California Real Estate For Sale

When considering a move to California real estate, you'll need to decide whether you're Team NorCal or Team SoCal. Both regions have their own pros and cons, and each is very different from the other. The good news is that there are great places to live in either part of the Golden State.

The most desirable Southern California real estate would be in Orange County. More specifically, the city of Irvine is considered by many to be one of the best places to live in the state. It has historically been named one of the top five cities in America and consistently earns top marks for safety. You'll also be 45 minutes outside of all that Los Angeles has to offer – if you'll even need to leave, since other than a beach, Irvine has any amenity you might dream of. 

If you can't find a great home in Irvine, worry not. Orange County has several excellent communities, all offering great schools and an abundance of job opportunities. Some of the most popular are Yorba Linda in the northeastern part of the county, Rancho Santa Margarita, Costa Mesa, and Newport Beach. 

Another excellent Southern California real estate lies much closer to the border: San Diego County, and especially the city of San Diego. When you picture lounging on a California beach, San Diego is probably the closest match for the image in your mind. San Diego is the second most populous city after Los Angeles, so if that sounds a little crowded, try one of the suburbs instead. For example, La Jolla and Encinitas both have excellent schools.

If Southern California's hot, arid climate doesn't appeal to you, you may want to try one of the cities further up the Pacific Coastal Highway, or the PCH as it is known among locals. You could try Santa Barbara, a little north of Los Angeles, which some people call the American Riviera. There's Folsom, northeast of San Francisco, whose schools have some of the most consistently high graduation rates in the country and a relatively affordable community. There is, of course, San Francisco itself, where you can watch sea lions sunbathing on a weekend afternoon, or Davis, full of beautiful, sprawling city parks. You might prefer Napa, California's famed wine country, or Sonoma County if you're more of a craft beer fan. 

California encompasses so many possibilities. You'll find that no matter what you're looking for, you're sure to find real estate in California you'll love calling home.

Just as real estate in California offers an abundance of diverse choices, so does its education system. There are dozens of possibilities for excellent schooling throughout the state, often in beautiful and welcoming communities, including all of the communities mentioned above.

There are also exceptional schools in some places we have not yet covered: 

● Palo Alto Unified School District (Santa Clara County) has one of the lowest teacher-student ratios in its region at 14:1. It is also home to one of the oldest schools in California, Palo Alto Senior High School, known more affectionately as Paly. This school was established in 1898 and is ranked among the top hundred of 18,000 high schools in the country. Palo Alto Unified School District ensures its younger students excel as much as its high schoolers, where students perform high above the state average at schools like Duveneck Elementary School or Walter Hays Elementary School.

● Carmel Unified School District: Although Carmel Unified School District is the second-largest district by area in the state, its large size does not get in the way of providing outstanding education. More than half of high schoolers at Carmel High School participate in Advanced Placement courses. Teachers call it the best district to teach within the state.

● La Cañada Unified School District is in the small town of La Cañada Flintridge (known mostly as La Cañada) and serves around 4000 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Every single school within the district has been named a California Distinguished School, and two have been named National Blue Ribbon Schools. La Cañada high school is ranked 80th among 18,000 United States high schools. 

Still, even this is just a small taste of the great schools California has to offer. To find out more, check out the website of California's Department of Education.

Irvine is the ideal city for families looking for California real estate. Its schools are hard to beat, and there are some wonderful cultural institutions. The FBI has named it one of the safest cities in the country, not only because of its low crime rates but because of the work of traffic management officials who ensure that traffic accidents are minimal.

Oakland in the Bay Area region of California is one of the most beloved destinations for Gen Z-ers entering the workforce. The city offers plenty of nightlife and entertainment, and there's also above-average access to medical professionals and public transportation. It's also just across the bay from San Francisco while being much more affordable.

Something about California real estate just makes retirement that much sweeter. Salinas, CA, might be just the spot for retirees to experience coastal living. 18% of the population is made up of folks aged 65 or older. It might be the beautiful mountain views or the proximity to small towns like Monterey, but whatever keeps people there, it's working. Residents report a higher than average sense of well-being, and the weather is mild all year long. 

Despite popular belief, it's not all sunshine all the time! The weather can really depend on where in the state you are. 

In NorCal, make sure you always have a sweater handy, even in the summer. Temperatures drop quickly at night and stay cool until mid-morning. It's especially cool along the coast, where fog can last most of the day. Some parts of the state even experience heavy snow in the winter.

On the other hand, you'll want to make sure you take a water bottle everywhere you go if you're in SoCal, where summer temperatures often surpass 100°F. Even still, the lack of humidity means that the air doesn't hold much heat, so even in the desert of Joshua Tree, there's a thirty-degree difference between the average daily high and the average daily low. 

California real estate has access to eleven major commercial airports with over a million departures every year in California and even more that serve fewer than that. The largest of all is Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Southern California and San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in Northern California. San Diego, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Ontario, Palm Springs, and Fresno also each have an international commercial airport.

California schools tend to start in mid to late August and end in early to mid-June.

If you want to explore the outdoors, visiting Yosemite National Park is imperative. Yosemite is one of the most popular national parks in the country, hosting over 4 million visitors each year. It offers so much it's hard to describe: stunning waterfalls, enormous thousand-year-old sequoia trees, and unique rock formations you can't find anywhere else. 

And if the trees at Yosemite aren't enough for you, check out Sequoia National Park, home to the world's largest tree, standing at 275 feet tall. There's plenty to do outside of seeing the incredible trees; however, hiking, caving, and snowshoeing in the winter are all popular activities.

Once you're ready to leave the forest, take a trip to the coast to see some of America's most incredible beaches. There's Monterey Bay and its state-of-the-art aquarium, or the 90-mile stretch of land known as Big Sur. Some of the beaches along Big Sur are so wild it can feel like you're the first human to land eyes on them. If you're looking for something less untamed and more "surf's up," check out Santa Monica and Huntington Beach, both home to beloved piers. 

Of course, almost no trip to California is complete without a visit to Hollywood and the star-studded (literally!) Walk of Fame or Grauman's Chinese Theater. Or further south, don't forget to experience the magic of the happiest place on earth at Disneyland in Anaheim.