This video is all about the do's and don'ts of making a move here to the city of Temecula, California. And these are things that I go over with my clients, especially when they're making big moves here from out of state or other types of relocations. And these are things that I think if you pay attention to, are going to help make the move for you and your family a heck of a lot smoother and are going to set some realistic expectations so you guys know what you're going to be in store for and hopefully make an easier transition for you guys. So let's go ahead and get into it.

Hey guys. Hey again, my name is Justin Short. I'm a realtor and team leader with the short real estate team here at Keller Williams in Temecula, California. And this video is all about the do's and don'ts of making a move here to the city of Temecula. So this video is not about all the great things that Tamecula has to offer and why preferences as far as best neighborhoods and worst neighborhoods and recommendations, things like that. There's dozens of videos that we've posted in the past that go over all those types of things. Really, this is more about actually making a move here and before you make that move or as you're in that process, these are some really good things to know that are really a little bit more granular and a little bit more things you're going to want to pay attention to more as you're in that actual transition period.

So I think it's going to be good information for you guys. And these are things that I go over with my clients every time, especially when they're making big relocations out this way. But before we get into all the information, please do me a favor. Please hit like, and please hit subscribe to the channel. Obviously it helps me, it helps my channel as we try to continue to grow it. And then if you guys have any real estate questions, you're going to see my information either down below the video or at the end. You can feel free to reach out, you can call, you can text, or you can email me my personal cell phone number is there. Happy to answer any questions you may have help point you in the right direction. Or of course, if I can personally help you at all with your real estate move, I'd love to do that.

So that's how I earn a living for myself and my family. So I would love to have the opportunity to help you and your family if there's an opportunity to do so. So let's go ahead and we'll get into the video here. So I'm going to start with the do's. I'm going to go over three dos and three don'ts. And again, these are things that are a little bit little more advanced as far as once you're more into the move, once you decided Temecula is the place you want to be in Temecula or just the surrounding area, Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee, this is the place you want to be. You're coming, right? You try to kind of line things up for yourself or you're in the process of renting out your current home or putting up on the market, etcetera. So number one is you do want to make sure that you pay attention to the property tax rates here in this area.

And this is something that can vary all throughout Southern California, all throughout the state of California, and this can be very area specific all across the nation, but here in the city of Temecula especially is the amount of property tax that you can pay in one property in one neighborhood compared to one just down the street can vary pretty drastically. You may look at one home that is a lower tax home and you may look at one home that is a higher tax home and what you're going to pay per year can vary anywhere from five to six to $7,000 a year just in property tax. So on the low end, you're going to see tax rates, right about that 1.1%, 1.2%, and that would be considered a low tax home here in the area. And then on the high end, you're going to see homes that are all the way up to 2% and up to 2.1, up to 2.2% in property tax.

And that's about a 1% difference. And there's all varying degrees of rates in between depending which neighborhood you're going to look at. But that 1% change, if you're looking at an $800,000 home, that 1% tax difference is going to be, it's like $8,000 a year. So that's quite a bit of money. If you look at it over the course of a monthly basis, that's probably going to be about 700 bucks a month or so, somewhere right around there. Just kind of quick math. So that's a big difference in what your monthly mortgage is going to be if you're going to do an impound account and what your monthly expenses are going to be. So a general rule of thumb when you are looking at homes in this area is an older home tends to be on that lower tax side of things. So closer to that 1.1, 1.2% tax rate, and then a newer home is going to be on that higher tax side of things.

So you might be closer to that 2%, 2.1, 2.2% tax rate. So older homes, lower taxes, newer homes, higher taxes. But the problem with it is that these tax rates and the amount of special assessments you're going to pay, and these different taxes are going to vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. So one neighborhood might be low tax, the next neighborhood might be high tax, and in the neighborhood of that might be low tax, but rule of thumb you're built is going to be the big differentiator there. So you do want to make sure you're paying attention to that. Alright, so number two. So you do want to make sure that if you're going to relocate here, and in order to relocate here that you need to sell your current home, you do want to make sure that your current home has been listed up on the market for sale, that you have found a buyer and you have accepted an offer from that buyer.

Basically placed that home in escrow before you can write a winning offer out here in Temecula that can be accepted. So right now, the way the market is, the homes are still selling on average and about 30 days, about 30 up to about 45 depending on the neighborhood that you're looking at. But it still would be considered a seller's market. So because of that, you cannot, let's say if you live in a different state, let's say you live in Arizona and you decide, Hey, I'm going to make a move to Temecula and I found a home that I like and I want to place an offer on that, theoretically you can write an offer contingent upon the successful sale of your home in Arizona, right? The problem is because of the strength of the market out here, there's no home seller out here will accept that offer until your sale moves along with your property in Arizona.

So really to be in a position so your offer can get accepted here in Temecula, you need to put your home on the market, find a buyer, sign a contract with them, open escrow before your offer's going to be strong enough for someone to take you serious out here, which can be a little bit tough when you're making these big relocations, especially if you have a family and kids and husband and wife and all these other types of things. It can be really hard to juggle. So it can definitely make for a stressful situation, but unfortunately with the way the market is, it's really going to be where you have to be. And the same things actually applies with new builds as well. So right now I would say probably that 95% of new builds need you to be in that same position before they will accept your offer as well.

So your home needs to be in escrow before they will accept your offer on another home out here. Now, there are exceptions to that and there are things that can be done. Sometimes you have clients that maybe have a little bit more cash in the bank or some extra savings, or maybe you're a little bit of a higher income earner where you can qualify for a second mortgage at the same time. So if you can qualify for a home out here without selling your home, then now we can talk and put you in a position to write a winning offer out here. But if that's not the case, which most people don't have those means, but if you don't have those means, then you're going to have to get your home in escrow before you can get an offer except out here. So number three, this is I guess something that I point out to people because I have so many people that contact me that are relocating here.

And usually when you guys reach out, especially from these videos on YouTube, you're doing research and you're checking out the area and you're all over Zillow and Redfin, you're all over Google Maps and getting lay of the land and hopefully educating yourself on the area. And hopefully these videos do a good job of educating as well help show you what this area is actually like and giving you some good information. But when you are making a big relocation out of here, so many guys are coming from areas where you've never been to the city of Temecula before. You've maybe never lived in Southern California, maybe you've never really visited Southern California or you currently live in other states, so you don't really know this area well enough. I would highly, highly recommend that you and your family, whoever's going to be moving here, take at least one preliminary trip here to the city of Temecula before you decide this is the area for you.

So I think it's a great area to live, right? It's where I live with my family, it's where we plan to live for hopefully forever, the next 20 plus years, raise our kids, et cetera. But when you're making a big relocation here, you really want to make sure this is the right area. You're going to buy a home that's going to be 600,000, 700, 800,000, a million dollars plus. You want to make sure it's going to be the right decision. And for the cost of taking a flight out here, booking a weekend worth of hotels and checking out the area and driving around and really exploring to make sure this is really where you want to be. I think it's money that's going to be well spent. And also if I'm helping you with a purchase, I really want you to be happy and I can go out and I can do video tours and show you the neighborhood and show y'all all around the house, et cetera, but you're just not going to get the same experience as if you were able to just come out here.

And so if at all possible, you can make a trip out here, at least a preliminary trip, make sure this is the right area for you, and get a feel for the neighborhoods. Get a feel for what areas they get a feel for what areas you don't like. I help people do this all the time. Happy to get together with you, meet up, we can grab some coffee and chat a little bit. You can go out, take a look at a few homes in the area, give you some recommendations. And I think if you're making a big relocation here, that's money again, it's going to be well spent. And something that I highly, highly recommend that you and your family do is take a preliminary trip out here before you decide this is the area before you start writing offers on homes. Alright, so now we're going to move into the don'ts.

So number one, so the first thing I wanted to mention is if you are looking at homes online, you don't want to calculate the amount that you're going to pay on property taxes based upon what the current owner is paying. So this is a situation I run into a lot. So when people are looking at homes online, you're on Zillow, you're on a Redfin or maybe a search that I set you up with, right? You're looking at homes and you find a home that you like. And my other point headset, you do want to pay attention to tax rates out here. And so some of the times people have that in their mind. So they start, when they pull up a home, they look at what the current owner is paying and they kind of attribute that to what their current tax rate is going to be.

And unfortunately here in Temecula, you cannot do that because of the way that taxes are assessed. So a lot of people don't know this, but California has a lot of different rules and regulations that people don't necessarily like and they feel like are very left-leaning, et cetera. But they are one of the very few states that do this. And it's I think one of the biggest benefits as a homeowner is that in California, when you buy a home, that is when your property taxes are assessed based on the value that you purchased the home for. And they do not reassess in the future until the property changes hands again. It can go up slightly, but it goes up very, very little. It's like up to 1% a year or right around there, very, very minor. So it might be 10 bucks a year, 50 bucks a year, 80 bucks a year, that type of thing on property tax.

So very, very, very minor. And that's different compared to a lot of states like say Texas, I have a lot of people that come here from Texas or other states across the nation to where, let's say if you buy a home for $300,000 and your value increases up to 500,000, so you have a bunch of equity, well, the state reassess you and you start paying taxes on 500,000, right? So in California that does not happen. So if you bought a home 20 years ago and so you bought a home 20 years ago for $ 300,000, you're paying taxes based on this lower amount, it's now worth $900,000. When you as the potential home buyer are looking at this home online, you're looking at the tax rate that the current owner is paying at that $300,000 price. So unfortunately that number has nothing to do with what you're going to pay as the new owner.

This is something I come across a lot where people say, oh, this one's only like $3,000 a year for property tax. Well, yes, that's what the current guy's paying. He bought it back in 1995 for 300 grand, but unfortunately you were going to pay quite a bit more and that's how it's going to change. So the easiest thing to do is you can ask me directly, Hey, what is the tax rate going to be on this property? I can give it to you really, really easily. You can also go and look at the county records and look at what the rates are for that specific address. It's a little bit more nuanced and most people aren't going to do that. But easy thing to do, ask real estate agent, ask me, I'm happy to pull it up for you, let you know, Hey, is that a high tax area?

Is that a low tax area? And hopefully be able to give you a pretty good estimate on what you would be paying. But like I said, fortunately it has nothing to do with what the current owner's paying. So number two, don't expect a big fat hundred thousand discount. So I do these market update videos every month. That's kind of like our recurring series as far as you keeping us updated, what's going on in the real estate market here locally, what's going with home prices, how long homes are taking to sell, et cetera. And there's no doubt that over the last really year and a half, and especially even more so over the last six months, we have seen the real estate market here transition more from a heavy, heavy, heavy sellers market closer to a buyer's market. We're still not quite at a buyer's market, but it's definitely slowed down.

Homes are taking a little bit longer to sell, the homes are sitting a little bit more home prices are staying very steady. But even as we transition closer to a buyer's market, we are not seeing these big heavy discounts. So right now, home prices and home values have stayed very, very steady. The last two years they've actually gone up just slightly, so anywhere from three to 5%. So home prices have actually gone up. We do definitely see some more price cuts today than we saw a year ago. And there's definitely opportunity, especially if home is sitting where we can go and negotiate. We can definitely negotiate $10,000, $20,000, $25, even up to $30,000 off the price of a home, but it's just not going to be a hundred thousand dollars discount. That's not the market we're in is not going to be realistic. And sometimes the conversation I have with clients is, hey, they see the market is changing a little bit and they want to be very aggressive on when they offer, and hopefully they hope for these big fat discounts and we're just not quite there yet.

It's not going to be realistic and it's just not the type of market that we're in. So number three, so don't, number three, do not narrow down your search just to one specific neighborhood. So what I tell people is the city of Temecula across the board, it's a newer area. Most of the homes were built anywhere from the mid nineties until 2010 ish or so, maybe a little bit before that. And there's some outliers, some are older, some are a little bit newer, but that's the heart of the city. But the truth is probably 99% of the city of Temecula is a really, really nice area. There's definitely pros and cons from living on living South Temecula versus North Temecula. There's pros and cons living in a newer neighborhood versus an older neighborhood. And there's pros and cons of living in an area that's zoned for one school as opposed to another school.

So there's pros and cons throughout the city. However, the city is so nice across the board. I would say for almost everybody, it makes sense to keep your search relatively open. We may narrow it down to a five mile radius in this really the area that you want to focus in, or maybe a handful, five or six different neighborhoods that are going to be more of a fit for you because there's definitely some higher end neighborhoods and some lower end neighborhoods. But sometimes people when they contact me, they're like, oh, I only want to live in Morgan Hill, or I only want to live in Wolf Creek, or I only want to live in harvesting. And it's super, super niche. If you have your reasons and you're the one buying the home, not me, but I would say that almost everybody, probably 95% of people end up because the city is so nice, end up considering many neighborhoods. And I really would caution you from really being so niche and narrowing down just to one specific neighborhood until you see what else is out there, because the city across the board is I think just so nice. So I really keep your eyes open and be open to a lot of different possibilities. So anyways, those are three things, three do's, three don'ts. Hopefully it's good information for you guys. If you have questions, feel free to reach out. You can call, you can text, you can email me, and hopefully talk to you soon. Thanks.