Category: Exercise 1 simulation

For this Home buying simulation, I was put in the shoes of this woman:

As a mother of two children, still living with my parents in Hartford, my husband and I decided to move on.  We heard from some family friends that our lives would improve if we moved to the suburbs—especially our children’s lives and their schooling.  Our annual income combined equals 42,000 dollars, and we have 5,000 dollars in savings that we can use for a down payment.  We also have a monthly debt payment of 200 dollars for our car.  I heard about a “home affordability calculator” online and started from there.  After putting in my information, it told me I should look for a house between 149,362 dollars and 182,766 dollars.  This information steered me away from renting, because I realized I could start an investment by buying a house, instead of giving my money away to a landlord.  I looked at homes.com and found many different houses I could afford, in many different suburbs of Hartford.  After jotting down a few of the homes that stood out to me, I decided to look further into what these homes would offer.  One of my biggest concerns in moving is my children’s education—they need to attend a school that I can trust will push them to their fullest potential.   I looked up different school districts online: Manchester, New Britain, East Hartford, and Wethersfield.  I looked at parent reviews, and greatschools.org ratings, and after choosing Wethersfield, I spoke to a student from the district who also had high reviews of the public school district.  After this research, although it was a more expensive, yet less accommodating house than the others, I decided on 403 Nott Street, due to its location in Wethersfield.

This simulation exposed me to the reality that cheaper housing is typically easier to find in the suburbs of Hartford (and I’m guessing, probably other suburbs as well) with schools that have worse reviews, something that since I’ve never thought about since I’ve never looked for a house and I have no children.

For this Home buying simulation, I was put in the shoes of this woman:

As a mother of two children, still living with my parents in Hartford, my husband and I decided to move on.  We heard from some family friends that our lives would improve if we moved to the suburbs—especially our children’s lives and their schooling.  Our annual income combined equals 42,000 dollars, and we have 5,000 dollars in savings that we can use for a down payment.  We also have a monthly debt payment of 200 dollars for our car.  I heard about a “home affordability calculator” online and started from there.  After putting in my information, it told me I should look for a house between 149,362 dollars and 182,766 dollars.  This information steered me away from renting, because I realized I could start an investment by buying a house, instead of giving my money away to a landlord.  I looked at homes.com and found many different houses I could afford, in many different suburbs of Hartford.  After jotting down a few of the homes that stood out to me, I decided to look further into what these homes would offer.  One of my biggest concerns in moving is my children’s education—they need to attend a school that I can trust will push them to their fullest potential.   I looked up different school districts online: Manchester, New Britain, East Hartford, and Wethersfield.  I looked at parent reviews, and greatschools.org ratings, and after choosing Wethersfield, I spoke to a student from the district who also had high reviews of the public school district.  After this research, although it was a more expensive, yet less accommodating house than the others, I decided on 403 Nott Street, due to its location in Wethersfield.

This simulation exposed me to the reality that cheaper housing is typically easier to find in the suburbs of Hartford (and I’m guessing, probably other suburbs as well) with schools that have worse reviews, something that since I’ve never thought about since I’ve never looked for a house and I have no children.

For my web simulation, my annual gross income was $24,000 with no savings for a down payment. Fortunately, I had no debt; however, this does not widen my choices in any sense, especially looking for a place to live with two apartments in the suburban area of the Hartford County. When I did the mortgage affordability calculator to estimate the purchase of a home I could afford, I calculated that the maximum house price I could afford was $72,827. Being from Connecticut and living in a suburban town of Hartford County, I knew this was impossible to find, so I automatically went to looking at apartments in suburban districts. I can only afford a monthly rent of about $666. Automatically I went to look at the town I grew up in, Farmington, and found that anything with two bedrooms was going to be easily over $800. Even a studio apartment was $875. I also looked at Avon, and Simsbury and found similar things; everything was going to be too expensive. Although I am searching for the best education in these suburban towns, I will unfortunately not be able to afford were mainly New Britain and Bristol. When I looked at the CMT scores of the towns I could afford, I was also surprised by my findings; Bristol for third grade was 83.1% proficient in math, 65% in reading, and 78% in writing. In sixth grade the proficient was even more promising; 86.6% in math, 82.1% in reading, 83.8% in writing. I actually anticipated lower results so finding this out was happy for me to see that my children would receive better education than they would have in Hartford. Unfortunately, in New Britain, the proficiencies were much lower; in the third grade, 48.6% were proficient in math, 43.1% in reading, and 52.8% in writing. For the sixth grade, the results were similar, 44.6% in math, 45.3% in reading, and 43.7% in writing. Luckily though, there were a few choices of places in Bristol with two bedrooms that met my budget. I was very frustrated at first because I could not find much in towns with a great education in the Hartford County, but it shows how difficult it is for those who want a better education for their children to move out of a place such as Hartford. This really opened my eyes to the reality of how much apartments cost, even ones that are a studio. I could not even afford to live in a studio apartment in a town such as Simsbury so I could have a better education.

 

My data was from: http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-database-2012-capt-cmt-test-scores-20120719,0,855259.htmlstory?appSession=994214309191532

In the Home and School Buying Simulation, I was assigned a $54,000 annual gross income. I also have a car and savings for a down payment. Because of these factors, I had a fairly easy time finding houses to buy in the suburbs surrounding Hartford. In order to find a home, I simply searched for homes in my budget on Craigslist and browsed through multiple choices. This process did not take me very long and I had plenty of options. However, if I did not have a car, I would not have been able to look at homes too far outside of Hartford. I also have money saved for a down payment and minimal monthly debt payments, which both aided in this process. Although I could easily rent property, I would rather own a home in order to build equity.

I researched the four school districts where my children would possibly attend school. South Windsor and Southington seem to have better public schools than Bristol and Manchester. I came to this decision based on CMT scores in the elementary schools, because my children are in grades 3 and 6. South Windsor and Southington public elementary school students either tied or surpassed state average CMT scores. Furthermore, I looked at high school graduation rates because my children will eventually attend these schools. South Windsor has a 95% high school graduation rate while Southington has a 99% high school graduation rate.

Because of my relatively high annual gross income and minimal monthly debt payments, this process was stress-free and I had ample options. However, I would  not be able to live in the suburbs if I did not have a car. Therefore, I would live in Hartford and my children would attend Hartford Public Schools. My family is lucky that we can move to the suburbs in order to attend different public schools.

As for improving this simulation for the web, I actually prefer completing it on paper. That way, I can spread all of my information out in front of me in order to make an informed decision.

Due to my age and inexperience, I have never faced the challenge of buying a home and selecting the appropriate neighborhood for my children to grow up in. In addition, being new to the Hartford area, I am mostly unfamiliar with the suburbs surrounding Hartford and what sort of education these suburbs have access to. This simulation taught me both how the home buying and mortgage process works as well as what sort of educational experience my children could receive if my family settled in a suburb of Hartford.

At the start of the simulation, I received one of best family profiles (by the grace of Professor Dougherty’s random selection). I quickly learned, with an annual gross income of 54k and savings of 10k, that not only could I easily afford a two or three bedroom house in the suburbs, but I could also afford a home that was highly attractive.

My favorite home was located in Glastonbury, CT. Rich red in color, modern in design, with two bathrooms and three bedrooms, the home appeared to be perfect for my two children and me. Also, at $209,900, the house fit perfectly into my budget (according to the home affordability calculator²). When I browsed the education information, conveniently located on the house buying site, I was even more amazed. Most of the schools in the area ranked an 8 or 9 on a scale of 10. By far, the schools in Glastonbury had the highest ranking of any of the other schools I found nearby other houses I was looking at in Berlin, New Britain, and West Hartford, just to name a few.

Because I had such a big budget, money was barely an issue, and I found I had many homes to choose from and in a variety of locations. I feel, if this simulation where to put on the web, more comparison between homes and schools available in Hartford, versus homes and schools available in the surrounding suburbs, would make the simulation more effective. I barely noticed the effect that money had on the schooling available to my children. However, that was because I had plenty of money to go around. Perhaps, if I had worked with a smaller sum, I would have realized that many suburban homes and suburban schools would have been off-limits to me. I guess you could say, with so much money to spend, it was difficult for me to understand the plight of some of my other classmates who were limited to areas with poorer school systems.

Knowing how the whole system works, however, I realize that money buys more than a home. It buys access to the local schools and buys the surrounding neighborhood. I was just lucky enough to be able to afford schools and a neighborhood that were excellent.

 

¹“248 Hollister Way West Unit: 248.” Realtor.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Sept. 2012. <http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/248-Hollister-Way-W-Unit-248_Glastonbury_CT_06033_M47782-96479>.

²“How Much House Can You Afford?” Affordable Home Calculator from CNNMoney. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2012. <http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/houseafford/houseafford.html>.

³“248 Hollister Way West Unit: 248.” Realtor.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Sept. 2012. <http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/248-Hollister-Way-W-Unit-248_Glastonbury_CT_06033_M47782-96479>.