I have 2 kids in elementary school. From what I’ve seen, $2200 is pretty average for PQ for detached homes. We have a pool and nice big yard. We need 3 bdr because we need an office/workout room/guest bdr. Grandparents visit often for extended time, so we are actually packed pretty tight then.
Speaking of good preschool/daycare combo, I haven’t seen good ones for that low as what are you suggesting. We used several, including the UCSD subsidized daycare center, and a home care one, and Montessori, and they were all close to $1000. We are glad those days are over, and started saving money when kids entered public school.
I appreciate your advice. Moving is expensive, disruptive (for kids) and takes a lot of time – so it’s not worth to save only a couple hundred bucks a month at most. There isn’t anything decent for what we need under $2000/mo in PQ.
I think once we have 20% down in cash we would start looking even if we don’t have other cash reserves. I believe banks count 401k as reserves for their purposes. We should be able to get to that amount in 3 years max. even without cutting down in rent.
To answer an earlier post, we will probably look at 4 bdr places – 1 bdr for guests/parents, 1 for 2 kids, 1 master, and 1 for office/gym. We should be able to find what we want for low $500s.
My only concern with waiting 3 more years is that the kids will be in middle school by then and moving them then might traumatize them…unless we buy in the same attendance area in PQ.
