Bay Area: good neighborhoods for families in 2020
Budget is 1.7m assuming 20% down. TC 550k Passive income: 50k/year from rentals Wife and I are shopping around for a home here in the Bay Area (South Bay/Penninsula) and are looking to pull the trigger in 2020. There seems to be a very clear coorelation between school rating and housing costs. My quesion to everyone on here is, how much emphasis should I give to school ratings? For example: if I am in a neighborhood with 7/8 out of 10 schools, how much of an impact will it have on my children compared to a situation where I send them to a 9/10 out of 10 school? I am seeing beautiful homes in newer neighborhoods at attractive prices, but schools are 7/8 out of 10. On the other hand, homes in my price range that are assigned schools with 9/10 out of 10 rating are much older and smaller (both sq. footage and lot size). The most valuable input would be those who have done their research on how schools are rated and for those who have sent their kids to both 7/8 and 9/10 out of 10 schools. #schools #housing
What areas have you shortlisted? Where did you see new homes? Why not east bay? Apple has buses from East bay.
For 9/10 out of 10 schools, I’ve scoured Cupertino, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View, Lost Gatos For 7/8 out of 10, I’ve scoured West San Jose, Willow Glen, Campbell. I really don’t want to use a commute shuttle I like being physically close to work where my commute time is never so bad, even under poor traffic conditions.
I really doubt you get anything really good in Cupertino, MTV and Los Gatos for 1.7m with 10/10 schools .. unless you are looking at townhouses or very old houses.
Parts of san mateo maybe? Budget is low for a fam friendly Burlingame, belmont, hillsborough etc
MV, Saratoga and Sunnyvale
Fremont seems a nice option, you will get 10/10 schools and a decent price compared to main Bay. Booming city.
Agreed. Fremont is the best bang for your buck especially in Mission San Jose. The high school there is like top 10 in the state.
Yeah commute from Fremont to South Bay/Peninsula is crazy during rush hour though, 237 gets choked.
How old are your kids? 1.7M is tight but you can find something in Saratoga bordering Campbell. Close to Apple, beautiful neighborhood with large lots, Elementary schools are excellent (9), middle and high are 8 and improving. Ideal budget is 2M. I did not hear good things about Cupertino high schools recently as they are pressure cookers and in the end universities pick only few students from each public school. If the student is good, it is a whole lot better to go to 8 rated school and be in top 10 than suffer in a 10 rated school and feel depressed.
6 and 4. I’ve looked in that area but was never sure of the neighborhood - I will take a closer look at it.
Forest Hill Elementary and Marshall Lane elementary are top rated schools.
Not in the bay area, but I have some insight on schools. 7-10/10 are pretty much the same in terms of academic performance. The ratings are weighed on other criterias such as equality, income gap students, etc. Research a bit more into the details of each schools and how they got their rating and you'll see what I mean. Also, look at demographics within the schools to see the demographics of that neighborhood. This was important for me as I am a minority and I didnt want my kid to be the only minority kid in the school.
Any sites that can share demographics of the neighborhood ?
City-data.com Wikipedia for that city Local city websites usually have demographics info Greatschhol also has list of demographics info Census Etc
Damn! did you just pull the trigger on that awesome house today?
How are you making $50k in passive income?
As other mentioned 7/8 and 10 depends on other factor like equity etc as well. If you want school more inclined toward academic performance, target 10/10 which will mostly be Cupertino , Fremont etc. But if you are looking more balance approach for schooling you can explore Cambrian park area close to Los gatos. School have good diversity and multiple programs for kids enrichment both in STEM and art. It is convenient to drive for Apple office in Cupertino (lot of apple folks around here) and 1.7m is good budget to have really nice SFH.
Yea I think I need to get a better understanding of school ratings and really focus on what I think is best for my children.
Also you might want to look at elementary and middle school for now. For high school you can change later as you will have around 8 years. so 7/1 ARM mortgage for lowest interest and then upgrade to another house.
Dont buy this year.next year after election it might go down
Been saying the same thing. If warren gets elected u know shit is going to hit the fan in the markets
If the markets tank people may flock to real estate..