Would you be willing to sell your house and rent until you find something "buy" worthy to get into your preferred school district? Currently we are about 30 minutes (and a county) away from where we want DDs to go to school. Unfortunately houses are hard to come buy in our price range (either way too low/fixer uppers or about 50K over out budget, people in our same walk of life aren't moving frequently!) So we are considering renting for a year or so until we find something. It seems like taking a step back but it's more important to us for her to be in the right kindergarten class than to miss out on a year of ownership. Is this a sacrifice you'd be willing to take?
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Absolutely! We almost had to do that, but we were able to sell our house and move in with our in-laws while we found a house in the area we wanted.
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Yup. It was really important to me that LO start kindergarten where she will hopefully go to school through high school.
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For sure! I didn't go to good schools growing up and I feel ripped off (my immature way of saying it affected my life), so I personally feel top schools are of utmost importance.
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I definitely would.
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I'm not sure I would for kindergarten- partly because if you are renting you are tied to a lease but if you just keep looking you can move a bit easier (depending on the market). And I don't think switching during kindergarten or between K and 1st grade would be that bad.
But, we are planning to go from owning to renting this year. We need more space and will be moving out of the city probably, but if we can wait a few more years we'll be able to buy a house we want to stay in for a long time in a great school district, where if we bought this summer it would either be too small of a house or not as good schools.
So the extra move would hold me back from your plan, not the owning-renting- owning thing.
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For me it depends what kind of leap you would take. Like if the schools are substantially better and money wise you are only 50k apart then yes.
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I would, as long as I knew that eventually we would be able to buy in the same school district. It doesn't seem like a step back to me, more like a transition year.
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I would not. I don't think that 1-2 years (K/1st grade) in a less strong school system is going to make any difference in the long run. I would just switch them to the better school system when I found a house in that area that I wanted to buy.
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If we weren't going to do private school, I absolutely would do everything possible to get into the right-fit school district.
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No, I wouldn't, because the difference in one town to another where I live is $1 million. For $50k, sure, it wouldn't have even been a thought.
Instead, we're looking at magnet and charter schools.
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@looch: I was going to say that too- magnet programs are a good way to get your kids in a school outside your district. That happened at my high school a ton.
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Yes but only if I was sure I wouldn't be priced out of the market by the time I could buy.
Like Looch, the price difference for homes between where we currently live and where I would like to live is really significant and I'm afraid we might be priced out for a home that fits our space needs.
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Is the reasoning behind renting so you can save more money for the new house? Or do you need to have the down payment liquid so you don't need to make your offer contingent on selling your old house first? Or is your LO about to enter kindergarten and you need to rent something in that district ASAP? Any of those would seem like a good reason, but if none apply then I'd probably rather stay put while looking for the new house.
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having bought a house I regret, I would totally do this and find the RIGHT place. I'd rent for several years and save some more if needed.
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