My annual gross income was $24,000, I had no debt and I had $5,000 in savings, which allowed me to spend a minimum of $51,397.94 and a maximum of $71,725.63 on an apartment or house. Since my price range for houses was so low, I had to eliminate the options of living in West Hartford, Wethersfield, and Newington because I could not afford even the cheapest houses in those areas. When looking for houses I was searching for areas with good district schools rather than good magnet schools for two reasons: 1) Since magnet schools work on a lottery based system there was no guarantee that my 3rd and 6th grade children would be accepted and 2) even if my children did get accepted there would be a very likely chance that their magnet school would be pretty far away and since I did not have a car I would not be able to assist in driving my children to and from school. My options were pretty limited but after doing research the three houses I would be willing to buy were 8 Wade Ave in Bloomfield, 470 W Wolcott Ave in Windsor, and 29 Edgerton St in Manchester. The house I would be most likely to buy would be 470 W Wolcott Ave in Windsor.
This house was $59,000 with a $242 monthly mortgage, which is within my price range. The house comes with 3 beds, which would be good because my two children would have their own bedrooms. My 3rd grader would attend the district school Poquonock Elementary, which is pretty racially balanced with 73% of students reaching the CT test goals and a +1 test gain. My 6th grade child would go to Sage Park Middle School, which has 69% of its students achieving test goals with a +5 test gain. The quality of education at these two schools seems to be above average plus both schools are over 2 miles away which would mean that neither child would have to walk to and from school because they would be provided with bus transportation. Although I was able to find a house that seems suitable for my family’s situation, it was not easy at all. I was really only able to find three acceptable options after doing much research and two of the options were not exactly ideal. I’ve learned about how difficult it is to find a home and that there are many factors that need to be accounted for in order to find a place that fits your family’s needs.