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Key Takeaways
- Buying a home in a highly rated school district could cost you a heavy premium, according to a new Realtor.com report.
- In Dallas’s most popular school district, a home will cost you nearly five times more on average than elsewhere in the metro.
- Meanwhile, San Jose’s highest-rated school district isn’t its most popular—because it comes with a Silicon Valley price tag.
Your child’s future science classroom may not be a prominent part of a homebuying tour, but it could be what you end up paying the biggest premium for.
That’s according to a Realtor.com report released Thursday, which identified the most sought-after school districts among potential homebuyers from May to July. Twenty-seven of the 50 districts are considered highly rated (scoring an 8 out of 10 or better on GreatSchools), and the price to move to one of them can be staggering. Median listing prices in those 27 districts average $1.21 million—or 135% higher than a house elsewhere in the metro.
The single biggest education cost premium belongs to the Carroll Independent School District in Dallas, where, at an average price of over $1.7 million, houses are nearly five times more expensive than in surrounding districts, according to the report. Other contenders include Laguna Beach Unified in Los Angeles, Reed Union Elementary in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Ladue School District in St. Louis.
How Parents Weigh School Ratings Against Rising Housing Prices
The most popular school district in a metro area isn’t always the one with the highest rated school, Realtor.com found.
Take San Jose’s Palo Alto Unified, a widely renowned, well-resourced district located near Stanford University and offices of Big Tech players like Apple and Tesla—but not the most sought-after in the area. What holds it back is its cost: the average home lists for $4.1 million. San Jose’s most popular district is Morgan Hill, which has a median listing price of $1.47 million and still has strong enough schools in its own right.
There are some districts where the most popular district is actually cheaper than the surrounding area: Johnston County School District in Raleigh, Trenton Public Schools in Detroit, Humble Independent School District in Houston, and Palm Beach County School District in Miami.
What do they have in common? Relative distance from the metro center. According to Realtor.com, “While these districts offer strong schools and desirable lifestyles, their suburban or rural locations result in more affordable supply and less pricing pressure compared with more established or urban districts within their metros.”
