7 Worst Things About Living in Murrieta, CA
Lisa Delzompo (00:00):
So you're here to find out what are the seven reasons not to move to Murrieta? First, when we first moved here after we had four small children and we had lived on base with a very friendly neighborhood and we landed in Murrieta. A lot of these people have been here a long time and they have their groups of friends and it wasn't the most easy thing to do to start to make friends. But the good news was that eventually I realized I have to get out and do the things that I like to do and I started volunteering at the school, found a really great group of friends over the years, shout out to the snack bar moms at the marching band at Murrieta Valley High School.
Lisa Delzompo (00:41):
So item number two that was a challenge here in Murrieta. And like I said, we had arrived here with four small children. They were fifth grade and under, and we really thought it's safe neighborhoods, which it is, great schools, which they are. But over time we found that as our kids got a little bit older and into their teenage years, they would say things like they were bored in here. But the good news is it turns out that the schools are so great and there are lots of activities that they provide that a lot are very low cost or free. There are hundreds of clubs at the high school level, whether it's academic competition teams like mock trial, robotics, virtual enterprise, which are very competitive at our high schools here in the Valley.
Lisa Delzompo (01:34):
There's art, theater, marching bands, or dance clubs. There's every sport you can think of. There's a lot to do that is provided if your kids just will go take advantage of it. And the other thing that I really learned over time having kids is that when they get bored, that's when they actually go learn things on their own. So it kind of turned out to be a good thing.
Lisa Delzompo (01:57):
Item number three, it's a suburb. There are lots of tracked homes, lots of plan developments. Look kind of like cookie cutter homes but on the plus side, it turns out that they are all safe neighborhoods. The city of Murrieta has been voted one of the safest neighborhoods many times over the years, nationwide. But living in a suburb did also mean that it was easy to get my kids where they needed to go for friends, clubs, sports, you name it. It's also very easy to the freeway for commuting, whether it's South to San Diego, South to Camp Pendleton, North up into Riverside and for some of the folks who actually drive on into Los Angeles. That's a heck of a commute but a lot of people do it.
Lisa Delzompo (02:46):
Item number four, if the kind of housing you're looking for is multi-family housing, like you want to buy a duplex so that you can turn it into an investment later on or a triplex or fourplex, we really don't have that kind of housing much here in the Murrieta or Temecula area. When my husband retired out of the Marine Corps and we landed here, we actually did want to buy a fourplex and we ended up looking back in the 29 Palms area where he had done his last tour of duty.
Lisa Delzompo (03:18):
And so if you're going to be looking for a triplex, duplex fourplex, you'd be looking down either in maybe inland San Diego, depending on your price point, San Diego, Oceanside up in Corona.
Lisa Delzompo (03:32):
Number five, we are kind of a typical Southern California city with all the big box stores, all the usual suspect restaurants from Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Super Target to In-N-Out, Burger King, McDonald's all the usual suspects, and so some people would feel it's not very distinctive. However, we also do have local stores and restaurants that are unique to our area.
Lisa Delzompo (04:02):
In old town Murrieta, we have Anthony's, which is an Italian place. We have The Mill, which is a wonderful longtime favorite here with lots of salads and pastas, pizza. Across the street there, there's The Wine Cellar. There's a downtown pub that's kind of upscale with an outdoor seating area and fires to sit and have drinks and dinner around. There's lots of sushi places, there's access to Temecula, which is just about 15, 20 minutes away, to any particular restaurant that you want to go to down there, Temecula area.
Lisa Delzompo (04:41):
So a little story about this item, number five, that's all the big box shops and the typical Nordstrom Rack, the typical JC Penney's stores, Macy's. As my kids aged into high school, we went through 16 different homecomings, 16 winter formals, at least eight proms and so when the kids go to search for their outfits to go to these events, our kids and their friends tended to think that they were choosing from all the same patterns and dresses at all these big box types of stores.
Lisa Delzompo (05:17):
But the good news turned out to be that we discovered lots of other kinds of stores that are here in local. There are thrift stores, there's the salvation army, there are consignment stores. My favorite is Savers, kind of a larger selection. We're also adjacent to, or an easy drive from, San Diego, Los Angeles for the garment district and then Orange County for some really upscale malls. Just depends on what your budget is and what you're trying to do.
Lisa Delzompo (05:49):
Number six, if you don't want tourists around, this might not be the place for you. Although really the tourists do tend to stay down in the Temecula area, going to the wineries that are East of town off Rancho California Road, going to old town Temecula. We do have old town Murrieta, which is kind of this up and coming street in Murrieta, which has Anthony's, Downtown Pub, like I said before. There's some pretty cool local restaurants, but we don't have a ton of tourists flocking there yet. It just really hasn't developed yet into some kind of tourist destination.
Lisa Delzompo (06:25):
And the good news is that we do have this access that we are only 20 minutes from the wineries. We're just about an hour to San Diego's beaches, about the same to Oceanside's beaches. Hour and a half to two hours to Los Angeles, hour to Disneyland and just about two hours to the mountains in Big Bear for whether you're going hiking or if it's the winter and you want to go ski.
Lisa Delzompo (06:49):
Number seven, the weather here is really distinctive and some people really don't like it. We're on the edge of a desert where during the summer months, couple of months every year, the temperature during the day is in the low one hundreds. The good news is we do have air conditioning. A little story about the weather here, we don't get much snow. We did have a big snow storm in 2014 where the snow fell at about midnight and they played in the snow, but that snow lasted for another day and we were all able to go out and enjoy it. But we usually don't get snow.
Lisa Delzompo (07:29):
In fact, through the fall, winter and spring, we usually have days that are either in the seventies or eighties. My kids, some years as they went through different moods, would say, "Why is it Christmas and it's just a sunny day?" And I'd say, "That's why I moved here. I like it." But if you don't like that and you want all four seasons and snow, Murrieta's probably not for you.
Lisa Delzompo (07:58):
If you're going to sell your house and moved to Murrieta, I do have a video about how to start a bidding war on a home that you're selling, so you might go check that out here: How To Start a Bid War video
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