The Vistas at Orchard Hills & Shea Homes at Walnut and San Diego & Mello-Roos for Sea Summit
Toll Brothers has officially begun marketing the development here: https://www.tollbrothers.com/luxury-homes-for-sale/California/The-Vistas-at-Orchard-Hills
Floorplans are available here: http://thenewhomeblog.wix.com/the-new-home-blog#!Alta-Vista-Bella-Vista-the-Pinnacle-of-Orchard-Hills/c1sp5/574b88b60cf23b0100891845
Siteplans are available below:
Now, for the Shea Homes collections.
First is their two neighborhoods in Walnut entitled Cornerstone.
There are townhomes starting at nearly $700,000 (ouch) and single-family residences about the size of Roundtree at Pavilion Park starting at nearly $900,000. Considering how crazily high prices went at Lennar's Willow Heights development ($1.4-$1.5M for a 3000 square foot single-family home close to the 57 and over $1M for a 2035 square foot detached condo), these are fairly well priced. Floorplans are pretty average.
Similarly, Lennar is opening their counterpart, South Pointe, in Diamond Bar early 2017, showcasing 3000-3800 square foot tri-level homes ranging from the low to mid $1 millions. Obviously, the times when Diamond Bar and Walnut were priced cheaper than O.C. are long gone...
Next is Shea's collections in San Diego listed here: http://www.sheahomes.com/newhomes/sandiego/
The one development I will focus on today is Civita in Mission Valley. Located inland relative to downtown San Diego, a "Playa Vista" feel is trying to be achieved here. Although the location is certainly inferior (as noted by prices), the architecture itself is pretty ingenious. Their use of angles, particularly in their Lucent/Lucent II and Apex developments are nice. Unlike Playa Vista where the most expensive residences are located on the 2nd floor of a 4-story building, Lucent/Lucent II features a true penthouse. Apex is a nicer, more modern version of Standard Pacific's Amerige Heights development in Fullerton.
For Shea's other developments, I would pick Pardee's developments in Pacific Highlands Ranch over any of them. If you are looking for over $2 million, Alta del Mar is nearly perfect, except they are closing out right now, with all the custom homesites sold out. I believe some of the semi-custom residences were rated as the best detached homes in the West Coast (for that size, hopefully). Schools also are far superior, beating IUSD completely.
Part II of this post is directed towards mello-roos in Sea Summit at Marblehead, as well as future Great Park Neighborhoods.
A very detailed document with minimum lot sizes, past appraisals, mello-roos, and pretty much everything for Sea Summit at Marblehead is located here: http://san-clemente.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=26636
Sorry, no names and purchasing prices of homeowners available yet (like Pavilion Park)!
FYI, the entrance effect to the community as well as floorplans overall are pretty nice. However, they could have designed Aqua better for that price. :(
This is the mello-roos for Beacon Park for future comparison:
This already represents a significant increase from Pavilion Park (where a 2500 sq. ft. detached home, instead of a 1,700 sq. ft. detached home, had a CFD of $5,000 annually), and from the Villages of Irvine communities (where a 2500 sq. ft. detached home has a CFD+AD+Other of only $3,200).
Here are the CFD values for Parasol Park (Improvement Area No. 8), District Next (Improvement Area No. 6), and Altair (Improvement Area No. 7) of 2013-3. They all use the same values. I recall there was an oddity in the Brio brochures at Beacon Park, where the mello-roos was listed as over $7,000. Either the Shea salespeople made a mistake, or there is something special going on for Brio...
Thus, there is a roughly $2,000 increase in CFD annually from Eastwood to Pavilion Park to Beacon Park to Parasol Park, or a $6,000 increase overall. Yikes. That's similar to a $1,300 HOA in Santa Monica monthly ($15,600 annually). And this doesn't compare in amenities for sure...
Also, the shopping center at District Next in Great Park (Warehouse) is moving forwards at this moment. Information is found on the same document as the District Next floorplans.
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I would actually like to conclude this post with a discussion of La Floresta in Brea. I haven't touched Northern O.C. in a while, so this is a slight refresher.
Prices have skyrocketed like the Willow Heights development across the mountains, but the community itself is quite nice. It doesn't have the terraced layout of the Willow Heights development (evident from the 57), but it does have a nice curved layout with a beautiful shopping center at the street intersection. Sadly, it didn't get the grand award for its category, even though it easily fits into the "beautiful" category for shopping centers, with its mini-amphitheater and modern layout. Probably my favorite developments here were actually built by Van Daele: Ventanas (sold out for years) and Bacara (last homes currently selling), even though Standard Pacific's Avenida and Paseo developments were also above average. Bacara even has an elevator in one of its residences!
Bacara stood out because the residences that do not have the elevator have garage access through a sizable yard. Thus, the entire house (excluding the garage) is detached and fronting a paseo, while the garage is attached and under the elevator residence.
La Floresta still has to sell their neighborhoods adjacent to the Birch Hills Golf Course. In reality, there is only one: townhomes. I guess we can classify these as a cheaper alternative than the Blackstone development (with the smallest homes there being Sorano and the largest, Avignon, currently selling). One advantage the townhome development does have, though, is proximity to the Brea mall and distance from the landfill.
Beware, though, the entire La Floresta development(s) do carry a small mello-roos (Blackstone did not)! Also, the HOAs are not low!