Ken Bui

Depending on where the school is located. In highly impacted areas , requirements and deadlines tend to be very strict and change often so as others have mentioned, it is best to walk into the school directly and get their requirements. Right now,most of the schools are closed for the summer break, but find out when they open and get the requirements directly from them to be sure. Meanwhile prepare all the verification documentation necessary including utility bills, ids, immunization records, credit card bills, bank statements, etc all showing your new address to make sure the Verification of Residence (VOR) is not a problem. - Thu Jul 17 2008, 00:13

Dave,

Assessing land prices is tricky. There's lots of questions to ask and lots of considerations that go into land pricing:

1. Is it buildable ? Zoning ? Type of home ? Max home size you can build
2. A lot of the land in the Mt. Hamilton areas are in areas that require lots of geological surveys and the requirements to build are costly. Are you going to rebuild or keep the mobile home ?
3. For pricing, comps should also include surrounding properties that have sold and are selling in the area as well as the vacant land. Both are important in assessing value.
4. Cost to build, permitting, etc are also important considerations in pricing. There is a lot of land out there that are not part of the city , county restrictions differ from city restrictions.
5. Another datapoint you might look at is what are other ~ 10 acre lots with homes selling for ? The land is a certain percentage of the total cost and the improvements make up the rest. You can find out the typical percentages from other comps in the area.

After analyzing all of this information, you'll be able to better determine whether the 9.5 acres for $429k is good or not. - Sun Jun 1 2008, 19:33

Hi Evelyn,

Here are some suggestions:

1. After reviewing your tax situation, if it is determined that you can sell both, before looking for the 3rd home, you may want to make sure both homes are sold first in this market because it can be tricky the do all 3 transactions at the same time (it can be done, but having 2 homes on the market makes the outcomes less predictable)

2. All the numbers can be crunched with different scenarios such as optimistic, most likely , and pessimistic to give you a better idea of the range of outcomes you can expect if your homes sold for a certain price. Running through all the scenarios would give you a better idea of the next best steps. - Sun Jun 1 2008, 11:18

Realogy has setup an online source at http://www.openhouse.com/Home/Home.aspx
Not sure if you will be able to see all of the open homes there, but it does try to aggregate all the open homes in one place. - Sun Jun 1 2008, 10:48

I forgot to add this on my first post, but here is what I think would happen based on my usage:

1. Only the person who asks the question can select a "Best Answer"
2. You need 2 answers before the best answer buttons appear. The first answer is not enough to determine if it was the best answer. I'm sure Trulia will chime in to confirm. - Fri Jul 20 2007, 21:09

After you've asked a question and someone answers, you will automatically notice a new button that allows you to vote for "Best Answer". You don't have to do anything else. - Fri Jul 20 2007, 19:13