All Forum Posts by: Kristi Kautz

@Marc Castleman if you need a painter, Russel Waldron @ RW Painting is awesome.

@Safora Nowrouzi - As far as I know, there is no vacant land that's grandfathered in for hauled water. Only existing houses that already had hauled water at the time of the ban being passed are able to be grandfathered in. 

Hi all! I would recommend doing some searches for other forum posts on the topic using keywords... a lot of this has already been discussed at length in other posts. 

@Megan Wilford The price of hauled water is $140/2500 gallon load, $280 for 5000 gallons; however, from my understanding, in order to be able to use hauled water, a property must be grandfathered in.

@John D. - LOL, I'm pretty sure the county figured this out because of us! They kept insisting that we had to build a covered parking structure, so finally we had my husband's mom look up the code (she's a land use lawyer), and I sent the code snippet to the county, and they were like... oh yeah, you're right. Too funny. Good to hear they're not giving other people the trouble they gave us about the covered parking!

@Michael Haas I have no idea what YoY appreciation Joshua Tree has seen as a whole, but would be curious to know this too! Do you mean for real estate in general, or for the Airbnb market? How might we find these sorts of numbers? Is this shown through Airdna? I had an account about 3 years ago, but I canceled it, and I believe they charge you a separate fee for each different town/neighborhood, so we only purchased the one for Yucca Valley. 

@Pavel Nganpi - I don't know much about 29 Palms and how deep the water basin is there (which will determine how expensive it will be to drill a well)... I tend to avoid 29 Palms because I heard rumors that they're trying to implement Airbnb restrictions (like how many Airbnbs can operate in a neighborhood, etc.). But I've heard the cost of drilling a well can be anywhere from $30k-$50k and upwards. But it all depends on your water basin. I'd recommend calling local well drilling companies and they can give you a better idea. You can also call Southwest Groundwater Surveys (800-394-6207) and schedule a sonar test to get a more accurate quote. It's expensive, but worth it during the escrow process to make sure there's enough water available under your land.  

Just chiming in to say that all of what @John D. said seems accurate to me, except High Desert Water District quoted us $50-$100 per foot (they said the cost just depends... on what, they couldn't tell me). Another friend said she was quoted $100/ft but I'm not sure which water company that was from. For electric, everything he said sounds right from what I've heard, although you can't just call and get pricing info from Edison. You can only find out what it will cost once you're in the process of getting it set up, which I'll be doing for the first time sometime this year, so I'll def update when I find out for sure. For septic, yes, you need a septic system UNLESS you live in the town of yucca valley - those residents are being forced to pay to have the new sewer system installed for their property. Also, just wanted to suggest maybe doing a search on BP for all of the previous posts/comments about the area and reading those. A lot of these topics have already been covered in other posts, some by me.  

@ELAINE ASADA Not sure how I missed this message, but I’m just seeing it. Sorry for the delay! How did it go with your offer? We also put an offer on a house with hauled water only a few weeks ago...I wonder if it was the same one! Was it on Valley Vista Rd? Because of that offer, I now know A LOT about hauled water, and can share all of that info if you still need it. I also know a lot about drilling wells. Almost too much. Lol. On that particular property, it was unlikely that a well would be possible. But I eventually decided that hauled water isn’t that big of a deal. I can elaborate more on that decision if you’d find it helpful. Why don’t you DM me and let me know what questions you still have, and I’ll try my best to answer them!

FYI, thought I'd drop this here for others who are trying to determine if their property is in:

• The Town of Yucca Valley: (stricter, faster to get permits, more organized, will likely have to pay to have your property connected to the new sewage system), or...
• Unincorporated / San Bernardino County: (less strict, less organized, slower to get permits, not part of the new sewage system plan). 

So HERE IS A MAP... if you're within the green area, you're Town of Yucca Valley... outside of the green area, you're unincorporated.