Following the "double reduction" policy, the government began to School District Room "Hands on".
On the evening of July 30, the Regulations on Social Construction in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Draft for Comments) was open for comments. One of the most concerned words is that Shenzhen will implement the university district enrollment and school running management model and establish obligations education School teacher exchange system, improve the sharing mechanism of high-quality educational resources.
As a window city of reform and opening up, Shenzhen leads the pace of the times in every move. The market generally believes that once the implementation of these two systems is promoted, school district housing will usher in a thorough "fever reduction" nationwide.
At this time, on the other side of the ocean, the differences in the distribution system of educational resources did not affect the enthusiasm of Americans to buy school district housing.
The author of this article is a senior overseas study consultant, and also a Chinese mother who lives in Michigan. She told us a tortuous experience of overseas housing purchase. After reading the following text, you may have a deeper understanding of "school district housing".
The general situation of the school district housing in the United States is similar to that in China: every public school has a fixed regional division, and the children will go to school in the same school where your house is located.
The distribution of primary school districts in a city in Michigan. Different colors indicate the school district housing area of the corresponding primary school
Although they are free, there are good and bad ones. Good schools have more advantages in terms of teachers, students, school facilities, and teaching performance evaluation, and school district buildings will be very popular; However, for schools with poor reputation, the price of houses in the area is not high, and many of them even went public for several years.
But one thing is different from China: even if your school district house is not bought but rented, you can also enter the corresponding school.
Someone is about to ask: Why not rent a school district house instead of buying one? That's because you can't rent the school district room at all!
There is a good school district apartment nearby for rent, but you have to wait in line for about one year before there is any vacancy
A relatively ordinary school district nearby rents a room. The conditions are worse, but it will take more than half a year to get a vacant room
Before buying the current school district house, we also thought about renting a house, but the fact proved that it was totally impractical.
In order to provide better education for children, we selected the best public primary school in the local area. The only problem is that we live in a place 30 minutes away from the school by car. The house is big and new, but the corresponding primary school is not very good.
Therefore, if you can rent a small school district apartment near the school, it will not affect the living standard, and it is not too far to drive to and from the school, so you don't need to make a move to buy a school district apartment.
When we walked around the rental market, we found that all the apartments in the school district were hard to get a ticket. Many apartments even had to pay a deposit in advance and had to queue up. Even if they waited for a year, they would not be able to get a round.
So to enroll in the target primary school, we are faced with only one choice: to buy a school district house!
**********
As in China, most people will hire intermediaries to buy houses in the United States. We also found an intermediary to take a look at the house. Facts have proved that it is very important to find a good buyer intermediary.
The housing market in the United States is very transparent: if a house is listed, everyone can check the specific information of the house on the website, including the house structure, photos, area, age, corresponding schools, and even all historical transaction prices and tax collection.
A set of online information about houses in non key school districts, from the specific information of houses to the seller's intermediary, historical prices, to school information, all transparent
If the buyer is interested in a house, the buyer's intermediary will contact the seller's intermediary to see the house. During the house inspection, the seller's intermediary will put a password lock on the front door of the house, and the buyer's intermediary will lead the buyer to open the house with the password provided by the other party. During the house inspection, the seller must leave the house and the seller's intermediary cannot be present.
After the house is listed on the market, public house viewing will be held regularly. Within the specified time (such as 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. on Sunday), anyone can enter the house to see the house. The seller's intermediary will publicly communicate with visitors in the house, which is called Open House.
Generally, the seller's intermediary will hang a password lock in front of the house, and the buyer's intermediary can view the house only with the password
We started to look at the houses half a year in advance. We thought that there was enough time for us to find and choose. But when we searched the market, there were only 6 school district houses in this primary school, and only 4 within our budget, all of which were just listed in the last two months.
So the intermediary helped us to have a full appointment to see the house. What was the result?
The first house is in a mess. You must spend money on the whole house and redecorate it before you can move in;
The second is an ultra old small house built more than 60 years ago, which is extremely expensive;
The former landlord and his wife of the third house died in the house a year ago, which belongs to the "ferocious house" that the Chinese people are unwilling to take over;
There is only one decent house left, but all the bedrooms are facing north, and the backyard is huge but low-lying. It is said that when it rains, it is easy to flood with water.
Faced with this situation, we have to choose to continue to wait.
American real estate agents will put a sign in front of the house to show that it is on sale and write the information of the agent
However, in the next three months, not only these four houses were bought, but also the other five new houses were all bought when we hesitated!
At this time, we began to realize that the school district housing in the United States could not wait. As long as there were no intolerable big problems, the housing would be quickly robbed. So after seeing a new house, we stopped worrying about this and that and made a direct bid.
Here, I would like to introduce the bidding process for buying houses in the United States:
First of all, the buyer must obtain the pre approval letter of financial background survey issued by the bank to prove that he is capable of lending or buying a house;
Then, the seller shall provide the detailed sales rules of the house, detailing the status of the house, including the age, area, structure, decoration and equipment of the house, to ensure that the information is accurate and detailed;
Finally, if the buyer is satisfied with the house, he will issue an offer, and the seller will generally give a reply within 24 hours, whether to refuse, accept or counteroffer.
Based on our previous experience in non school district housing, we expected the seller to make a counter-offer, so our offer was $10000 lower than the seller's asking price. The next day, the seller didn't leave any room for bargaining and refused our offer directly.
When we were ready to raise the amount and re offer, the seller informed us that we had accepted other buyers, and finally the house was sold within a week without any counter-offer for a penny
If we are unwilling to miss the first house, we will miss the second house again two weeks later, which makes us regret - it is a house that attracts us in all aspects.
I thought it would be safe, but because all the bids of the buyers were not open, we did not know that there were others who offered more than us. The owner finally chose a buyer whose price was 1000 dollars higher than ours, which was really a vain attempt!
It was only at that moment that I fully understood that buying school district housing in the United States, especially the school district housing that I admired, not only needs to be fast, but also depends on bidding. At the same time, we also need to find the right intermediary to know the information in advance through the industry relations, so as to know ourselves and the other!
**************
So, when we entered the fifth month of house viewing, we decisively replaced the Asian intermediary we had previously hired (at that time, the intermediary agreement was signed four months later), and chose the largest local intermediary company, a white sister who seemed very flexible and claimed to be familiar with the industry as the buyer's intermediary.
It turned out to be a very wise decision.
As soon as the white sister took office, she took us to see two houses in the latest market. When we clearly didn't like them, she recommended another house to take us to see it. At that time, the house had only been on the market for a week and had received offers from six different buyers in those days, so people were no longer allowed to see the house in the market.
But the seller's intermediary and our white sister knew each other in the industry and were friends, so after her phone call, the seller's intermediary made an exception to let us see the house, but it was clear that the owner would make a choice among all the offers received from buyers on that day.
This means that even if we want to buy, there is only half a day from house viewing to official bidding.
As a result, we fell in love with this house at first sight. In view of the previous lessons, we decided to bid immediately that afternoon.
But how to bid? Is it lower, original or higher? If the price is higher than the original price, how much can the bidding beat other buyers? This makes us difficult.
In order not to miss the house, we planned to increase the price by 2000 dollars. But the white sister used her "inside information" to suggest that we only need to increase the price by 1000 dollars, but gave more deposits (generally 500 to 1000 deposits are given locally, and we paid 2000 deposits), so that we can stand out among buyers and show sincerity.
We spent the 24 hours after the bid, anxious to wait, for fear of being screened out again. The next night, the white sister called to say that our offer had been accepted by the seller, so we really settled down. That was the happiest and most satisfied time in the long search for a house in the past half year.
The white sister also appeared in the photos taken on the day of house inspection
The next step is to follow the process with the help of the white sister: signing a formal house purchase contract, applying for a loan, doing house valuation, and doing house testing. The first two steps are similar to China, and the last two may be unique to the United States.
Generally, the intermediary helps to find professionals to reassess the house price. After obtaining the appraisal report, if the price and the purchase amount are not significantly different, both parties will continue to go to the next step; If the appraisal is much lower than the purchase amount, the buyer can communicate with the seller to reduce the price, or choose to end the transaction and get back the deposit. Our valuation is only about 1600 dollars different. In addition, we bought the school district housing at a high price. Of course, I don't mind.
Then it is to find a professional inspector to test the structure and equipment of the house and issue a report. If the house has many big problems, the buyer can negotiate the price or reach a solution with the seller. Although our test report listed some problems, they were not very serious, so we didn't care about them.
List of house inspection, including all aspects of the house, external internal structure, house facilities, drainage, etc
But! When our family came in, we found that there were many big problems in the house, but these house inspectors didn't find out, which led to a lot of trouble later
For example, seven or eight windows cannot be closed and cannot be repaired, and need to be replaced; There are cracks on the wall and ground behind the house, and the basement leaks when it rains heavily; The bathtub and toilet in the bathroom are too old. After six months of living, the water leaked to the kitchen ceiling on the first floor; The lawn is bald everywhere, and the sprinkler system has problems... I can say a lot.
The reason why there are so many holes is not that we were too eager to get this school district house done at that time. We didn't pay close attention to it and didn't carefully select a reliable and honest house inspector.
When the bank loan is in place, we will go to handle the house delivery and get the key. So far, the whole house purchase process has ended.
**********
Compared with our experience of purchasing non school district houses a few years ago, this purchase of school district houses is much different from our wives:
1. Non school district housing has experienced a total of 6 months About, but the school district only spent 1 month ；
2. When bidding for non school district housing, we are the day The only buyer ； And the school district room has 6 different buyers Mutual bidding;
3. The transaction price of non school district housing is higher than the seller's asking price 15 thousand dollars lower , school district housing $1000 higher ；
4. The non school district housing is bigger, newer and more fashionable, but it is even more than the school district housing $200000 cheaper 。 I will show you a comparison chart (the top is the non school district room, and the bottom is the school district room)
Now, we have been living in this school district for several months. Although it is smaller and older than the previous home, children can walk three minutes to the best primary school in the local area. It is also much more convenient to go shopping and buy vegetables from home.
Even though the purchase price was not cheap at that time, and it was also very hasty, we thought it was very worthwhile on the whole, and the market valuation of the house increased by 1% in the past six months.
After school, the child can walk two minutes from the path diagonally opposite to his home
Now I occasionally pay attention to the local school district housing market, and find that even under the epidemic situation, the nearby school district housing is still the fragrant steamed bun on the market. Even if an occasional set comes out, it will be quickly bought within a week or two.
It seems that the American people's pursuit of school district housing will not weaken at any time. It's time to overturn our inherent impression of "Western style happiness education"—— The anxiety on the other side of the ocean has been overwhelming, and there is no place to place it.
[More exciting content welcome to search and follow: Has the parent meeting been held? The parent-child education number of NetEase's anti anxiety, anti routine and anti chicken soup]
