I am considering a property which has following concern as per my agent
1> Its opp to elementary - schools end is opp to my house.
2> The master bedroom is on another side of kids bedroom. single story house.
3> south-east direction
The reason why we want to go to this house is that
My wife and I love to have our kids, both elementary students (one has 2 years and second has 5 years left), going to school near our home. they can play in evening etc.
For rooms, we do not care as kids are big enough 9 and 5
excellent location and posh neighbourhood. (though school rating have come down recently but its ok for us)
large lot size - has a huge backyard with potential for upgrades/extension.
the road are otherwise quite.
Even though we are planning this as our forever home, I need to evaluate this from selling perspective (if I need to), especially in the buyers market.
Any advice or past experience is appreciated.
Perhaps minor, but there will be increased traffic from parents dropping off and picking up kids, so depending on where specific your house is to school entrance or drop off spot it might be an inconvenience. Also some people who work at home for example may not like the noise coming from the school during the day (recess and before and after school).
The traffic and parking is always the biggest issue with a school. If you are able to walk and your kids are in the school, it can balance out the negatives. Also, what grades and whether the kids pass by your house on their way home is important. Older kids toss trash in the yards, younger kids step on the flowers or pick them–put up a white picket fence to keep them off your yard.
If the traffic part isn’t a nightmare, I’d definitely do it for the time the kids are in the school. For me, the kids being able to walk to and from school means I can take a job and not put them in aftercare which saves me a fair amount of money. Also whenever there’s a school event, you won’t need to find parking. If it were me, this would be a perfect home for the next 5 years.
Concerning the traffic–you need to figure out commute for your oldest to their next school. Make sure you’re able to drive out to the other school with all the incoming school traffic.
Most important item for resale is the school. Is the drop off, pull in, pull out directly opposite of the house? Can people rationalize that it isn’t affected?
I walk my son to school everyday morning. I feel sorry for all the homeowners who are within one block of the school. They must have a bad time getting in and out of their driveway in the mornings ( and probably at 2 or 3 pm ). I think it’s better to be about 3+ streets(>0.3 miles) away from any school - preferably on a cul-de-sac road so that you don’t have to deal with any traffic. You will still deal with school overflow parking when the school has events. But that happens very infrequently.
Ee live right across from HS and down the street from elementary and unless you are leaving for work at 8am everyday you never see the impact of the drop off traffic, and I don’t know anyone commuting home at 3pm in the afternoon. The more annoying thing is when there are events at the HS people park in our neighborhood but that is like maybe 1-2x a year so again isn’t that much of an impact. I would argue school hours don’t really match up that much with commute hours.
Like @Terri pointed out, you still have to commute during the busy traffic time to drop off your kids in their middle and high schools. I think that will be the biggest concern in a few years.
If I have a choice, I prefer not to buy so close to the school. I rather live > 3-5 blocks away than on the same block. As long as walk is <10 minutes, that is close enough.
However, in today’s market, it is next to impossible to find ideal home at right price. And what is the chance your offer will be accepted. So if you have being house hunting for a while, you can ask yourself how long did it take you to find a house as good as this candidate. I suspect it is not easy and probably took months. And if you have made offers, you probably have found that each house has like 5-15 offers, so the chance of losing a bid is much more than winning.
House on same block as school is a slight negative but not a show stopper.
I live 0.2 miles @2+ blocks from an elementary school at the end of a cul de sac. Unless, leaving for work when parents are dropping kids(delayed by 1-2 mins max when driving on the road where the school is located), I haven’t felt ANY effect of school traffic.
My view is go check out how the traffic is,when parents are dropping kids AND picking them up.
However, if the house is right across or right next to school, it does negatively affect the selling price for the seller.
However, the buying price for the buyer should be lower too. Hence, people who are thinking how selling price will affect the costs(buying vs selling prices) generally balance out.
If you live super close to the school, then you won’t have any sex offender neighbors. I’m sure everyone thinks that doesn’t exist in their neighborhood, but even Palo Alto has registered sex offenders.
Why does everyone have to drop off their kids at school anyway - there are buses… or ride a bike? This is what causes so much traffic at HS anyway - all these parents dropping their kids off at HS when they could easily take bus to school…esp for jr high and HS (and you’ll be walking distance to elemenatary anyway)
Some school districts don’t do busses–Redwood City for example. Also, some commutes aren’t safely bikable. Really depends on location. Menlo Park is one of the few that I’ve seen that goes out of its way to prioritize biking to school.
Agreed–the issues is if you’re heading out to pick up a kid at a middle school when others are heading in. Could work, or could be a nightmare. really depends on the traffic pattern.
The school traffic in #2’s neighborhood has to be a nightmare for those residents–it’s a nightmare being part of that traffic, and so for me being able to walk instead of driving seems like a really good deal. It’s a benefit if you have a kid in that school and a real negative if you don’t.
I am actively considering listings near #2’s school despite how bad the traffic and parking is. It has the benefit of being near Caltrain though, so that makes it even better. Maybe I’d regret it later, but I feel like the convenience is worth it. I think it’d also convert into a good rental–rent it to school parents, and hope they turnover every 5-6 years because of the traffic.
I love that RWC’s public busstop for three different schools is right in front of…drum roll…a tattoo/body piercing/smoke shop… I wrote Samtrans and it was determined that it had to stay that way, case closed.
