I don?t know if you?re looking east or west of Newport. On the Eastside of Newport, everything south of La Colina is zoned to Tustin High. West of Newport, there are parts of 92705 farther north from Irvine Blvd (toward vanderlip or 17th street) but in Foothill High district that have single story ranches that may be in your price range and nice looking. I think the Tustin versus Foothill High zones do make a difference in terms of real estate appreciation.
These neighborhoods don?t look any worse maintained to my eye than older neighborhoods in Irvine like El Camino Real, Walnut, University Park, parts of old Northwood, Deerfield, etc. Any neighborhood that is older and doesn?t have an HOA is going to look less uniform than new tracts in Irvine. Anyway, I have a lot of neighboring homes with absentee owners in my new Irvine SFR tract that did a cheapo crap job with minimal landscaping on their postage stamp lot, and shoddy maintenance, so buying in Irvine is no guarantee you?ll get to live in a beautiful well maintained neighborhood.