Didn’t do this type of computation. Guess why price above $1.5 mil is hard to sell while $1-$1.3 is still going strong.
Menlo is nicer than San Carlos and Belmont IMO.
See my Private Message! IMO, good fixer. Competition may be higher.
You have to move fast contact asap tomorrow morning ! Good Luck !
1 Like
Some1 answer your call,
Almost to the dot, 1651 on 5998 lot, 3 Br/ 2 Ba, asking for $1.675 mil. Perfect.
1 Like
I went thru similar path and choice several years ago. We moved from south SJ to PA. My kid just started public school this year. I known every one has their opinion on what is important, value, and assessment of schools. Below is my opinion.
Our top criterias are location and schools. If you look at pure academics and testing, schools with high % of Asians have high scores. Examples are schools feeding into Monte Vista (Cupertino) and Lynbrook (West SJ) schools. >90% of student population are Asians (dominant by Indians and Chinese). Schools are ultra competitive, starting in Elementary school. After talking with other parents, we don’t want our kid in this type of school environment. Not that it is wrong, but just not right for us.
We also looked at LA, MV, PA. In terms of location and commute, this is more convenient and flexible than CU, West SJ, and “good part” of Sunnyvale. The schools are good, but they are not as competitive and do not test as well as CU, which is better fit for us. More money (from real estate taxes) are spent on school and students. LA elementary spends $9.5k per student, MV elementary $8.8k, LA/MV HS $13k, PA (unified) $13.5k. Versus CU elementary $7.5k and Fremont Union HS $9k. In CU, parents and kids are publicly shamed into “voluntary” donation for schools. Thus, we decided PA is better fit for us.
CU/SV:
- (Pro) Better value (more house for same $) than LA/PA/MV. At least 4 years ago. LA/PA/MV came out of the downturn faster and stronger. Not sure about today.
- (Pro) Weekend shopping and eating out for Chinese food.
- (Pro) Many options and better pricing for kid activities, such as dance, drawing, music classes.
- (Pro or Con) School scores, depends on how you value this.
- (Con) Classroom sizes: Schools are over crowded.
- (Con) Traffic. Bad traffic to north SJ near 101 or up the peninsula.
- (Con) Demographics is narrow. And people going to open houses and buying really care about 1 thing: high school scores.
LV/MV/PA:
- (Pro) Location. Easy commute down South 101 to north SJ. If going up peninsula, it will be easier than Cupertino/Sunnyvle.
- (Pro) Neighborhood. I personally like the residential feel and look of LA/PA/MV vs CU/SV/SJ layout and feel. Though not always thru, LA/PA/MV can be more walkable and bikeable. CU/SV/SJ basically require car to go anywhere.
- (Pro) Nice downtown. LA/PA/MV all have nice little downtown area. A bit more pricey, but good for restaurants and weekend/evening strolling.
- (Pro) Classroom sizes. When we bought, we knew LA/PA schools are less crowded. Right now, we see an extreme trend of of decreasing student population, at least in PA. Lower Elementary grade classes counts have being reduced by 1/3 to 1/2. And classroom size is 16 students in our local school. I think this is good thing.
- (Pro or Con) School scores, depends on how you value this.
- (Pro or Con) Some residents and kids are old money, so their values are different than immigrant like me.
- (Cons) Prices and Value. Houses have higher prices, older.
- (Cons) Shopping and restaurant options for Chinese food are limited and more expensive.
- (Cons) MV Elementary school district has unique zoning concerns.
Here is the link to school spending data: http://schoolspending.apps.cironline.org/
8 Likes
Thank for sharing your journey and thought process. Your choices were very close to what we are thinking and it is nice to see some of the statistics you already put together. Again, quality advice on this forum has kept on increasing!!
Dang, @jk88cal, that is pretty darn comprehensive…
Hey, @manch, maybe you can make a space on here for reference information like this?
I believe this is very thorough analysis and has many valid points.
However, I want to add my opinion on a few things based on my own experience.
I lived PA for 10 years and moved to West San Jose…
My kid went through PA schools for 7 years.
In CU, parents and kids are publicly shamed into “voluntary” donation for schools.
I have just the opposite experience.
In PA, they asked for “$800 PIE + $200 PTA” (Maybe higher today) annual donation per each student at elementary.
The school my kid went had lots of families from Stanford and some of them were not able to make a donation since they lived on RA/TA grant. Every single one of them got multiple phone calls from PIE until they finally donated.
In CUSD, suggested donation per each kid is $250 per year this year. Nothing else.
PAUSD published the book with the list of parents on how much they donated.
CUSD never does that.
I never heard anything like donation calls in CUSD.
Pressure on donation is much much higher in PAUSD than CUSD.
And people going to open houses and buying really care about 1 thing: high school scores.
I don’t know how you come to this conclusion but this is not true for me and many of my friends who bought the houses here. We care about schools but we like the fact that this is safe, clean, friendly and convenient neighborhood.
Schools are ultra competitive, starting in Elementary school.
Again, my kid moved from PA to CUSD school.
It was neither harder nor more competitive academically than PA.
My younger one is in elementary and there is no pressure due to competition.
She spends most of her time at YMCA playing around with her friends after school and is doing just well at school.
One thing I want to add is that PA schools (after middle school) has serious segregation between different ethnic groups.
Competition among Asian kids in PA was actually higher than CUSD.
My kid once asked me if I could send her to 2 weeks math boot camp for $3000 (6pm-9pm at night daily) to get ready for skip7 math test(literally test to skip 7th grade math) only because most of her Asian friends went. I said “No”.
In PA, you can be qualified for skip-7 test if you are doing well in 6th grade math. Then, you should self study (or find good tutor or class) to pass “skip7” test.
In CUSD, they just move fast if you are in advanced math lane. I found this is more reasonable and less burden to both students and parents.
4 Likes
This is horrible!
Can you comment more on this?
3 Likes
PA class sizes are getting smaller because families can’t afford to live there…Not sustainable. .
Again based on my personal experience, it appears that two majority ethnic groups (Caucasian and Asian, probably 40% each) don’t hang out with each other from middle school. Until elementary, I didn’t observe this.
Interesting… why is that? My kids are not even close to middle school age.
How about between South (like Indians) and East Asians (like Chinese)? I wonder if it’s because kids are exploring their own identities and thus like to hang out with people who look like them? Or something more that I am not even aware of.
That is a shame. It is great and also a rare opportunity to live in such a diverse area. It’s too bad that the kids aren’t interacting.
what if multiculturalism is not as fancy as its made out to be and the right wingers are right?
Forget kids. How many naturalized citizens here have atleast 10 US born citizen friends? I dont. I will hold off applying for citizenship until that happens.
2 Likes
As kids grow, they tend to hang out with the kids with whom they can share mutual interest. However, they are not mature enough to broaden their range of interest and to open their mind wide yet. I guess that’s the first reason.
Well, how many grown-ups are really open-minded (ie interested in other culture and so on)?
Come on, nothing has changed. At Lowell back in the day, I mostly hung out with other chinese kids. Granted, there were a lot of us…
It boils down to whom you are most comfortable with. I wouldn’t want to hang out with someone who didn’t understand my culture and the obstacles that we faced everyday to survive in this country. How would a white kid know what even subtle discrimination feels like? And of course, nor would I want others to feel uncomfortable with me around and I am way cool with that.
Well, I know billions of Chinese are obsessed with Korean pop culture. 
I heard from 3 different parents going to CU elementary schools. The teachers put the names of all the kids on the blackboard. Once parents donated, they will erase your name. So every week, the teacher tell the class who have not donated yet. And obviously kid will ask parents why they have not yet donated. Talk about peer pressure.
Wow…those are the kinds of reasons why we choose to not have kids. The pressures to excel. The pressures to be better than the next kid. Good luck, parents!!!
There is a vast gap between:
a. having close personal friends with people of other races; versus
b. can’t stand people of other races, see them as inferior and want them out of the country.
For me personally I mostly hung out with Indians at work back when I was still an engineer. Maybe I am just an oddball.