The challenge of buying for schools

[Anonymous]

Why not buy the property, raze the house, and build what you want? Complaining about the house makes no sense when you can rebuild to get what you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought that you were going to say that the challenge in buying a house for the schools is frequent re-zoning and the every-changing landscape of schools and how "good" they are in a certain area. You really have no guarantees for what kind of educational experience your kids are going to have when you buy a house and your kids are in public school.

How are you judging the quality of the schools? I wouldn't rely on great schools or other sources online. I'd talk to parents. That's not easy but definitely worth it if you are using that as a factor in buying a house. Those poorly regarded schools might actually be fine. For instance, some of the best elementary schools in our area are actually title 1 schools.

What makes you think parents know what’s going on? There are so many parents around here that are clueless when it comes to education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought that you were going to say that the challenge in buying a house for the schools is frequent re-zoning and the every-changing landscape of schools and how "good" they are in a certain area. You really have no guarantees for what kind of educational experience your kids are going to have when you buy a house and your kids are in public school.

How are you judging the quality of the schools? I wouldn't rely on great schools or other sources online. I'd talk to parents. That's not easy but definitely worth it if you are using that as a factor in buying a house. Those poorly regarded schools might actually be fine. For instance, some of the best elementary schools in our area are actually title 1 schools.

This is definitely an issue, we are dealing with it right now (redistricting proposals that would concentrate the highest needs kids in one city school with no additional support funding, instead of the current even distribution, so suburban kids don't have to deal with a split feeder). There is so much demographic change and overcrowding in schools around here, you can't predict redistricting boundaries and impacts.

That said, from all the teachers and parents I've talked to, the concern isn't really elementary school, it's middle and high, what curriculum options there are, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Posters obsess way, way too much about schools.

NP here - we moved homes because of the schools and we do not regret it one bit. Changing to a better/more highly regarded (and yes, highly rated) school has made a HUGE difference in our children's lives.

Demographics make the difference. We moved from a school with a very large low income/non-English speaking population two years ago. A lot of the the resources were spent on getting these children up to speed (as they should), but it meant that high SES families whose kids were struggling were basically ignored and had to look outside of the school for extra support. We had a job change and moved to a an area with a more uniform (high SES) population and my struggling child is now getting the support he needs. Now, some of this is because we're in a different school system, but I'm sure a lot of it is just because of where the resources are going.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like Howard County to me.
Near our jobs, great school system, great nature, planned communities! Seriously all great, except the housing stock (at least for us)

We found something that works, but I still lust after houses on redfin that are more to my taste.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not buy the property, raze the house, and build what you want? Complaining about the house makes no sense when you can rebuild to get what you want.

Not if what you want is a beautiful, well built house from the 1930s. It's like Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe's dress - it will never be the "same" as the real thing. Somethings can't be replicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not buy the property, raze the house, and build what you want? Complaining about the house makes no sense when you can rebuild to get what you want.

Not if what you want is a beautiful, well built house from the 1930s. It's like Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe's dress - it will never be the "same" as the real thing. Somethings can't be replicated.

So you want a house built during the Great Depression when house building came to a halt and took years and years to rebuild and didn’t really come back fill force until after the WWII?

[Anonymous]

I will check back in 10 years, when you will be stressing out about how competitive “this area” is, and how cut-throat your school and neighborhood are.

When only the BEST will do, you end up in dog-eat-dog environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not buy the property, raze the house, and build what you want? Complaining about the house makes no sense when you can rebuild to get what you want.

Not if what you want is a beautiful, well built house from the 1930s. It's like Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe's dress - it will never be the "same" as the real thing. Somethings can't be replicated.

So you want a house built during the Great Depression when house building came to a halt and took years and years to rebuild and didn’t really come back fill force until after the WWII? [/quote

Yep. There is a reason pre -war housing is priced at a premium.

[Anonymous]

I moved to a top pyramid, but the high school has adopted the same SGB nonsense as the old high school we were zoned for. So much can change, and it happens fast.

[Anonymous]

It isn’t going to matter soon because all of the schools will be equally bad.

[Anonymous]

Yeah OP we had that prob and brought in Del Ray but sending our kids to private that we love.

I do think it's a balance. We just like our neighborhood but I'm sure others would have compromised on public and not loving their residence ti make it work for the kids school.

I don't know how one does not want to love their home so I'm with you but people are def not all like us!

[Anonymous]

We moved to a specific district for the schools when we relocated out of state. We compromised on the house. Then the district turned out to be a bad fit for my kids (one academically and the other socially). We ended up in private school anyway. We are finally selling the house after nine years! I didn’t hate the house but it is not what I would have picked had the market not been so insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds to me like OP has been looking for a house in AU Park.

We have this issue. We want to send our kids to Janney but JFC the housing stock sucks IB. Even the renovated houses are horrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone else run into the following problem? We are currently house hunting and better schools are a top priority as we have young elementary kids and are currently very dissatisfied with our school options.

So we're mostly searching based on school boundaries. The problem is that we don't like the houses IB for these schools. It's not a price thing because we can well afford a good chunk of the homes within boundary. It's just we don't like what's there. And the issue isn't stuff like not big enough, or we want updated kitchens/baths. We are fine with a fixer-upper and have a pretty small family so flexible on space. It's more like the houses in boundary are ugly, if they are renovated their renovations are ugly, they have no charm.

I think part of the problem is that we are targeting some suburbs that have good housing stock situated around the historical town center of the suburb, and those homes feed into the least well-regarded school in the suburb, because it has the most economic diversity. And then the schools that people seem to like better are further out, with less economic diversity but also newer housing stock, which in this case means a lot of hideous homes built in the 80s and 90s, as well as massive new builds with some questionable design choices (charmless and, honestly, more house than we want).

We'd love a smaller older home closer to the town center, but then struggle to find anyone with good things to say about the schools (even among current families who would be motivated to praise). And since we're moving for schools as a primary motivator, this is a problem.

I feel like we're going to wind up in a home I really don't love just to get access to a school pyramid we're happy with, and then we'll just move as soon as the kids are done with high school so we can live in a house we actually like.

Does anyone else have this problem? Why is it so hard to find a house we love that is within a boundary for a school we love too?

Yes you’re describing Howard county. Some hideously ugly housing (mainly Columbia) but great schools.