Cypress, CA Real Estate

Known these days as the town where Tiger Woods grew up and first started to play golf, Cypress is in the northern part of Orange County and can almost be considered more of a suburb of Los Angeles. Cypress was farm country, mostly sorghum and dairy farms, throughout most of the 1950’s, so it missed out on the first round of Orange County’s urbanization.

Originally called Dairy City (but known as “Moo City” to the locals) it took the name Cypress in 1957 as the dairies were starting to leave the area.

Along Katella and Valley View avenues, the city has set aside a large swath of land for a business park and has been particularly successful in attracting Japanese firms. These include, Mitsubishi Motors, Mitsubishi Electric and Matsushita Electric (Panasonic).

Yamaha, Sony, Fuji and Minolta which have offices or distribution centers here. Toy company Bandai set up its U.S. headquarters here in 1997. United Health care also has a major portion of its West Coast operations here. Near this section is the Los Alamitos Race Course (trotters and quarter horses). Residential tracts can be found above and below Katella.

Real estate options in Cypress consist mostly of single-family detached homes, condominiums and townhouses. Building of homes in Cypress peaked in the 1970’s, but new tracts are still being built where land is available.

Single-family homes throughout Cypress are almost equal parts three-and four-bedroom, with a good chunk of five or more bedrooms. Many homes are two-story. The Sorrento subdivision favors modem design with two-story stucco and tile roofs.

Most developments in Cypress built since the 1980’s have Home Owner’s Associations established to maintain common areas and enforce architectural and landscape standards, so all potential buyers should have a careful look at the CC&R’s as well as individual neighborhood rules and by-laws. Also, be sure to factor in monthly HOA dues.
Cypress is close to both the 405 and 605 freeways.

Children attend schools in several districts: Cypress Elementary, Garden Grove Unified, Los Alamitos Unified and Anaheim High School District. Several schools run year-round programs. A new junior-senior high school, The Oxford Academy (grades 7-12) opened in 1998. This unique public school stresses academics, offers no electives and requires students to wear uniforms. By maintaining small school enrollment and low class sizes, students have exceeded national and state averages on standardized tests.

Cypress College, a popular 2-year community college is located here, with some 14,000 students. The town is also close to California State University at Long Beach.