[quote author="not a realtor" date=1243295821][quote author="Oracle" date=1243295365]IR,
Apart from Irvine which city will you recommend for a family with elementary school going kids?
I am looking at best value city with good schools.
Thanks
Oracle</blockquote>
I think the whole "Irvine has good schools" thing is way overrated.
How do you define good schools? My opinion is that the most important thing in a school is high parent involvement. You find that in most middle/upper middle class neighborhoods. If you mean API scores or other measures like that you can find that info on greatschools.net. But I wouldn't use that for anything more than a datapoint. Plenty of high api schools are nothing special and in fact lack the qualitative factors that make a school good.
In the end, find an area you like. Chances are if you like the area, you'll be able to find a school you like. And unless the school is horribly low in scores, etc. you're far more important to you kid's education than the school anyway.</blockquote>
So you would buy a home where the elementary, middle and high school get in the low marks on greatschools.net? I wouldn't for three reasons:
1. The school is probably shitty if it only got a 3 or a 4 out of 10.
2. I can solve this problem by just buying a home where the schools are rated high.
3. Any potential buyers, when I am ready to sell, also won't want their kid going to a shitty school.
When I am looking for an area where I want to live - the first and utmost thing I look at is the school quality - where are the best schools? Once you find the best schools, everything else just falls into place.