This home buying simulation I felt has given me the opportunity to research possible residential venues all throughout Connecticut suburbs solely based on a specific given criteria. I was assigned the Family Profile #3 which consisted of two children (grades 3 & 6) currently enrolled in Hartford Public schools. Financially this profile contained an annual gross income of $30,000, $5,000 in savings (for a down payment), a car, and monthly debt payments of $100 for my car. With all this given information I was able to use an internet mortgage affordability calculator to estimate the purchase price of an affordable house given my specific statue of limitations. The results presented were essentially a bracket of the minimum and maximum values in:
House price: $87,007.43 – $114,844.30
Loan amount: $82,007.43 – $109,844.30
Monthly mortgage payment: $368.25 – $493.23
Taxes/homeowner insurance: $331.25 – $331.75
Total monthly payment: $760.00 – $825.00
*This information was obtained on http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/houseafford/houseafford.html
After completing this I was provided with maximum and minimum prices I would be able to afford given my circumstances. Then I started searching the suburban towns in Connecticut to see what was available. It was researching that I came across some interesting realizations. I found it interesting that when I plugged in my minimum and maximum into some search engines not a single result appeared that matched my information instead the cheapest venue would pop up and they would start at about 250,000. For example when I plugged in my info searching in the town of Darien the cheapest house was 449,000. I was fortunate to have found adequate housing in Bristol, Danbury, Tolland, Cheshire, Killingworth, New Milford, Newtown, Southbury, and Southington. All the other suburbs were too expensive and did not my financial demands. Another facet of this simulation that I found interesting was that some places being sought out for rental required that you call to inquire a rental price.
**Homes for purchase information was gained from: http://www.househunt.com/community-living/types.php?st=CT&type=SU
***Homes for rental information was gained from: http://www.prudentialct.com/rentals-apartment-houses.asp
The Final step of this simulation was trying to find out the quality of education in some of the towns where housing was available and affordable. I referred to http://www.frontdoor.com to find figures and facts pertaining to educational achievement in Bristol, Killingworth, Southbury, and Tolland. Then I compared them to those of Hartford. All of these suburban towns had higher percentage of obtaining an Associates degree, a Bachelors degree, and Masters degree then Hartford. Also Hartford has a high percentage of less then ninth grade education attainment compared to these cities and that national average. This data shows that Hartford has a lower quality of educational achievement however I feel this is also a direct result of property values and how much money is truly invested in education and in obtaining adequate resources for success.