Anonymous wrote:OP here - thank you all so much for these great suggestions! Please keep them coming.
Our IB school is Ross, however we would likely move from our 1 bedroom condo esp if (God willing) we have another kid and that may not be in the Ross area (as much as we love this area, it's so $$$). Which makes it tough to decide where on earth to move to when we have kid #2 without knowing which school kid #1 ends up going to. For that reason we were thinking to rent a slightly bigger place when/if kid #2 comes then see where kid #1 gets in before we buy a house where we'd stay put. Of course, assuming we'd like the school he's in and that it's not a charter that will move 2 years later! Augh!
You need to identify what schools you like, and constrain your real estate search based on where you are IB for a school you like and can both afford to rent and be likely to afford to buy.
My kid will be in preK in fall; we bought a year or so before he was born. Bought in a spot where we were comfortable with the IB school and other nearby schools (our place changed school boundaries between when we bought it and now).