Has anyone already pointed out what a terrible measure of student success API is? All it tends to reflect is the demographics of who lives in the district and to some degree what a student’s peer group would be like at that school. It tells nothing about how likely a particular school is to help a student reach their potential.
As for the Original Post; I’m really noticing that talking about “San Diego” real estate is tremendously broad and vague. A 3/2 in South Park is a lot more expensive than a 3/2 in less desirable areas. Santee, La Mesa and Chula Vista are all much cheaper than most of San Diego proper. We’re actually finding that San Diego real estate is expensive not so much in San Diego, but in areas of San Diego we actually want to live in.
Job-wise, San Diego is still much better than most of the country. Florida was cited by the original post, but Florida has a pretty weak economy. Miami has a pretty strong economy, but is also expensive.
From my browsing real estate listings in Seattle, San Jose and Minneapolis in neighborhoods comparable to the ones I like here, I don’t see that big a difference in price. Minneapolis is a little cheaper, but that’s truly due to the sunshine tax/cold rebate. Cities like Portland and Boise are way cheaper, but there are few jobs there except in fields like Health Care.
Off-hand, the only part of the country I can confidently say is cheaper with as good or better of an economy is Houston and Dallas. Notably their real estate market was one of the quickest to recover, and five years from now probably will be just as expensive.
