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I have been living in Irvine since 2004, and my wife and I have visited lots communities here, so I can give you some perspective.
Housing:
- most of the true single family homes will be $1M or more. These are homes typically in the 2000sqft + range, with true fence/divider between homes, and have their own driveways and a little bit of landscape.
- Irvine is probably one of few places that have tons of courtyard homes. These are homes that may be attached or detached from adjacent homes, but they share a common driveway. For example, our house is in a common driveway shared with 7 other homes. These homes typically range from 1200 sqft to 2000 sqft, and can run from $500K up to $1M+
- House price is going up at a fairly fast pace. Our neighbor just sold their house with a healthy 23% gain in 2 years. Well priced homes are selling at a very fast pace, so be ready to jump in and prepare for potentially bidding wars if you find something good.
- Irvine is notorious for its mello roos. Just about any homes built after 1990 will have some sort of mello roos. Depending on the age of the home and location of the home, they typically run about 0.5% to 0.9% of the original home sales price. It's mostly a fixed amount that doesn't increase overtime. The new communities in Great Park are an exception though, those can increase at around 2% per year.
- If you are looking at renting, then you are likely going to be renting from an Irvine Company owned apartment. The price does vary from location to location, but I think most of the single bedroom run around high $1K, and two bedrooms are usually in the low to mid $2K range. We had rented a 2-bedroom, 1250sqft townhome from Irvine company while we were waiting for our current to finish building, and that ran us $2750 per month
School:
- Since you have kids in preschool, you may be interested in preschool cost here. The tuition range from around $1100 to just shy of $2K for schools here if they are over 2, with many of them in the $1300 to $1500 range. The good ones also have a long waiting list, with some as long as 2+ years (need to register while kid is in mommy's tummy). They are very good school and do prepare the kids well for the school system here.
- My kids are not old enough to be in the public school system yet (oldest will be next year), but I know a number of folks that have kids going through the IUSD system. It's one of the best in the country, but it also puts lots of pressure on the kids. Based on some of my friends' words, IUSD sounds quite similar to what I had gone through in Taiwan as I was growing up. However, the city is full of after school non-academic activities for kids, so you don't always need to put them through a pure academic track going from K to 12.
Living here:
- In general, Irvine is great. It's a big melting pot full of people from all cultures. It's true that the city is currently populated with lots of mainland Chinese, but it's also packed with other Asians, with people from middle east, African Americans, Caucasian, and other ethnicity. As such, you can eat just about any type of cuisine here, as well as finding shops from all cultures.
- Traditional shopping is also great. Lots of grocery stores with 4 Target, 3 Costco, and 2 Walmart within 10 minutes drive. Also very close to John Wayne and South Coast Plaza.
- It's a crazy busy city though as result of what I listed above. During rush hours, it can be just as bad as the 5 and 405 freeways, especially on Culver and Jamboree. It's one of the biggest drawbacks of the city, but they said they are doing something about it.
Sorry for the long post, but hopefully this helps. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, and I'll be happy to answer.
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