Taking the lead in home sales during the first quarter of the year is EastLake, a master-planned community in its 15th year of residential development in eastern Chula Vista.

In the first three-months of this year, 214 new home sales were recorded in EastLake. Add the sales figures for April, and the total new home sales during the first four months of 2001 reaches 322.

Sales at EastLake are outpacing other new home communities in the area by as much as 25 percent, according to recent monthly and quarterly sales reports compiled for EastLake and other area builders including Otay Ranch, Rolling Hills Ranch, Sunbow and Lomas Verdes.

A wide variety of home products and sweeping range of prices has kept EastLake ahead of others, said Bill Ostrem, president and CEO The EastLake Company, developer of the 3,200-acre master-planned community west of Otay Lakes.

In EastLake Trails, homes sales were logged in six neighborhoods, including single-family detached homes being built by Continental, Cornerstone Communities, Fieldstone Communities, KB Home and Shea Homes. Prices for this phase of the 1,143-residential unit neighborhood start in the high $100,000s and top at the low $400,000s.

Also selling at a brisk rate are the attached homes of Antigua in EastLake Greens, an affordable housing project being built by Western Pacific, priced from the low $130,000s. The 252 condominiums range from 1,139 to 1,525 square feet and offer two and three bedrooms and up to two-and-a-half bathrooms.

“This project is unique because it is a ‘for sale’ opportunity for first-time homebuyers, said Ostrem. “It is an excellent example of how a developer and city can work together to meet a community’s affordable housing needs.”

Overall, South County’s new home market continues to post strong sales reflecting San Diego County residents’ continuing demand, said Ostrem, who has been with the EastLake Co. since 1989. Then, he was project manager for one of the community’s first successful projects, EastLake Greens, an 854-acre neighborhood of 2,600 homes built around a Ted Robinson-designed golf course.

For 15 years, EastLake has blazed new trails in the southeastern reaches of the County. When it all began in 1985, EastLake was the first master-planned development south of Interstate 8.

Today, EastLake is a vibrant neighborhood that is home to more than 10,000 residents and boasts four schools, eight neighborhood parks, swimming pools and rec centers, lakes, miles of trails and an 18-hole championship golf course.

Ostrem says the demand for housing in South County has never been so strong. He attributes the sales to the outstanding value and enjoyable lifestyle available to those who live in the area.

The average home in EastLake Trails has four bedrooms and is 2,600 square feet, priced in the high- $200,000s. Residents also enjoy private swim and recreational facilities as well as large public parks and hundreds of acres of open space.

For four consecutive years, local newspaper readers voted EastLake as the Best New Home Community in San Diego County, explained Ostrem.

“Concerts in the park, top schools, fishing, boating and recreational opportunities all over the place are some of the amenities that local voters mentioned as reasons why EastLake is the top spot to live,” he said.

Ostrem anticipates this strong new home sales trend to continue for the next five years, especially in the area’s emerging high-end market.

“High-end home buyers of the past decades,” Ostrem says, “have been attracted primarily to North County and coastal communities. But more and more $500,000, $750,000 and even $1 million homes are being built in South County as buyers are becoming aware of the exceptional values offered in this burgeoning region.”

In additional to 11,000 residents, EastLake also is home to corporate, retail and commercial businesses.

EastLake Business Center, 203 acres of continuous land, includes a seven-acre employee park, with amenities such as a rec and fitness center with softball, soccer, basketball and volleyball area, restrooms and locker facilities, picnic area and a par course.

The first phase of the business center is now complete and is occupied by UPS, U.S. Post Office and others. EastLake Business Center II is an 88-acre business park catering to corporate headquarters such as Leviton, a New York-based electronic component manufacturing firm that recently relocated and expanded its regional headquarters from Otay Mesa into a new $10 million headquarters.

As more and more major employers put roots in South County, including Otay Mesa and the maquiladora district across the border, the demand for close-by housing also increases.

The completion of the long-planned $320 million extension of State Highway 125, conceived as an inland route paralleling I-805 from Highway 54 to the U.S.-Mexico border, is expected to further establish the South County regional as an attractive and viable business region.

EastLake will celebrate its 15th anniversary this summer and has developed more than half of its planned community. At completion of its 25-year development program in 2010, EastLake will have 22,000 residents and include a wide range of housing types, as well as commercial developments and retail centers, recreational facilities and additional schools and private-public facilities.

For directions or more information about EastLake, call or visit the HomeFinding Center at (619) 421-3111 or log on to www.eastlake.net. To visit, take I-805 to Telegraph Canyon Road and go east and follow the signs to EastLake.