Fountain Valley, CA Real Estate

A classic bedroom community, Fountain Valley is a residential area in the center of Orange County. Money Magazine recently named Fountain Valley to its list of 100 Best Small Cities to Live In (Irvine was the only other Orange County city to make the list!)

The city was incorporated in 1957, before which it was known as Talbert (and before that, Gospel Swamps). The name of Fountain Valley refers to the very high water table in the area at the time the name was chosen, and the many corresponding artesian wells in the area.

Fountain Valley was farm land until the 1960s, when construction of large housing tracts accelerated. Unlike many suburban cities that grew quickly, Fountain Valley had a master plan in place before the builders arrived, so the city escaped much of the haphazard development of other suburbs.

Fountain Valley is home to Mile Square Regional Park, a 640 acre park containing two lakes, three 18-hole golf courses, playing fields, picnic areas, and a twenty-acre urban nature area planted with California native plants, a recreation center with tennis courts, basketball courts, racquetball courts, and a gymnasium.

Approximately seventy-five percent of the housing is single-family residential, thirteen percent condominiums, and twelve percent is apartments. Shopping centers and elementary schools are within walking distance from each residential neighborhood. A unique development in Fountain Valley is the Los Caballeros Sports Village, a combination of sports club, office complex and 300 condo units.

Fountain Valley is home to D-Link Corporation, the U.S. headquarters of Hyundai Motor Company, and the global headquarters of memory chip manufacturer Kingston Technologies.

There are three high schools, Fountain Valley and Valley Vista, which are in the Huntington Beach school district and Los Amigos, in the Garden Grove district. There are three middle schools, nine elementary schools, one K-12 school, and two K-8 schools.
Fountain Valley is also home to Coastline Community College and a campus of the University of Phoenix.

The 405 Freeway runs through Fountain Valley, making it an easy commute to and from South Orange County, Long Beach and the Westside of Los Angeles. Fountain Valley is about equidistant (via the 405 Freeway) from John Wayne Airport and the Long Beach Airport.