San Diego Area Snuggling Up as Bedroom to Orange County

When the throngs of cars and people finally hemmed him in, attorney Rick Carter left his home in Cypress for the relative tranquility of El Toro and arranged a transfer from his firm’s Los Angeles office to its branch in Santa Ana.

But 12 months of frustration later, Carter already has tired of battling bumper-to-bumper traffic on freeways and local roads alike. Although he enjoys his neighborhood and is pleased with the quality of the local schools, Carter has watched with growing trepidation as more housing has sprouted near the freeways, promising worse traffic in years to come.

Bedroom Communities

“It’s already nightmarish, and we don’t know where it’s going to go in five or 10 years,” he said.

So Carter came up with a solution. Chased farther south by suburban sprawl, he bought a home in Oceanside and soon will commute from northern San Diego County to Santa Ana, often by train.

Carter sees Oceanside’s comparatively wide-open spaces as the key to “overall comfort,” he said. “I used to work in downtown L.A. and the reason for moving down here (El Toro) was to get out of that a bit. That didn’t last long. I’ve only been here a year.”

Snarled traffic, employment growth and rising home prices in southern Orange County have helped to transform northern San Diego County into, in part, a bedroom community for Orange

Boon for Developers

The trend is a boon for developers offering a range of new homes in places such as Oceanside, Carlsbad and Vista, and may help to rehabilitate Oceanside’s image as a tough military town.

“Over the last several years, we’ve had a massive in-migration of commuter households in south Orange County coming into north San Diego County in search of affordable housing,” said Russell Valone, president of Market Profiles of San Diego, a consulting group that helps developers target new housing projects to different kinds of buyers.

Home buyers generally “can get the same house down here and they can save $75,000,” said Wayne Barnett, vice-president of Pacific Ampac, developer of the Pacific Views project where Carter bought the home that he and his family will occupy at the end of this year.

“What they find is . . . that once you get past Orange County to Camp Pendleton, it’s a very easy commute, because there’re no exits, no tie-ups,” he said.

Home Cost $140,000

Carter bought a four-bedroom, 1,700-square-foot home for $140,000, a piece of real estate he estimates would cost him $175,000 in the Orange County neighborhoods he checked before buying here.

“The lot that they give you in north San Diego County is much more substantial,” he said. “I’m just wondering whether it’s built on Love Canal or something. I couldn’t figure out why it’s so low.”

For that home, Carter is willing to drive to Santa Ana or board an Amtrak train at the Oceanside station for the ride there, a commute that will not differ radically from his current 45-minute trip along back roads each morning. Increased car insurance premiums are the only drawback, he believes.

“I’m sure, when I drive, that 45 or 50 miles is not a fun drive, but at least it’s not bumper to bumper,” he said.

Herman Schmidt decided last year to give up his six-minute commute to Saddleback College from his home in Mission Viejo to buy a home in Carlsbad’s Sea Cliff development, off Poinsettia Lane, and leave the crowding of Orange County behind.

Schmidt and his wife, Saundra, who works in the computer lab at Mission Viejo High School, now spend 45 minutes getting to and from work each day. But to them, the drive is worth the peace of mind and pace of life they have found in a home that affords them an ocean view for about the price of an inland home in Orange County.

‘Getting Ready to Retire’

“It’s just that time of life. I’m getting ready to retire and I was looking for a place that’s not as crowded,” said the 57-year-old dean of admissions and records at Saddleback.

“Everywhere you go up there is crowded,” he said “Even the surface streets are crowded. You just can’t go anywhere without cars surrounding you. If you want to go anywhere, you have to go on the freeway. Down here, it’s not that crowded--yet.”

According to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau, 4,800 people lived in San Diego and worked in Orange County in 1980. In 1985, a San Diego Assn. of Governments study put the total at 11,800, a figure that has probably increased during the past two years, said Lee Hultgren, the association’s director of transportation. The vast majority of those commuters live in the county’s northern tier, he said.

Valone’s market studies show that 15% of new home buyers in Oceanside and Carlsbad are employed in Orange County, up from about 4% five years ago.

Random checks at new home projects in Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista show a small but steady stream of Orange County residents viewing and buying homes here. At Pacific Views, Barnett said that one-third to half his customers currently live in Orange County and that some who have purchased homes will commute.

Eight of the 29 homes recently sold in the Remington Homes development on Via Primero in Oceanside went to Orange County residents, some of whom are commuters, said sales agent Grace Bolin. And at Portico, a new Vista development, one of the 29 homes sold since August went to a family that will commute to Orange County.

Home prices are the greatest factor for the migration. In September, the median price of a detached home in southern Orange County was $207,990, said Stephen Ross, co-owner of The Meyers Group, a real estate research firm that gathers data on Southland homes. In coastal north San Diego, the median detached home price was $154,990, Ross said.

In addition, tremendous business growth has made Orange County a huge employment center. As of August, 1,307,300 people worked in Orange County, up from 1,115,100 in 1980 and 790,500 in 1975.

Less Traffic

When they first began to be priced out of the housing market in the early 1980s, Orange County home buyers headed east to Riverside and San Bernardino counties. But with smog and roads such as California 91, 55 and 60 “virtual parking lots” at rush hour, northern San Diego became much more attractive, Valone said.

“It takes you less time in the morning to drive from the intersection of California 78 and I-5 (in Oceanside) to John Wayne Airport than it does to drive from central Riverside into John Wayne Airport,” he said. “There’s just so much more traffic coming out Riverside, Sunnymead and Corona.”

Only recently has Oceanside, the largest city in north San Diego County, been able to transcend the tough, shabby image inspired by its proximity to Camp Pendleton, the massive Marine Corps base to the north, some feel.

“I think before 1985, Oceanside wasn’t as desirable a place to live,” Ross said. “Oceanside’s image has been as a military town, and I think that’s changing because of the quality of housing that’s being built, the industrial activity that’s taken place and redevelopment.”

Some analysts dispute Valone’s contention that the south-to-north commuter trend is growing. Charles Dreyer, executive vice-president of Dreyer and Young, a real estate sales organization, contends that the gap between home prices in Orange County and north San Diego County has narrowed. San Diego homes are selling for about $155,000, just $7,000 less than the median price for Orange County.

‘Travel Time Has Changed’

Dreyer also contends that “the commute or travel time has changed immensely. It is now very, very difficult to commute from San Clemente into central Orange County.”

Ross and others noted that the availability of about 1,850 homes in Rancho Santa Margarita, east of El Toro, since May, 1986, has lessened the demand for homes in north San Diego County. The attached and detached homes are selling for between $118,990 and $207,000, making them competitive with north San Diego County homes. But unlike Dreyer, Ross predicts that demand from commuters for north San Diego County homes will revive in the near future.

A survey of 287 north San Diego County residents who bought their homes this year showed that just 2% of them worked in Orange County, said Julie Farber, president of Farber Consulting, who conducted the study.

But some people will always be willing to commute. Philip Wittenberg, 63, rises at 3:30 a.m. to leave his Carlsbad home at 4 a.m. for the 45 minute drive to Mission Viejo. There, he boards a commuter bus at 5:05 for the ride to his job as a manager in the manufacturing technology department of Rockwell International in El Segundo.

Total commute for the former Torrance resident: 97 miles in 2 hours, 50 minutes.

“I really didn’t look in Orange County,” he said. “Too many Republicans. Orange County is just another crowded place.”