We’ve decided to move.  So now what?

As soon my husband and I opened our minds to the possibility of moving, I was flooded with Overwhelm.  No, that’s not a perfume or a superhero or a celebrity’s baby’s name (although it’s not a bad idea).  It’s that feeling that comes over you when you have no.  Idea.  What you.  Are doing.

Our main goal is to relocate to a neighborhood in which our children would be guaranteed enrollment in a “good school.”  Deciding what constitutes a “good school” is different for everyone, but for us it’s a vague concept at this point.  Besides getting our house ready to be listed on the market, finding the right school for our children is a whole separate project.  Do we opt for a better school within the Los Angeles Unified School District or try to move further west to the Las Virgenes Unified?  With the magnet, charter, and other special program options, the task is daunting.  Nevertheless, it must be faced.  Education is the number one most important opportunity we want to give our children, but we don’t want to go into significant debt to do it.  In fact, moving to a better neighborhood, at this point in the life of the market, seems like a wise choice all around.  We have the chance to get our kids into better schools, as well as owning a house that has a better prospect of increasing in value.

So where, then?  How do you choose the right school, the right neighborhood?  Do we pick a crappy little affordable house in the best of neighborhoods?  Can we even afford that? Of course, we have to stay within manageable driving distances of our jobs, which are 20 miles apart.

When I first spoke with Myrna the realtor, she made a list of homes for sale in several different neighborhoods, taking the extra step of pointing out which school district applPooried to each.  The numbers went from affordable to pipe dream, and the locations were many and varied.  I felt the Overwhelm growing stronger inside me.  I realized it’s not going to be just about tidying up, selling, and packing up our home, or moving, unpacking, and making a new house into home.  Finding the perfect new home is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.  A really, really, really big haystack.

[photo:  sxc.hu]