Since this is an off-duty weekend for me (the ex has my little guy) I was able to feed my open house/model home habit for a little while this afternoon. I ran some errands from my (rental) home in Westpark through Woodbridge on my way to Woodbury. I noticed a paucity of Open House signs as compared to recent weekends. It’s Saturday, and Sundays appear to be more popular for Open Houses in Irvine, so that might be one cause. Perhaps Realtors have some Open House fatigue, too. What with the summer just past, weekend after weekend sitting in the same Brady Bunch houses, they’re probably a little depressed! (I sure would be!).

So I turned into Woodbury from the new Sand Canyon entrance. The city recently finished rehabbing Sand Canyon in that area and it’s great – nice and new and wide. I drove by the La Casella sales office, noticed it was open, did a U-turn and pulled into the parking lot. There were 4 other cars there. Assuming one was the sales person’s, this place was practically hopping compared to my recent observations of Woodbury’s sales offices!

The lone sales guy at La Casella was rather strange. For starters, he didn’t look like your average (i.e. professional dress, borderline haughty demeanor) home sales guy. He had lots of facial hair and kind of babbled at me when I asked for an information sheet. He told me the townhomes started at $730k and went to $900k and the way he explained it, made me think I wasn’t going to be getting an information sheet! He ended up giving me one, mutttering something about some people quickly leaving without even looking at the models after being told the prices. So he was actually trying to make sure I was not one of those door darters before giving me a propaganda brochure and price sheet! Hmmm, is this a cost-savings thing I wonder?

Anyway, I went into the $730k plan first (actually listed as $735 on the sheet). It’s a Lennar “Everything Included” home. Single story, very nice. The casita thing, though, is a hate it or love it gamble on Lennar’s part, in my opinion. It’s the third bedroom/bath, completely detached from the house, across the cute little courtyard which has an outdoor fireplace standard in it. The garage is also detached, in that you have to go through your private courtyard in order to get into the casita or the main house.

The casita thing would be fantastic for me if it had a kitchenette, so I could rent it out. Otherwise, it strikes me as kinda weird. And for that much money, I want my garage to be ATTACHED!

I went through the two larger models pretty quickly. Standard stuff – very nice, but not worth $835k and $890k!

As I departed through the sales office the salesguy called out to me “That was fast!” Uh, yeah.

The information sheet lists Irvine High, not Northwood, as this development’s high school. Hmmm, I had thought that all of Woodbury would feed into Northwood. I’ll need to be careful if I ever do buy into Woodbury – Northwood is the only high school in Irvine that I’d want my boy to attend.

I stopped off at just more one more place in Woodbury since I needed to do a Target run. 81 Mission, a Treo Plan 2. The Realtor’s flyer had “$819,000” crossed out and $799,000 handwritten underneath. This was actually the first home I have been to in Woodbury that I really do NOT like. It feels a LOT older than it really is. Maybe that’s because the owners apparently chose not one single upgrade – plain carpeting, linoleum, and a barren side yard made this feel more like a plain-vanilla apartment than a Woodbury house. I wouldn’t buy this house even if the price dropped a full 50%.

It’s kind of strange – even as the Commons and the shopping center get closer to completion, I find myself less and less enamored of Woodbury. This time last year I was practically obsessed with the place. I didn’t buy for two reasons: my son’s current daycare is in Westpark and I want to keep him there for a while (and I choose to live very close to it) and of course, I saw the bubble popping clear as day. Could it be because Portola Springs is even newer and is more topographically interesting? (Woodbury is flat, flat, flat, whereas Portola Springs is in the hills and has some nice views). Or could it be because my desire for a lake view has increased? (hello, Lake Mission Viejo!).