vs buy if you are looking for education though because you can much easily rent a place in a good school district than it is to buy, if you can afford to buy that is too.

An hour commute on average. Hmm. Maybe in the hills to the north, like La Cañada. Maybe look a little farther out, like the Valley side of the hills. Encino / Tarzana / Calabasas.

I wouldn't recommend Monterey Park. Any kid can walk a couple of miles just goofing off, and a couple of miles puts him in East LA ghetto land. I lived a block off Floral near ELAC for awhile. It was an OK area of cheap apartments...but with a really ugly bunch of cruisers down Atlantic.

Long Beach...no. Maybe Lakewood. Problem is, it's near Long Beach.

Orange County has some nice areas like Fullerton that I wouldn't dismiss just because the drive up the I-5 can take more than an hour.

California schools are a joke. For sure, you'll want to avoid public school systems. But the private "charter" schools are mostly babysitters with Internet chatting...er...computer-based education. Any ordinary Catholic school is better than 99% of public or "charter" schools.

Anyway, good luck with your search.

The Pasadena schools are a joke. If you choose Pasadena get ready to put a private school in your budget. As I said there are homes available in San Marino in the 1.5 mil range. Arcadia has good schools.

Unless you've changed your mind on something, none of those are within an hour of Los Angeles; Bakersfield is well over 100 miles away.


You want:
a) Within an hour to Los Angeles
b) Building the home
c) $250k to $350k
d) 3,800 - 4,500 square feet

This is my personal breakdown on what you originally asked about. The above is not possible, at least not in the combination you want. This is what I think:

- An hour of Los Anngeles, you will more than likely not be able to build a come unless you are talking about the very fringes of that hour with no traffic. I doubt the size would be that big either. My sister-in-law just bought a home in Fontana for about $280k and it is roughly 3,000 square feet.
- Building a home well out of an hour of Los Angeles is possible but expect it to be ~80+ miles away. I doubt you'd be able to build a hose that big for only $250k, and that doesn't even include the cost of the land.
- There are plent of smaller homes for $250k to $350k within an hour of Los Angeles but anything in the 3,800+ range in some of the good cities will be million+
- 3,800 - 4,500 square feet properties are available but again, no where near that budget, and it'll be very far away

My personal opinion of Los Angeles from the perspective of someone that was born and worked in New York City is that if you should really consider living close to where you work or at least against traffic. I don't mind a 1 hour train to Manhattan and than a 20 minute walk, but I do mind stuck in stop and go traffic for an hour+ twice a day. If your focus is in a school district too, a lot of the better schools are not surprisingly in more expensive neighborhoods, and they are well about your budget so I suggest renting.

You might want to look into Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills Estates, or Rancho Palos Verdes. It's about a 30-50 minute drive to LA and has great schools as well. Arcadia High School has an API of 875 (http://school-ratings.com/cities/Arcadia.html) but Palos Verdes Peninsula has an API of 885 (http://school-ratings.com/cities/Rol..._Estates.html). With the recession you'll be able to get a house there easily for 1-1.25, but you probably wont be able to build it on your own. Also, "Los Angeles" is a big place. Are we talking downtown LA or westside (Beverly Hills, etc)? The 110 and 405 have different traffic loads at different times.

For a million, I think you might be able to build in Arcadia, but you may have to be flexible on the square feet (which makes building it a bit cheaper too) and where in Arcadia you want it. Pasadena, probably not since the land/home on top of land would be more. Cities to the south and west are good considerations too, but I've only grown up in this area so that's as much I can comment on in terms of school. You can always send them to a private school too so that makes city not an issue.