Actually, I do think the excat opposite.

FYI, there IS a school map and very strict assignements depending on your address. What makes the lottery interesting is that you dont HAVE TO register at your local school. (and vice versa, if you dont get one of your choices, you get assigned to your local school, or the next closest school that has room for you).

when buying in NValley, we were quite glad that there was no mandatory school assignement. NV is split in 4 different schools, and those schools are not equal – and guess what, we are right at the frontier of some of those area.

- we would have been mad to find a suitable house in NV and be on the wrong side of the street – the stock of sfh is so thin that many home buyers just take whatever they find.

- we would have been priced out one of the attendance area.. ans maybe priced out of all NV (and yes, our alternative to NV was out of the city – south)

- we would have to actually attend the school among 3 that has the longest walk too (did I mention that mapping the city with the hills would be nearly impossible? sometime the closest school is the one 10 blocks away by muni, rather than the one a 7 block- up-hill-hike away)

Look at what happened to MV – compared to NV. MV prices have been thru the roof, the sfh being at least if not more expensive than the sfh in NV. now compare the housing expenses and the transportation expenses (with 2 teens at home that means 4 cars in MV) to the price of private schools in SF, and one particular in NV. And even in that case, NV (+ private school) wins. We did the maths, in all possible ways.

The only difference is that in MV, the school map pretty much forces the prices up -something I’m so mad about, considering that not so few lucky ones (by address) attend private schools anyway!

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Take SFrancisco. Remove lottery, and apply hard core geographic maps.

You can start erasing Marina Middle school. There is no geographic kid within a mile. You can erase claire lilienthal. There is no geographic kid (that would attend public) within a mile…. (and high prices wouldnt go down anyway. So by osmosis, adjacent hoods would have prices clinb thru the roof even more). etc.

Now, there would obviously be a war on the map. Who gets where. I can only imagine lawsuits after lawsuits to reasign that side of the street to the same school as the other side of the street. Or what about additional propositions about the school map in each and every election ballot? I’m sure you would be delighted.

Some lucky neighborhoods would get all the kids, and some would simply be drained of the kids. Like NV and glen park would get ALL the kids, and potrero and bernal would have no kids whatsoever. ( <- random cliches examples here. I dont imply anything about the actual schools in those hoods)

Just imagine what impact it would make on the already crazy nanomarkets? And the impact on daily commute in the city.

No seriously, and to refocus on realestate. SF market is crazy enough that it can affort a lottery system to even out some nanomarkets oddities. Or said another way. The lottery has created some affordability in the city – like you can live one block further in the next hood, and still attend the school you want.

Like the long debate where NV stops and Mission starts. If there was a map, we would KNOW for sure. There is no map, if you want to live on guerrero, it’s your CHOICE to ride the 48 uphill to NV or downhill to mission. (and you can even play the SFRA map – also price p sqft already evened out on most of the boundaries across the city)

PS: re residency. not so. it works well. cf the hundreds of ghost highschoolers who attend the SF high schools but CANT POSSIBLY live within the city limits (and our best guess is that they live in DC).

Full disclosure: we are the lucky ones to have both the house we wanted at the address we wanted, AND the school we wanted (and no, it’s not our attendance school, altho our attendance school was #2 on our lottery application). We didnt cheat either time. We educated ourselves in the RealEstate market (thanks Alex!!!!) then bought, then we educated ourselves in the lottery and SFUSD (thanks Sophie A !!!) then applied for our school. There is nothing more gratifying than earning your “wining” combination.

I think high housing prices helped the school district in 2 ways:

- increased money from increased property taxes

- increased mortages to a point that homeowners HAVE to give a fair look at public schools.

- forced more great parents to put their kids in public AND bring their parenting presence and help to the school.

Last, dont forget that tests NEVER reflects the quality of teaching, but rather the kids attending the school. Scores are one number among many other datas, and it never reflects that YOUR kid will do well in that particular school (not to mention that tests are 4 or 6 years ahead of your kid, so teachers HAVE changed since, somtime for the better, sometime not)

Quite the opposite. In SF, you can hand pick your school according to your own kid needs – and because of the dense environement, there are most likely up to 10 schools within walking distance (or a couple muni stops). So if you want your kids to be in the best school district… stay in SF and pick the art program for your daughter, the sport program for your son, ALL FOR FREE. (and if you pick a star school, they even feed you for free thru the food bank – the other week, the FB dumped 14 huge boxes of ORGANIC cookies for the families to take!)

Our family starting the public school in SF is the best thing that happened to us this fall.

Renting today may be a better option today….for you. Each case is different.

Regarding public vs. private school. Not so. My wife and I thought the same, but are pleased to announce there are good public schools here in SF for K-8. Middle School is a different story. It’s not easy to get a school of your top choice, but it can be done. If you do your research (a lot of it) you’ll likely find at least 7 schools you’d feel comfortable sending your kids to.

If you want to be in the heart of the city, your money for $800k will not get you much. But some of the outlying areas, not necessarily just the Sunset and Parkside can be awesome. Check my other site, tdsf.blogspot.com for some more info on the matter.

As for weather…can’t argue there, but if your job is in the city, you will become miserable with the commuting…at least I would. I often joke when my friends invite me over to the East Bay for something, I ask, “Do I need my passport to get there?”

Stay in SF!

alex

http://www.bobwegener.com/bin/web/real_estate?acnt=AR182765&ZKEY=&action=ACTIVATE_FRAMES&tm=&linkout=http%3A%2F%2Flamorindarealestateblog.com

you can get a great house over there for 550k.

do you think prices in lamorinda are going lower than that?

if so, rent out there and wait and see and get to know the hood

i’d buy at 550k, it it was a great house for me and my family

big yard, turn key, great school district

stop trying to argue with me

if you don’t feel comfortable buying because of other circumstances you aren’t being forthcoming about, job, marriage etc, don’t blame me or the market

Is it also a good time to buy in Riverside? Or Stockton? Are you that much of a zealot, that you can’t admit it’s better to rent sometimes? Even the editor, a realtor, has admitted renting may be the better option today. Coincidentally, you never answered my original question. But your ongoing avoidance of the topic is answer enough.

i tried to find you one on the east bay but i couldn’t. burbed is kind of fun but it’s mostly about the penninsula and south bay.

maybe someone else knows a good one.

he has 3 kids and a wife and can’t afford more than 800k. are you really going to suggest he try and find something like that in the city? i guess i should have asked balanced if he doesn’t mind living in the fog all year, sunset. i presumed not. sorry, shouldn’t have. he needs a house for a family that size, ignoring all the aspects of school choice.

balanced,

i looked in upper rockridge and loved it but it’s 4-600k out of your price range. hillcrest elementary is as good as piedmont and free too.

Regarding the east bay, there are a lot of factors which aren’t worth getting into here. But #1, In the city, you pretty much have to send your kids to private school, which can be more than Berkeley tuition. You can do public school in the east bay.

For $800K in the city, you get a 2-bedroom condo or an 1,200 square foot SFR way out in Parkside or Excelsior. Same money buys you this in the east bay:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/rfs/506602712.html

Plus better weather, and BART beats Muni hands down for commuting. Don’t get me wrong – I love the city and all it has to offer. But families just get more bang for the buck in CoCo.