Family friendly suburb in Silicon Valley? (Stanford: transplants, apartments, mortgage)

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by mja11

I didn't realize that there was a cap on budget to be considered 'polite' on this forum. I know now!

lol I'm not offended. I guess if I had 1.6 million dollars to spend on a house I would do so...just seems unnecessary. Get a 500,000 dollar house and spend the extra money on vacations.

[fashionguy]

I think he meant 300k is hard to find, not 1.6M.

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

Beg to differ.

A quick search on Yahoo Real Estate produces a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom single family house in San Jose for $468,888.

That's less than the half the price quoted.

Here is link...hopefully not considered a violation of TOS.

(and hopefully link works.)

I don't know why people on here are always quoting these crazy prices for housing, it's like people aren't even looking and just guessing.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by fashionguy

I think he meant 300k is hard to find, not 1.6M.

Yes.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by fashionguy

I think he meant 300k is hard to find, not 1.6M.

But 500k is in the range I was talking about.

In other words, it is not correct that 1.6 million dollars, or even 1 million dollars, is a normal price to pay for a four bedroom house.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

But 500k is in the range I was talking about.

In other wordsi, it is not correct that 1.6 million dollars, or even 1 million dollars, is a normal price to pay for a four bedroom house.

Uh, you mentioned 300K for a townhouse or condo. That's not going to be a good one unless it's really small or really old.

In response to your other comment about pricing, depends on what you're looking for and in what area. In areas with the better schools, you're going to have to pay top dollar. That house listing you've linked to, while affordable by area standards, is zoned for public school districts which aren't all that high performing. For example, Cupertino, Los Altos, Palo Alto, and parts of Mountain View, you gotta bring $1M or more.

Remember - the OP has 3 children so I'd imagine schooling is an important factor.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by silverkris

Uh, you mentioned 300K for a townhouse or condo. That's not going to be a good one unless it's really small or really old.

You're missing the point.

1.6M is over three times 500k.

300k and 500k, in the context of real estate prices, are congruent. In other words, they are both real estate properties that could potentially be attained by someone in the middle or upper middle class. 1.6 million is not.

So 500k is within the spirit and intent of my comment; at some point you reach "the point of diminishing returns" as the economists say.

In response to your other comment about pricing, depends on what you're looking for and in what area. In areas with the better schools, you're going to have to pay top dollar.

Nobody cares what elementary school someone goes to, dude. Nobody even really cares which university, these days. What matters is how much you've learned and how much experience you have, when you apply for jobs. Job descriptions don't say "must have attended a high performing elementary school", or "must have graduated from Stanford with a 4.0 GPA", but rather, they say, "BS and x years of experience required".

If you're a good programmer, Google will take you, whether you went to SJSU or Stanford, whether you went to a private elementary school or a public one. If you went to the best elementary school in the world, but you're not a great programmer, you won't get into Google. They don't look at your resume and say "oh, this person went to a poorly performing elementary school in a bad neighborhood in East San Jose, therefore we can't hire him, even though he can do circles around our senior guys in Java. We can't hold our heads up high in meetings with IBM if they know we hired such a person on their merit as a programmer, instead of what elementary school they went to as a child!"

Just look at Albert Einstein, he couldn't get into college on the first try. He had to go back and study. And no one would suggest he wasn't intelligent.

Now I'm not offended if you want to spend 1.6 million dollars for four bedrooms, since it is your money, more power to you, knock yourself out, but I still think it's a waste of money.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

Nobody cares what elementary school someone goes to, dude. Nobody even really cares which university, these days. What matters is how much you've learned and how much experience you have, when you apply for jobs. Job descriptions don't say "must have attended a high performing elementary school", or "must have graduated from Stanford with a 4.0 GPA", but rather, they say, "BS and x years of experience required".

If you're a good programmer, Google will take you, whether you went to SJSU or Stanford, whether you went to a private elementary school or a public one. If you went to the best elementary school in the world, but you're not a great programmer, you won't get into Google. They don't look at your resume and say "oh, this person went to a poorly performing elementary school in a bad neighborhood in East San Jose, therefore we can't hire him, even though he can do circles around our senior guys in Java. We can't hold our heads up high in meetings with IBM if they know we hired such a person on their merit as a programmer, instead of what elementary school they went to as a child!"

Just look at Albert Einstein, he couldn't get into college on the first try. He had to go back and study. And no one would suggest he wasn't intelligent.

Now I'm not offended if you want to spend 1.6 million dollars for four bedrooms, since it is your money, more power to you, knock yourself out, but I still think it's a waste of money.

You're reading waaay too much into my post, and it sounds like you don't have school age children. Who is talking about getting into a university or working for Cisco or Google based on their elementary school? Are you trying to be silly here? I have a school age kid and I don't think about that.

Look, parents want to have the best environment for their children. Schools aren't just about learning, they are also centerpieces for the kids' social life, recreation, etc. Who their peers and friends are also important. Will they fit in culturally in that neighborhood? Like it or not, that drives peoples' choices for neighborhoods and schools.

[otterprods]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

Nobody cares what elementary school someone goes to, dude.

Parents care. And often their extended families care too and pressure them to do everything they can to give their kids an edge. Many parents (esp. moms) live and die by greatschools.com these days, and think anything less than 5 stars is practically juvie.

I don't agree with them. I have kids and I want them to go to decent schools, but I think a low rated school could be ultimately better for a kid than a high rated one. You have to go there and talk to the teachers and other parents and maybe let them attend for a while. If it's not right for them, then switch, but most people (not just kids) can benefit greatly by facing some adversity and unpleasantness instead of always being given the best possible environment in life.

So overall, I agree with Neutrino, a $500-800K budget will get you into some pretty nice places. Why not just do that and save the other half to use in retirement, college, or whatever? But it's really none of my business. If you want a $1.6m house, buy a $1.6m house. I promise not to egg it.

[neutrino78x]

I'm posting from a mobile device so quoting is hard, I will do more proper replies when I get home v from work, lol. I I'm on the light rail using the free wifi. But anyway yeah I agree with otterpods, I was going to say something similar in that elementary and high school is more about social interaction than learning, thus they might do better in the poorly performing school anyway.but another factor I thought of is, op's mother would do better with the access to emergency services you get from the 500k house downtown as opposed to the 1.6m house out in the middle of nowhere, do gnats another thing to think about. Also you can always bus or drive your kids to the private school of your choice. :-) and no I don't have kids. :-)

[silverkris]

r

Originally Posted by otterprods

Parents care. And often their extended families care too and pressure them to do everything they can to give their kids an edge. Many parents (esp. moms) live and die by greatschools.com these days, and think anything less than 5 stars is practically juvie.

I don't agree with them. I have kids and I want them to go to decent schools, but I think a low rated school could be ultimately better for a kid than a high rated one. You have to go there and talk to the teachers and other parents and maybe let them attend for a while. If it's not right for them, then switch, but most people (not just kids) can benefit greatly by facing some adversity and unpleasantness instead of always being given the best possible environment in life.

So overall, I agree with Neutrino, a $500-800K budget will get you into some pretty nice places. Why not just do that and save the other half to use in retirement, college, or whatever? But it's really none of my business. If you want a $1.6m house, buy a $1.6m house. I promise not to egg it.

I do agree that there are some parents who won't take anything less than a 900 API score for a school - which does drive the real estate market to an extreme degree, which is silly. And the undue reliance on GreatSchools.net isn't really healthy. Schools should be a fit with the teachers, culture, environment, etc., it's more than test scores. Some kids aren't going to thrive in a hyper competitive environment such as a Palo Alto or Cupertino school district. I know in Fremont there are kids who will transfer to Irvington High (when they live in the zone for Mission San Jose, which is the so-called top-rated HS but has a hypercompetitive, traditional college prep atmosphere).

However, I'm not sure if I'd necessarily advocate going to a "low rated" school that draws from a low income demographic, because a lot of times, these schools may not have the resources than can enhance the learning experience. Or they can't draw upon parent communities to fund raise as much - sad as it is. Or there are safety factors involved. It's all a matter of degree.

That said, there are some very decent performing schools that might be surprising. For example, Braly and Bowers Elementary Schools in Santa Clara have APIs in the 800s despite having a fair number of low income students.