PORTOLA HILLS LIVING by Kelly Turbeville

I wrote an article earlier in the week about the Highest Priced Homes sold Year-to-Date in Lake Forest and wanted to share with my Portola Hills peeps a bit of the details.. I pulled a pretty basic search out of the MLS, homes sold over $900k in Lake Forest.  I was actually pretty surprised by the results.. Where was Foothill Ranch?   What about the homes sold around the Lake??  All good questions if you are familiar with the area...  The biggest surprise was highest share of homes sold for over $1 million were in Baker Ranch with Portola Hills coming in 2nd. Below is a look at homes sold. Lake Forest YTD Most expensive homes sold Baker Ranch is a lovely new community.  NEW is the key!  We all love to look at new homes; when you walk in you feel refreshed, inspired, wowed, etc.  Does that feeling account for a 17% increase in the price per square foot?  Obviously as this report suggest 6 of the homes sold were in Baker Ranch.  As well, overall in Orange County we find 2

I was looking for properties for a new buyers in Portola Hills recently and was a bit amazed that more weren't showing up. As I expanded my search I came across several homes that were listed in the wrong city. Wrong city you say, how could this be? In the example of Portola Hills this may happen because the area use to be part of the unicoroprated area of Trabuco Canyon. However, Portola Hills was annexed into the city of Lake Forest in 2000. This is a perfect example of why home sellers want to hire an agent who is active in their community and understand both the area, title requirements and mls requirements. First if you live in the Portola Hills, you understand all the benefits of the area and this is what you need sell! Second there are specific requirements about how your title will be held and the correct city is a major requirement. If you don't want delays in your escrow closing, your agent and the buying agent needs to make sure this is correct. Third, MLS requireme