Schlotkins said:
My wife and I are moving to Irvine from the east coast. I'm tryng to get some cost estimate numbers to put in our budget so I was hoping some people could help out. Assume we have a standard 2,000 sq ft home in Irvine, probably on the older construction side. (please avoid the buy vs. rent discussion - thank you.)
1) Property Tax: It appears this number is about 1% of home value - is that correct? I saw some that looked like .5% and some that appeared to be 2%.
2) Home Gas bills: Here our range and dryer is electric. It appears to be gas there most of the time. However, I doubt there is much of a heating season.
3) Electric Bills: Not sure how bad these get in the summer.
4) Home owners insurance: No idea what this runs...
5) Is there a car excise tax in California? Any estimates on auto insurance rates for good drivers with cheap (sub $20,000) cars?
6) Water rates?
That's all I can think of for now... Thanks for any help!
Here is a generic cost of living calculator that might help somewhat.
1. It depends on the home. The base property tax rate in CA is 1%. There may be school bonds or other "community facilities district" bonds that add to the property taxes. The newer the home, the more likely there are bonds on top of the base property tax rate. Your realtor should be able to flesh this out for you on a home by home basis.
2. Gas will depend on what kind of clothes dryer and range you have, as well as your water heater (save money and go tankless) and how often you use hot water. You may also have other gas appliances (e.g., bbq) that will raise your usage as well.
Here are the current rates.
3. Electric will not be fun if you run your AC a lot in summer. I would also suggest changing your lightbulbs to CFLs because they use less energy and create less heat (so you don't need to run the AC as much). We had one electric bill that was $400 in summer once (for a ~1650 sq ft home). We have cut that down a lot since. The CFLs really helped, as did following a number of other conservation tips. Do a search, as there was a prior post on how to cool your home and/or reduce electricity consumption last summer.
4. Homeowner's insurance will depend on if you are in an SFR vs attached condo. It will also depend on your policy limits any special add-ons like jewelry. Just look in the online yellow pages and call someone for a quote. That will be a more accurate estimate.
5. CA has a yearly licensing fee that is based on the value of the car.
See here. At some point you
may be required to add anti-smog equipment to your vehicle, but I don't know the details on that. Poke around on the DMV website to try to find it. As for insurance, you can check online with Geico for a sample quote. I would highly recommend getting the max amount of liability possible and adding uninsured coverage.
6. If you are in an SFR and love a green lawn, your water rates will kill you.
Here is the info on the water rates.
Do a google search for the Irvine city website. On it you will find a section called "New to Irvine." That will provide you with contact info for many of the basic services (trash, water, cable, etc.) that you will need, and you can better find out expense info for your situation.
