IMO for DSM you want Hubbell/Hanawalt>Merrill>Roosevelt
Second best path would be
Greenwood/Perkins>Callanan>Roosevelt
Housing market
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IMO for DSM you want Hubbell/Hanawalt>Merrill>Roosevelt
Second best path would be
Greenwood/Perkins>Callanan>Roosevelt
I appreciate all the advice on the DMPS school system. Roosevelt is definitely on our list of acceptable school districts. It's just hard to find a house in that area in our price range.
We've seen a few in our range that we liked but then saw they were in the Hoover district. I have not found any positive words about Hoover. We also found a few in the North district, which has some mixed reviews out there.
I have been warned that open enrolling is incredibly difficult in the DMPS system, so I'm keeping that in mind.
Sigh. The housing market is even more difficult when you have to think about school districts.
We've seen a few in our range that we liked but then saw they were in the Hoover district. I have not found any positive words about Hoover. We also found a few in the North district, which has some mixed reviews out there.
I have been warned that open enrolling is incredibly difficult in the DMPS system, so I'm keeping that in mind.
Sigh. The housing market is even more difficult when you have to think about school districts.
This just isn't true. A better gauge of these schools is the community income level. Looking at the list below, I would venture to guess most of these schools have a majority of their students on free and reduced lunches. Kids getting "lost in the numbers" are more likely to get left behind because of excessive absences, behavior issues, or the fact they tend to move schools often.
I teach at one of the state's largest high schools. We have systems in place for students who fall behind. We have alert systems which notify us when students fall below a certain grade in individual classes. We have resources to find students who are skipping or who can't make it in because they're watching their siblings while parents are at work. Smaller schools do not have these resources and those students are the ones who are more likely to get "left behind" as in, stuck in small town Iowa, undereducated, and limiting income potential.
There are only 19 Iowa schools scoring as "exceptional" and they're ALL elementary or middle schools.
Most "urban" schools fall under "Commendable" or "Acceptable". Des Moines Public has all of their schools at or below Needs Improvement, but again, I would point to income level as opposed to class size.
High Schools in "Needs Improvement" are (BOLDED "large schools"):
Cardinal High School
Thomas Jefferson High School (CR Jeff)
Columbus Community High School
Thomas Jefferson High School (CB Jeff)
Davenport Central High School
Davenport North High School
Davenport West High School
Des Moines Roosevelt High School
Eddyville-Blakesburg- Fremont Jr/Sr High
Fort Dodge High School
Fort Madison High School
Glidden-Ralston Jr-Sr High School
Keokuk High School
Manson Northwest Webster Junior High/High School
Mason City High School
Moravia High School
Murray High School
Muscatine High School
North Iowa High School
Orient-Macksburg Senior High School
Ruthven-Ayrshire High School
Sioux City West High School
South Tama County High School
Tri-County JR/SR High School
Waterloo East High School
Schools in "Piority" are (BOLDED "large schools"):
Burlington Community High School
Clinton High School
Mid City High
Des Moines East
Des Moines North
Des Moines Lincoln
Des Moines Hoover
Moulton-Udell High School
If you look at the full list and not just high schools, rural schools are far more likely to be at the bottom of the list than urban schools. I will repeat myself again, this has more to do with income level than it does class size.
Money is important, without a doubt, but looking at the list your provided, it looks like pretty much every large urban school not located in a wealthy suburb has a high school towards the bottom along with a bunch of small schools like Mouton, Murray,, Tri-county and OM.
Exactly. You're proving my point again.
There are plenty of large high schools not in the Des Moines area.
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20% down, invest the remaining 30%. fixed rate. Easy.
Anybody who tells you they know what is going to happen is a liar.
I personally don’t think the fed will continue to raise rates since it could potentially send us into an economic recession.
If they don’t raise them, they have tied hands with out of control inflation. They will pop them 1-1.5% more in my opinion. How fast is the question.
The GF and I decided to buy in West Des Moines. Offer was accepted last Friday. It was for about 15k over asking as we had been outbid a few times already, and really liked this house. We had been looking at the market for about a month and almost anything desirable sold in less than a week if not a day.
We are lucky because we each had a house to sell to get a really nice down payment. Still went for a reasonable house well under what we could afford. Locked in interest rate at 4.8
We are lucky because we each had a house to sell to get a really nice down payment. Still went for a reasonable house well under what we could afford. Locked in interest rate at 4.8
Depends on the type of ARM.
If you can get a better rate on a 5/1 or 7/1 ARM and refine after the fixed rate portion if rates jump that could be beneficial. Mortgage lenders want a good balance in their portfolio and if they don't have enough of a certain length of ARM they may improve rates to try to bring in more customers for a short period.
Just don't be like all the people in the mid 2000s who were surprised they suddenly had an interest rate 4% higher.
Not sure I'd do a 3/1 or 5/1 right now. I just don't see this being a short term correction. Maybe with a 7/1 or 10/1 you can feel more confident that by the time the adjustment period comes around that things will settle and you can get a decent refi.
There’s a small percentage of people that ARMS make sense for. Most people should play it safe with the fixed rate option.
We plan to move in <10 years, so we went with a 10/1 ARM. The rate was lower than fixed rate. We also did a 120 day rate lock back in February and, now that rates have gone up, we're glad we did that.
I had this same thought. We bought our first house in 2010 at a 4.875% rate. At that time, the realtor said "You gotta get in and buy now! Rates will never be this low again!" We bought our third house in 2020 at 2.625%.
That small percentage is bigger than you're treating it though. Currently 9% of applications by volume and 17% of applications by $s are for ARMs. It's not unsafe to get an ARM but it does carry more risk. That risk is rewarded with a lower initial interest rate and the potential for lower rates later on (e.g. if rates decline again from current 13 year high).
And if rates don’t go lower that right there is another bubble in the making if 17% of current apps are ARMs. I bet many of that 17% are 3 and 5 year ARMs, which are totally dumb unless you know for a fact you won’t be living in the house for that long. And if that is the case maybe a 3 year ARM person is just better off renting.
The Fed doesn't have a lot of choices - rates are going to have to go up to slow down inflation. They've been trying to spur the economy through artificially low interest rates for years. We also have too many dollars chasing too few goods, which is the result of our government flooding the market with excess liquidity. And when they raise rates (which they have to) it's going to choke off economic activity (recession) AND dramatically raise the borrowing costs for the government. So - we're going to see the worst of both worlds. Can anyone say "Stagflation?"
A good chunk of ARMs are due to the borrower not qualifying for the secondary market, too.