Mission Viejo, CA Real Estate

Mission Viejo

Mission Viejo is located in southern Orange County, California in the Saddleback Valley and has been named the safest city in the US according to a 2007 crime statistic survey compiled from FBI data. Mission Viejo is one of the largest master planned communities ever built under a single project in the United States. The city is mainly residential, although there are a number of offices and businesses within its city limits. The city is planned and features a very large number of single-family homes, some condominiums, a two-year community college, and a regional mall.

The city's name is a reference to Rancho Mission Viejo, a large Spanish land grant from which the community was founded, although there never was a Spanish mission in what is now Mission Viejo!

Recreational activities abound; the city has numerous parks; there are about two per square mile. The city has three golf courses, The Mission Viejo Country Club, Casta del Sol Golf Course, and the recently finished Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club. At the center of the city is a man-made lake, Lake Mission Viejo, a private association for Mission Viejo residents with custom waterfront homes, condominiums, boat rentals, and swim beaches.
Early developers in the 1960s dismissed most of the land in the area as simply "undevelopable", but a master plan which placed roads in the valleys and houses on the hills, and contoured to the geography of the area was eventually drawn up. The plan worked, and by 1980 much of the city of Mission Viejo was completed. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, houses in Mission Viejo were in such high demand that housing tracts often sold out before construction even began on them. The houses and shopping centers in the city are almost uniformly designed in a Spanish mission style, with "adobe"-like stucco walls and barrel-tile roofs.

Mission Viejo real estate is a mixed bag: one-bedroom apartments to mansions, with the predominant size being three-bedroom. About 39% of the housing is 3-bedroom, 26% is 4-bedroom and 23% two-bedroom. The earlier homes were built with wood shingles, which are no longer allowed. Newer homes have tile roofs. There are a few gated communities, some aimed at seniors.

In the northern portion of Mission Viejo, a 150-acre artificial lake was constructed in the early 1980’s, Lake Mission Viejo. Lakefront homes are available and there is an active yacht club at the lake. Fishing and boat rentals are also available. All residents can belong to the Lake Association.

Mission Viejo is served by two school districts, the Capistrano Unified and Saddleback Valley Unified School Districts. Saddleback College is a large two-year community college. In addition, the University of California, Irvine, Chapman University and Soka University of America are nearby.

Mission Viejo has a major youth athletic facility, Mission Viejo Youth Athletic Park. The park consists of eight baseball fields and five soccer fields. The Mission Viejo Nadadores swimming and diving team won a string of national championships and produced a number of Olympians and world record holders in the 1970s and 1980s.

Interstate 5 runs through Mission Viejo; the 73 Toll Road joins I-5 at the south end of Mission Viejo and there are plans to extend the 241 Toll Road across the eastern side of Mission Viejo, to join the 5 Freeway in San Clemente.

The Mission Viejo Mall was recently renovated and features stores such as Macy’s, Nordstrom and Sax Fifth Avenue. Mission Viejo is one of the few cities in the OC with its own radio station, KSBR, a smooth jazz station with local news and public affairs programming.