At Home : Affordable Orange County Homes Where Orange Groves Once Stood : Garden Grove: Large homes and lower prices draw people to this community that boasts a rich cultural mix.
When Louise Penn moved to Garden Grove from North Hollywood in 1960, she thought she’d been transplanted to the boondocks. “I felt totally disconnected from civilization,” said Penn, 54. “There was only one department store and market. We even lived next to a dairy farm.”
But Penn soon grew comfortable in Garden Grove. So much so, in fact, that she has lived there for the last 34 years.
The first home Penn and her late husband bought in 1960 was a three-bedroom, two-bath starter that cost $17,100. The Penns and their twin daughters lived there until 1970, when Penn, who had become a real estate agent, found the “perfect” house in another Garden Grove neighborhood.
Penn had fallen in love with a custom-built 2,400-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath house. “The house was in a pretty, quiet neighborhood on a spacious lot, which gave us privacy and space, and that really appealed to me,” said Penn, who bought the house for $34,000. She still lives in the home and is now an executive officer with the West Orange County Assn. of Realtors.
This middle-class central Orange County city, which is known for its ethnic diversity, has a population of 143,000. It is bounded roughly by Katella Avenue on the north, Los Alamitos Air Station on the west, Hazard Avenue on the south and Lewis Street near the city’s landmark Crystal Cathedral on the east. Crossing the city’s southern end is the Garden Grove (22) Freeway.
Over the years, Garden Grove’s large homes and lots have attracted many buyers, says Dave Meier, a realtor at ERA Duncan in Garden Grove and 1993 president of the West Orange County Assn. of Realtors. “In Garden Grove you get a lot more home for your dollar than you do in other areas of Orange County,” he said.
Not only are Garden Grove homes and lots large, the prices are lower than in surrounding areas, which mystifies Meier and others in the real estate business. “Prices have always been lower in Garden Grove, and I’ve never really understood why,” Meier said.
The average home in Garden Grove costs between $175,000 and $200,000 and is 1,400 to 2,000 square feet with four bedrooms and 1 3/4 baths, Meier said.
In the lower price range there are 1,000- to 1,400-square-foot homes for $145,000 to $165,000, which generally have three bedrooms and one or 1 1/2 bathrooms.
At the upper end, there are a few homes in the $400,000 to $550,000 range, which are usually on acre lots, Meier said. “These homes are about 3,000 square feet with three to four bedrooms and three or more bathrooms,” Meier said.
Samuel and Josephine Perez found the affordable prices of Garden Grove homes especially appealing when they went looking for a house 13 years ago.
“The house was a good price and it was big enough for my family,” said Perez, 40, a mechanic. “I also liked the fact that the area was clean and quiet, and it’s still that way.”
Perez bought his three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath home in 1981 for $93,000. The house is on a large lot, which gives his three sons and daughter plenty of room to play. He also has a garage where he is able to teach his boys how to fix cars.
Affordability was also a big consideration when Thomas Bonetati went house-hunting last year. He found what he wanted in Garden Grove. His 1,600-square-foot, three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath townhouse cost him $138,900.
“I’m now paying less to own than I did to rent in Irvine, and I’ve been really pleased with the savings,” said Bonetati, 26, who is a computer systems salesperson. “The house has needed some work, including new plumbing in the bathrooms and new flooring, but I’ve been really happy with it.”
Bonetati has found Garden Grove to be a “really nice town. The area is safe and my neighbors are nice,” he said. “It is also conveniently located to other parts of the county.”
Although Dwight and Pamela Apodac hadn’t thought much about moving from their Santa Ana condo, they soon found themselves relocating to Garden Grove after they saw a house and floor plan they liked.
“Pamela saw a house down the street from the house we ended up buying and couldn’t stop raving about it,” said Dwight Apodac, 34, a quality assurance director in the aerospace industry. So, on Pamela’s birthday, Dwight did some number crunching and told her since she liked the house so much, he’d be willing to move.
In February, the Apodacs moved from their condo to a three-bedroom, two-bath house in Garden Grove with a large yard. They paid $148,000.
Pamela Apodac, 35, who is a secretary in the aerospace industry, said she has found her new neighborhood to be “safe and homey. Our first night here we were unpacking very late and a member of the Neighborhood Watch came to check up on us,” she said. “That was a welcome sight.”
Besides large homes and affordable prices, Garden Grove also offers something that many residents find attractive--ethnic diversity. The area has a rich cultural mix, as census figures show. Almost 20% of the city’s population is Asian; 23.5% is Latino.
Although many people mistakenly think that Little Saigon, the well-known Vietnamese shopping and residential area, is located in Garden Grove, it is actually in Westminster. However, Garden Grove does have its own ethnic area.
Known as Korea Town, this self-contained shopping area on Garden Grove Boulevard has Korean restaurants and a wide variety of stores and services.
Korea Town is now a bustling shopping area, but in the 1970s the four-mile-long area was rundown, said Gina Ruebsamen, who is owner of ERA Champion Realty in Korea Town.
“In the early part of 1978, a few Koreans started businesses on Garden Grove Boulevard,” she said. “After that shops slowly began to open up. Today there are over 500 Korean businesses in Korea Town. It has the second largest concentration of Korean businesses in the state, second only to Los Angeles.”
Sunny Chung moved to Garden Grove in 1981 and bought B&J; Home Center in Korea Town in 1985. One of his favorite aspects of Garden Grove is the large Korean population and the bridge he feels it gives him between Korea and America.
“I am a first-generation Korean and being able to relate with other Koreans has helped me adjust to life here,” said Chung, 47.
Eight years ago, Chung and his wife, Misook, 38, bought a house near his business for $150,000. The three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath house sits on a 9,000-square-foot lot, which gives them room for a swimming pool and fruit trees.
The Chungs are pleased with the school district that their twin boys attend and are happy with the cultural diversity their sons experience. “It is good for them to be exposed to many different cultures, because we all have to learn to get along better,” Chung said.
Other longtime residents such as Clara and Richard Watson also find Garden Grove’s cultural opportunities and ethnic diversity very stimulating. More stimulating, in fact, than exotic overseas locations.
“We just took a trip to Portugal and my husband commented that Garden Grove seems to have a greater variety of culture,” said Clara Watson, 59, who is a real estate agent with Tarbell Realtors in Anaheim. “It was amazing that we could travel so far away and actually have a more exciting time right here at home.”
The Watsons--he’s a college professor--bought their first Garden Grove home in 1969 for $17,500. In 1978 they needed a bigger home for themselves and their two daughters, so they moved to their present home. The five-bedroom, three-bath home cost $141,500.
Back in the early 1970s, Watson says that Garden Grove looked a lot different. “When we first moved here, there was a lot more open space, many orange groves and less people,” she said. “Today the orange groves have disappeared and have been replaced with people.”
The presence of many trees, orange and otherwise, can be attributed to the city’s founding father, a physician named Alonzo Cook, who bought 160 acres in the area for $15 an acre in 1874. He suggested calling the town Garden Grove. Some residents objected to the name, however, because of the community’s empty terrain, so he said they could make the name appropriate by beautifying the area with a lot of trees.
Garden Grove became a quiet farming community, which experienced some growth in 1905 when the Pacific Electric railroad came to town and brought in settlers. In 1956, Garden Grove became incorporated and slowly began to grow.
Although Garden Grove was much smaller population-wise when the Watsons moved in, Clara says that oddly enough she feels the city is a much more cohesive unit today.
“There wasn’t a sense of community back then,” she says. “The area was much more rural. Now I feel a stronger sense of Garden Grove as a city. The local government is very much in touch with the citizens and responsive. There is also a strong sense of unity; people look out for one another in a neighborly way.”
Garden Grove Home Sale Data
Sample Size: 8,401 (for 10-year period)
Ave. home size: 1,367 (square feet):
Ave. Year Built: 1955
Ave. No. Bedrms: 3.15
Ave. No. Baths: 1.79
Pool: 15%
View homes: 3%
Central air: 5%
Floodzone: 60%
Price Range: $85,000-$315,000 (1993-94):
Predominant Value: $161,000
Age Range: 7-94 years
Predominant Age: 40 years
*
Average Sales Data
Year Total $ per Median Sales sq. ft. price 1994* 245 $119.12 $160,159 1993 531 $123.74 $167,573 1992 620 $133.07 $180,359 1991 681 $138.55 $183,699 1990 717 $141.96 $187,087 1989 1,028 $137.01 $182,161 1988 1,378 $114.64 $153,623 1987 1,264 $95.32 $128,100 1986 1,104 $86.17 $115,356 1985 833 $79.21 $106,999
*1994 data current through April.
Source: TRW Redi Property Data, Riverside
At a Glance
Population
1994 estimate: 146,357
1980-90 change: 16.3%
Annual income
Per capita: 14,189
Median household: 39,616
Household distribution
Less than $30,000: 29.5%
$30,000 - $60,000: 41.2%
$60,000 - $100,000: 24.1%
$100,000 - $150,000: 4.4%
$150,000 + 0.8%
