Alan17

"Take the 405 - much better"

I don't think I've ever seen that phrase used and doubt I'll hear it ever again !!

Sally Redux

Have to say I do regret it but I suppose if I hadn't done it I wouldn't have known that.

FatFrank

Yes, all good Hotscot.

......need to add Laguna Beach too, although the extra drive out of the canyon adds to the commute. We rented there with an ocean view for a couple of years.......I frequently pinched myself in the morning to check I wasn't dreaming...

Hotscot

Well, if you have several million I suppose

How much was the rent?

FatFrank

$2950 per month IIRC. It was 10 years ago, so I suppose it'd be a fair bit more now. I do remember looking at much bigger houses inland for similar money, perhaps a little cheaper, but not much. In the end we decided that if we were moving to CA, and not knowing how long the assignment would be, that we were going to live near the beach......

....one thing I remember, and should be taken into consideration, is that we never really needed the air-con on with the ocean breeze cooling nicely even in the height of summer.....I can imagine $500 monthly electricity bills living inland in CA - that is about what we seem to spend nowadays in a MI summer

Vixsta

Hello again!

Just booked flights to fly out to Orange County next week for a look around and to try and narrow down where we'd like to live! So far on the list of where to look is Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, Irvine and Anaheim Hills. Anywhere I've missed that's got good schools?

Never rented before so new to all this. I've been looking on Zillow, Realtor and Trulia Apps - I know there's also Craigs List. Any recommendations on best way of finding a rental or any realtors you can recommend that deal with rentals.

The assigned schools are going to be the deciding factor, I think I'm right in saying schools are now closed for the Summer so I assume we won't be able to look round them before we find somewhere to live. I've been looking on Great Schools website at API scores. Any other tips on finding a good school?

Many thanks.

Sally Redux

The schools may be open at least part of the day with admin people.

Bob

Probably already mentioned, but padmapper.com as it scrapes all the sites into one.

As for schools, most will have people either there, or at the main school district office, so you should be able to get hold of someone to have a chat about the school or arrange a walk around.

PeppaPigA113

Hi I am a Brit Mom living in Orange County. There are a few of us brits here! were scattered! I live near Dove Canyon, my friends live in Mission Viejo, Rancho santa margarita, and ladera ranch.Either of these you wont go wrong! I dont want to put my number on an open forum. But you can message me I can always help you out. (i know what its like to be a new mom in the area!!)

Nicky2303

I get that everyone is mentioning great areas like Ladera Ranch or RSM but bear in mind if you are commuting to Garden Grove that is going to be quite a significant distance if you are going every day. If you are working from home some days then it`s fine.

I405 is good RELATIVE to the I5 - sheesh, read the whole thing, people!

SSN - true, you can get a bank account without one. We did. But we had to get the company to help us. If someone managed it without one on their own, what can I say, you are more skilled ex-pats than we were.

Nicky2303

One more thing - the Orange County Register (you can access it online) has a list of the "top" schools in OC every year. Go to their website and do a search of something like "2013 best schools" - I`m not sure of the exact link but with a bit of fiddling you can find it. I say "top" because it`s kind of subjective - there are some schools that "teach to the test" so they get great results, and other schools that are phenomenal, but have a large English learners population so their scores pull them down. But it will give you a general idea.

We had a chicken and egg thing going on - find the house then see what school you are in, or find the school and then choose a house. We wanted to go for the latter but then found we had no choice - no one would rent to us as we had no credit history and we had to end up going for whatever house we could get and then see what the school was like.

For a realtor - we used Frank Williamson at Evergreen (949 500 7484) and he was great with us - very patient and took us to see lots of places. I could recommend him. He`s based out of Lake Forest. Hope this helps

Vixsta

Thank you to everyone for the latest bits of advice! Sorry its taken so long to reply! Our trip to OC didn't go as well as we'd hoped as we got distracted at Disney!!

I have to say we didn't explore as much as we should have as we were limited by the amount of time we had but also we weren't particularly impressed by what we saw driving from LAX (our Sat Nav wasn't working and we kept leaving the freeway to work out where the hell we were going!). What we saw we didn't much like! And it did make us question the move.

We eventually looked at parts of Irvine and saw briefly Mission Viejo which we did like but it was our last day and we were quite rushed. I wish we'd explored these areas much more. All the schools were closed so we didn't have much luck there either! And it was so HOT!!!

Beaverstate

If Disneyland distracted you, you had better steer wide of Disney World.

Neighborhoods in Orange County vary greatly in just a few miles, and all schools are closed during summer.

The summer weather greatly depends on your distance form the ocean. A couple miles from the beach highs in the 70's, 25-30 miles inland the 90's.

Sally Redux

What happens if you decide not to come? Will your husband's job be adversely affected?

AmerLisa

Very correct on the temps going inland. And I would have thought a research visit wouldn't include spending a lot of time at Disney (it's not going anywhere )

Some school districts are year round (although I wouldn't have a clue which are). I'm coming into this thread late, so I don't know if you've narrowed down to where you'd like to be. I have been away from OC for such a long time that every time we go down I'm amazed at how much change has happened. If I had to live there though, I'd pick as close to the ocean as I could afford. I'd also study school districts to find the right one and then narrow my search down that way. I don't think you'll ever be able to just roll up to a school and have a look see, besides they are all so different it would just be a waste of time (unless you've located a house in the area of the school)