About the Temecula and Murrieta Real Estate Market
 

Construction within current city limits began in the 1970s. About 1400 units were built, and in the 1980s the builders built about 9000 units. Development this fast almost always stirs local misgivings. In 1989, residents incorporated the town into a legal city, named it Temecula, and through their city council, took over planning. The name ?Rancho California? is still applied to the land east of the city. 

In the 1990s, the new city erected about 6300 units and it is still building. Also, the county government outside the city limits is still building. Everyone knows the region is going to grow, but arguments abound over the pace and density of the housing and its effects on local traffic. The state in 2000 counted 18,534 housing units, of which 14,287 were single detached homes, 186 single attached, 3785 apartments, and 276 mobile homes. 

So far, this is a typical farm-town-suburbia story, and much of Temecula follows this vein. The tract housing runs to standard suburban models found throughout Riverside County and Southern California. But Temecula, in other aspects, did not follow the everyday script. 

The center of town retained its history in the form of large ranchettes built over a wide mesa. The homes form a ring along Via Norte Avenue, and inside the ring there is a good deal of open space to gallop the horses. On the south side, along Ynez Road and Portola Road, more horse ranches can be found as well as homes that in the style and quality fall into the category of the artistic, the large, and the well appointed. Outside city limits on the east side, the horse ranches continue, encouraged probably by a large practice track called Galway Downs. 

Horses are not just a minor hobby with Temecula. They are part of why people move there and why they fight to keep the housing from intruding on the open space. Mixed with the ranches on the east side are about 15 wineries--the Temecula wine country, vineyards marching over gentle hills. Wine and horses ?up goes the market! 

Although Temecula has built housing for the middle class, a fair portion eases into the upper-middle brackets, two stories, four and five bedrooms. The developments follow a master plan: bringing schools and parks with the housing. Much of the housing is nicely done, in a suburban way. The setting is lovely, hills and valleys and mesas, bordered on the south and the west by hills and mountains. Temecula is built on a high plain that bumps and rolls between the Santa Ana Mountains and the San Jacinto Mountains. It has a definite feel of the high country but is only about 30 to 40 miles from the Pacific. Ocean breezes take the edge off the summer heat (but it does get hot). For much of the year, the weather falls into the range of balmy. Put the package together and you come up with a town that is attracting many professionals with demographics that say high scores, low crime.