Transitioning to public school

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
Pat Star said:
USCTrojanCPA said:
How much is the HOA out there?
Click to expand...

Ours is $185/mo.  Pays for manned guard gate, 2 pools, 2 tennis courts, private park, b-ball court and separate sports court.  Community is 403 homes --- all SFR's. If I recall Sorrento (rkp's friends community) was around $220/mo for roughly the same ammenities.  Our effective tax rate (with dumb city of LA supplemental taxes) is 1.22%.  No mello-roos.  Shapell Homes is awesome.  They build similar stuff to Porter Ranch in both north and south OC. 

I'm telling you, that lack of mello roos and redonkulous HOA makes a difference in buying power.  I actually asked one of the new home sales consultants out here why the mello roos and HOA's are so much higher down in Irvine.  His response? "No reason they should be, it is just because they can --- people accept those costs getting passed on down there".
Click to expand...
Exactly one of the reasons why I'm looking at buying in West Irvine.  I can handle a $125/mo Mello Roos and no HOA or little HOA. 
 
Pat Star said:
USCTrojanCPA said:
How much is the HOA out there?
Click to expand...

Ours is $185/mo.  Pays for manned guard gate, 2 pools, 2 tennis courts, private park, b-ball court and separate sports court.  Community is 403 homes --- all SFR's. If I recall Sorrento (rkp's friends community) was around $220/mo for roughly the same ammenities.  Our effective tax rate (with dumb city of LA supplemental taxes) is 1.22%.  No mello-roos.  Shapell Homes is awesome.  They build similar stuff to Porter Ranch in both north and south OC. 

I'm telling you, that lack of mello roos and redonkulous HOA makes a difference in buying power.  I actually asked one of the new home sales consultants out here why the mello roos and HOA's are so much higher down in Irvine.  His response? "No reason they should be, it is just because they can --- people accept those costs getting passed on down there".
Click to expand...

This is spot on.  Some of the HOAs are ridiculous in OC and either they are wasting the money or someone is getting some under the table cash.  Labor cant be that much cheaper in Porter Ranch, Valencia, and North San Diego where many HOAs are half of the new OC ones. 

The MR is also absurd.  Why are some MRs double or even triple of others?  My in-laws bought a house next to Peters Canyon in Orange Hills and their MR is ~$1000 a year.  That paid for schools, roads, infrastructure in the mid 90s.  With inflation, that should be ~$2000 tops but new communities like PS have MR for similar size houses of ~$8000 a year.  It doesnt make any sense.
 
Pat Star said:
Nice.  You must have gone to Granada Hills HS?  That's my wife's school....she grew up out here.  We live in 'The Heights'...just up the street from Sorrento.  Actually looked at a lot of places in Sorrento before settling on ours.  I trust your friend is well aware of the new K-8 school opening next fall almost walking distance from Sorrento.  Well, except for the uphill part it would be walking distance.  Funny thing is, when we moved out here (after 5 years in Irvine) it was primarily to be near extended family, and to avoid paying mello roos.  But the unintended result is that we like it out here -- a lot.
Click to expand...

Went to VNHS.  Yup,  they are happy about the new school.  They like living there a lot and everything is conveniently located but their ideal area is Sherman Oaks.  I like Porter Ranch but it was hard enough for me to leave LA and accept OC as home (my wife <3's OC) and like most LA residents, "the valley" is just not an acceptable place for me to live :)

 
Let's see... no MRs but they are opening up a new K-8 school... whereas over in Columbus Square there are ridiculously high MRs (higher than Irvine) and their new elementary school is being used as a high school continuation campus.

$185 pays for the gate, 2 pools, 2 tennis courts, a park, a b-ball court (CURSE YOU PSTAR!) and a sports courts whereas $295 at Laguna Altura gets you only 1 pool and no tennis courts? Yeah... if I had family/work over there... I would have moved too.
 
jumpcut said:
I feel like I'm in a Mandarin immersion program just hanging out at the Woodbury lagoon pool.
Click to expand...
Mandarin or Cantonese?

[youtube]jL8hV-zjJ_4[/youtube]

(Disclaimer: May not be PC or safe for work)
 
Pat Star, if you guys like the latest Korean movies you can watch it here for free. We hook up the laptop to my 42" flat screen and it becomes a Korean Movie night for Ms. Panda and the twins. Not sure if all of them have subtitles though. The higher the orange "recommend" number is.. the better. If you are interested I can definitely recommend some of the really good ones. You should see my baby twins break dance to the K-pop videos. I am already training them to become future K-Pop stars :) Forget all that Kumon stuff!

http://www.bada.us/common/app/movie.html?act=list&ct=5
 
i have nothing against k-pop though i cant find any english in the videos you guys post (i know its there but i just cant tell when they speak it).  its just funny that k-pop sneaks in every thread :)

whats the inside joke here?
 
Ah shizz... Pat Star just called my thread worrying about my kids transitioning into public school "tiresome".

It's on now... you're lucky you don't live in Irvine anymore... I would... uh... send letters to my HOA about you. That's right... I roll HOA-style homeboy.
 
Pat Star said:
irvinehomeowner said:
Ah shizz... Pat Star just called my thread worrying about my kids transitioning into public school "tiresome".

It's on now... you're lucky you don't live in Irvine anymore... I would... uh... send letters to my HOA about you. That's right... I roll HOA-style homeboy.
Click to expand...

Ah, not this thread!  Actually, I think this is a really good thread.  You should go delete all that kpop noise. I could talk about kids education issues all day.
Click to expand...
Neh... as I said... I like the derailments.

Plus... it brings jumpcut out of retirement every once in a while.
 
I have a question for you parents, do you pack or buy lunches for your kids?

I would prefer to have them buy it but my wife would rather have them bring one.
 
I guess we should maybe do M-Th packed lunch and Friday they can buy it.

There are 2 reasons why I prefer them to buy lunch:

1. They got a hot meal vs. a cold sandwich.

2. We have enough going in the morning without adding lunch prep (although I guess we can do it the night before like I used to do sometimes when I was a kid).
 
Yeah... I'm going to leave to the kids to pressure mom into letting them buy lunch.

Once they see kids eating pizza or mac&cheese... their IHO sandwiches aren't going to seem as tasty.
 
We used to do the school lunch until we stopped by one day (it was eat with your parent day at school) and saw the lunch that they were serving.  Some of the stuff looked ok but the others were just food in a plastic bag that were heated (while it's still in the bag).  Did not look so good, and I am assuming that they must have preservatives in them.  Anyways, after that we started packing lunch everyday.  I wished that they had a better food service. 

I still leave some money in the acct for just in cases...
 
There's got to be a better way to do the first day of school.

I don't know how the other schools do it but I think ours was a bit of a mess.

1. Maybe instead of having everyone line up outside in one area, have a distinct division by grades, then by teachers.

2. There should be some communication that "optional" school supplies donations need not be brought on the first day. A kid was there without his parents carrying his backpack and a giant paper bag of supplies and it ripped apart spilling stuff all over the place. Luckily a few of us were there to help him out. I saw many parents carrying bags and boxes of supplies when they could have just left them at home and made the day easier.

3. I'm not used to not being able to see their classroom. Why don't they have meetings prior to the first day where the parents (at least for K-1) can visit the class with the child to familiarize themselves with it. Maybe they do this for K... I dunno.

I think my kids might have a hard time at first because this is so different from what they are used to. I'm sure they'll adjust but this type of "chaos" gives me some appreciation for private schools.
 
Our kids have food allergies so we have to pack lunch for our kids.  They only go to part time pre-school anyhow.  Even if they didn't have food allergies, we'd probably pack their lunch as I'm not confident of the quality of the food they serve.
 
We (actually, it's Mrs. IR2 95% of the time) prefer the bagged lunch so that we know what they're getting.

1. They got a hot meal vs. a cold sandwich.
Click to expand...
But hot food does not equal "good" food. Either taste-wise or nutrition-wise.

2. We have enough going in the morning without adding lunch prep (although I guess we can do it the night before like I used to do sometimes when I was a kid).
Click to expand...
The night before, FTW!

-IrvineRealtor
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top