Sunday, December 22, 2013

Review bayarea housing and public schools

As a first time buyer, it is worthwhile to read some books considering how much time one needs to work to pay off the house:
http://alturl.com/kd5kv。

Doesn't matter which agent you talked to, the top school districts on the list are:
Mission San Jose in Fremont, Monta Visa in Cupertino, Gunn Hign and Palo Alto high in Palo Alto.

But mine is a little different:
Palo Alto high, Los Altos, Homestead high, Laurelwood district, then Irvington district.

If money is not the problem, Palo Alto high district is nice and not too far to most of companies.

For the same price in Los Altos, one may have a bigger house, similar commute as in Palo Alto. People may argue that the Los Altos school is not as good as schools in Palo Alto. It is true today, but it is changing. After google co-founder Sergey moved to this area, it spends more money in the community to foster the education systems. You can see the news to find more details: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_24730190/mini-exploratorium-opens-los-altos and http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/12/how-one-hour-of-code-can-launch-an-entire-computer-science-program/. It has very good potential.

Homestead high in 94087 area is very convenient for commute, easy access to freeway and caltrain. The school is becoming better and better.  It is very close to target, and wholefood. There are a few parks in the area.

Same for Laurelwood district, it is just so convenient both for working people and old people. It has a lot of preschools and after schools in the area. Both the elementary school and middle school are in walking distance. One can easily walk to chinese grocery store, korean store, indian store, safeway. Millinkin is around the area too. Once Millinkin becomes a neighborhood school, Peterson middle school will jump to better, same to the high school.

If one wants to save money and sacrifice for a little commute, Irvington is a better choice. The house price is much cheaper and the school district becomes better. It has bart station too.


2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Yes. As there was overflow in Mission San Jose, the school boundary was reset and Irvington became better since then. :P

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