A Few Tools for Prospective Orange County Homebuyers: School Locators and Performance Rankings

As if the uncertainty associated with the Orange County residential housing market weren't worrying enough on it's own with all of it's cookie-cutter home designs, HOA fees, high home prices, ridiculous FHA financing exceptions, as well as a tidal wave of shadow inventory and foreclosures ready to drench the streets, any prospective home buyers here that already have children or are planning to have children had better take time to consider the important question of schools.

When shopping for a home in OC, so much energy and stress is wrapped around the size of home and the ridiculously high prices one encounters here. This is natural because unlike the glory days of Orange County's Christmas past, today you sort of like have to be able to...wait for it....really afford the house you're going to live in.

During the home procurement process, school districts and school performance may end up being an oversight for some. But since buying a home is the single largest financial outlay of anyone's life, failing to consider schools could be a costly mistake not just for buying today, but also when trying to sell the same home later on.

Besides everyone by now should know that the California budget crisis is a very, very serious problem. The lack of past spending and budget accountability controls in Sacremento and throughout the state will not be resolved promptly nor thoroughly. Incredibly extend and pretend politics have this crisis already dragging on longer than necessary. The budget crisis is having devastating consequences for local schools and communities in Orange County school districts, such as Capistrano Unified, including Saddleback Valley Unified School District. Even after past school closings, program cuts, elimination of transportation, teacher layoffs, larger class sizes and new pay cuts, risks remain high that Orange County will see more of the same in coming months and years, including future school closings, redrafting school district boundaries, changing student transfer rules and more teacher layoffs.

Still, it is important to bear in mind those things outside of one's control and focus on those items that lie within one's control.

If we buy that house, which school(s) will our children attend?

How good is that school?

It's impossible to predict how this massive clusterfuck of a state budget will end up, for the Saddleback Valley Unified School District (as well as others in Orange county) there are some nice website tools already available that prospective home buyers can use to help them make a slightly more informed decision.

Tool #1 Saddleback Valley Unified School Locator
This tool allows you to simply type in the street name of the home you are interested in buying. The website then outputs the three main schools that are "resident schools" that your children would likely attend for elementary, intermediate (middle) and high schools. You can then look up the API ratings and Great School ratings for these schools.

Tool #2 California Public School Ratings
This website shows the API or Academic Performance Index for each elementary, middle and high school in the state. The API index is a scale from 200 to 1000, which 1000 being the best.
Good elementary, middle and high schools usually reside in the 800+ category

Tool #3 Great Schools California
This is more a subjective school rating site where parents and students can contribute their reviews and ratings of every school in the state. The site still shows scores for schools in Orange County that have closed, such as O'Neill in Saddleback Valley Unified (Lake Forest).

Unfortunately, specific, sorted information regarding the performance and/or ratings of special education programs (SDC) for children at Orange County schools is not unavailable today. For answers to such questions one must turn to the specific special education director and program specialists for the school district.

Why Don't Renters Receive A Tax Deduction In Kind?

Following the wildly successfully Open House Weekend in Southern California and Orange County, I was taking inventory of all the cash being thrown around by our federal government ($8000 federal tax credit) and the now de facto bankrupt state of California ($10,000 tax credit over 3 years) and I asked myself a silly question:

Why are any American taxpayers supporting or subsidizing this approach?

I think the answer is that as human beings, beliefs inform our actions. If you believe that the national and/or state economy will only turnaround by re-invigorating and re-inflating a collapsed asset bubble like real estate instead of subsidizing local jobs and new industries, then you will no doubt support such real estate tax subsidies. If you only get paid when a home is sold (due to the lure of such tax subsidies), then you'll also no doubt lobby support for such subsidies to continue.

My question is why can't renters receive similar tax benefits and subsidies?

Is it because Realtors don't get paid a commission when a renter extends his lease contract?

I can't think of any reasons why renters should receive fewer benefits on the national and state tax front. Or conversely, I can't think of why renters should suffer more under the current federal and California state tax codes.

Renters also have tight household budgets. They have work obligations. They pay federal and state incomes taxes. Many also have families, as well as short- and long-term financial goals that they strive to meet. Renters also volunteer and serve local communities. It might also surprise people to know that renters also happen to vote. The President of the United States, members of the US Congress, the Governor of California and the entire state legislature in Sacramento would be wise to remember this last point.

The suggestion I keep hearing is that renters don't pay property taxes, and therefore are equivalent in some way to a second-class citizen on par with extortionists and tax evaders. It is argued that renters sidestep responsibilities to the greater good and the community at large. By not paying property taxes directly, renters don't help to fund local schools and keep cities and towns "nice" and "safe". Because they do pay property taxes directly, homeowners (most of them actually homedebtors) meanwhile are to be commended and rewarded by both state and federal government (and thus by taxpayers everywhere) in the form of tax breaks and loopholes.

Is this fair taxation?

I consider it unfair and I would continue to believe so even as a homeowner (homedebtor) myself someday.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I prefer to pay my own way. I don't like freeloaders. And I dislike the idea of anyone portraying me as such just because I didn't buy a $700K single family home when I first moved here five years ago.

The property tax argument is also ridiculous. Any landlord who is a landowner (or landdebtor) who pays property taxes himself, but fails to apply or distribute such costs to his tenants via the monthly rent charge might be a nice person, but he'd also be considered a financial imbecile, or both. Renters do pay property taxes. It's embedded in the rent they pay.

So I just don't get it. As a renter, I'm already accustomed to paying my fair share of income taxes both state and federal. But why are home debtors afforded greater protections under the United States federal and state tax codes?

Can someone explain to me why this is? How is this arrangement fair and equitable, and more importantly, what convinces people that these $8000 and $10,000 tax break arrangements are money well spent, benefiting the greater good to such an extent that no other options or subsidies be considered?

Seriously, I'd really like to know an answer or two.

And then OC schools started to deteriorate

Call me crazy, but our illustrious Governator, Herr Arnold Schwarzeneggar, will be hard pressed to improve California's already abyssmal state elementary education ranking from 46th in the nation by laying off more teachers around the state. But that's exactly what must take place. And Orange County California is not immune as Fermin Leal, Eric Carpenter and Scott Martindale of the Orange County Register report today. The California State Budget is broken. Now elected officials wish to break state education to put the budget back in the black.

As many as 1,590 teachers in Orange County might get the axe.

Classroom sizes will now increase, student-to-teacher ratios will be higher than ever before, and "non-essential" programs like art and physical education may even be cut. Some schools are even trying to axed the school nurse.

What does the Orange County Superintendent of Education, Mr. William Habermehl, have to say about these new budgeting measures?:

"These could be the most devastating cuts our schools have ever seen," "I don't know how some of our school districts will be able to survive this and provide the same quality of education."

Districts in facing the most layoffs and cuts:

Santa Ana Unified

Anaheim City

Cypress

Saddleback Valley Unified

Saddleback Valley Unified?

Why that's Lake Forest, California's main school district!

What effect will these developments have on the housing market in Lake Forest, CA? Look, I don't know how many times I've heard from or read homesellers and realtors pumping up the value of OC schools. And they've been right to do so. Most OC school districts are just superior to the rest in the state. But given the budget cuts and layoffs planned in 2008, California's and OC's education ranking is facing almost certain decline. The only question is whether California might still manage to finish ahead of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi?

So declining quality of OC school districts might undermine the sales pitch of area realtors or homesellers when trying to justify the already ludicrous $550,000 plus single family home prices.

"The weather is 75 degrees and sunny almost every day, you're close to the mountains, the ocean and there's so much to do. Plus, the area schools are outstand.........Oh! Wait a minute. Back up. Scratch that bit about the local schools......"

The other interesting factor to watch in the coming years may be a decline in property tax revenues retrieved by the county. High foreclosures, combined with home prices not priced to market fundamentals, plus declining home sales, may equal fewer payers of property tax, which may equal Orange County Treasury trying hard not to look like Vallejo, California.

The facade is starting to crumble away, Orange County.

Now as far as OC jobs, let's hope few people are either in the mortgage industry or in the education market......