Anyone know anything about Cerritos, CA?

[ha98ed14]

Areas/ neighborhoods you love (with houses less than 500K)? Any parts to avoid? Are the schools any good? I know nothing about the city. We were just there for a birthday party and the part we were in near Heritage Park seemed really nice. TIA for any replies!

[maestramommy]

Whoa, what a blast from the past. My ex is from Cerritos:p From what I've heard, it's okay, but La Mirada is better.

[ha98ed14]

That's funny because I live one town east of La Mirada and I think Cerritos feels so much nicer. La Mirada shares a school district with Norwalk, which has a lot of issues. But I don't know about Cerritos schools. That's what I was hoping find out...

[ged]

I grew up in Cerritos. From my understanding, the schools are good to excellent. I attended Whitney High School, which is a public magnet (entrance based upon an exam score) and typicallly does very well in nationwide scorecards.

I don't know what the market is for homes, but I don't think you can get a whole lot for under 500,000. I thought Cerritos was nicer than LaMirada, but I probably just assumed that and wouldn't know for sure.

Cerritos has a large population of minorities (Chinese, Korean, Indian, etc), has some nice parks (like Heritage), a great library, public pools, shopping options, etc. There is a Performing Arts Center which gets some decent performances, I believe, and it has a farmers market on Saturdays. It is not a large city, but managed well.

It is shaped geographically like the letter "U", and in the middle portion is the city of Artesia. The homes are much cheaper, schools are not a good, but there are many who buy there still (I think?), build big homes and try to get into Cerritos schools.

Growing up in Cerritos, we were very focused on education/college. I would say the schools are its best asset. After all my friends and I went away to college, we loved coming back home to visit. Several of my friends have permanently moved back to Cerritos to raise their young families. It's quite suburban, but you are not far from the beaches, and LA. Hope that helps a little.